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Ms. Griffin knew the short-term risks of egg donation when she underwent the procedure: The hormone treatments could cause hot flashes, vaginal dryness, fatigue, sleep problems, body aches, mood swings, breast tenderness, headaches or vision problems, according to the New York State Department of Health, which addresses at length questions about being an egg donor on its website.

Raquel Cool, co-founder of We Are Egg Donors, a space for past and current egg donors to connect, recently started the site Is Egg Donation For Me to help potential egg donors through the procedure. She said she wanted to provide resources to egg donors that she did not get when she donated her eggs in 2011 at the age of 26.

She was paid $7,000 for her eggs, but she developed ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, a consequence of the hormone treatments, which causes fluid retention and the swelling of the ovaries. Mrs. Cool said she had nine pounds of fluid which was extremely painful. According to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome is “relatively common.”

The invasive procedure to extract the eggs is called transvaginal ovarian aspiration and there are risks, such as bleeding and although rare, damage or puncture of the bowel, bladder and nearby blood vessels from the needle attached to the ultrasound probe that is inserted into a woman’s vagina. There are no good statistics on how long it takes a woman to recover from the egg donation procedure but in most cases, donors are scheduled for a post-op checkup a week after the process. Ms. Griffin said a few weeks after her eggs were harvested a cyst burst on one of her ovaries, sending her to an emergency room. Her gynecologist told her the cyst most likely formed during the time she was taking the hormone treatments.

What was less certain were the potential long-term consequences of egg donation. By putting egg maturation into overdrive, was she putting her long-term fertility at risk? But few studies have been done on the long-term impact donating eggs has on a woman’s fertility and overall health.