Singer turns to donor eggs after losing gall bladder due to IVF

Singer Olivia King has been sharing her fertility struggles with her large social media following, including the fact that she and her husband have created and lost 28 embryos.

They have now decided to move forward with donor eggs, writing, "Whoever our future babies are, they will be so so loved and so wanted no matter how we end up starting our family."

Key Takeaways:

• Singer Olivia King has shared her fertility struggles with her followers, explaining that she is now going to use donor eggs.

• Despite the decision to use donor eggs, doctors have not said that it is her eggs that are the problem, highlighting that IVF does not exist to solve infertility.

• IVF and the use of donor eggs and sperm carry significant physical risks and emotional risks to everyone involved.

• Children are not commodities that adults have a right to have. They are human beings who have a right to their biological parents.

The Details:

In a June Instagram post, King updated her followers on her quest to have a baby, which has involved attempts with both intrauterine insemination (IUI) and in vitro fertilization (IVF).

Ultimately, she and her husband underwent six IVF cycles; she also had surgery for endometriosis, and she lost her gallbladder due to all of the hormones injected through the process.

Doctors were able to retrieve a total of 72 eggs, and created 28 embryos. None of their embryos survived; each stopped growing before a transfer could be attempted. Now, they are going to use her husband's sperm and eggs they "purchased" from an unknown woman to create more embryos. But it might not even be an issue with her eggs that is the problem, which highlights what a Band-aid 'treatment' IVF truly is.

"I'm praying the donor eggs cure our problems but we are not 100% sure the issue is with my eggs so we will see," King wrote.

This is a red flag — doctors should be attempting to locate the cause of the infertility before attempting IVF. If the fertility problem is not with King's eggs, then swapping in the eggs of another woman is likely just going to cause further heartbreak and more loss of life.

Zoom Out:

IVF does not get to the root of the problem, often leaving many couples in debt, without children, and with countless lost embryos treated as if they are disposable products.

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King and her husband originally created 28 embryos. Were they planning to welcome 28 children? As 30-somethings, probably not. So if they got the number of babies they wanted, what would have become of the remaining 20-plus embryos? They could create and lose even more using the donor eggs.

King and other women like her deserve to know about restorative reproductive medicine (RRM), a specialized field that focuses on identifying and healing the underlying conditions that cause infertility and restoring the reproductive system.

As explained by the International Institute of Restorative Reproductive Medicine:

Unlike conventional approaches that use treatments that suppress normal physiology to deal with dysfunction, RRM seeks to work with the body, treating reproductive abnormalities, not by bypassing the body’s processes but by diagnosing, understanding, and addressing underlying health concerns. This approach improves overall wellness and restores reproductive abilities such as fertility.

The Big Picture:

IVF carries serious risks for women, including ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, pelvic infections, hypertension, internal bleeding, preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, and higher rates of c-sections. There are risks to the children too.

King lost her gallbladder to IVF. The internet is full of women sharing stories of gallbladder issues connected to IVF. While pregnancy alone can cause some women to have issues with their gallbladder, the high estrogen levels and swift hormone fluctuations associated with IVF can slow gallbladder movement, altering the chemical makeup of the bile, increasing cholesterol in the bile, and diminishing the gallbladder's ability to empty.

This can cause gallstones to form and lead to a cholecystectomy, the removal of the gallbladder. Afterwards, IVF cycles will be paused until the body can recover.

Why It Matters:

King is honest that deciding to use donor eggs is emotional for her:

I’d be lying if I said this post didn’t break my heart a little. Writing this caption with tears streaming down my face but I know whatever God has planned for us is something greater than we could ever imagine. Whoever our future babies are, they will be so so loved and so wanted no matter how we end up starting our family.

Over the past year, I’ve started to grieve the idea of having a biological baby. We’ve taken the steps to get here mentally and actually purchased donor eggs before this last IVF cycle even started. It was a little bit of a risk but maybe I knew in my gut we’d need them.

The next step is waiting on insurance and then we can try to fertilize these eggs and I will take you through that journey with me as well. To me, I’ve come around to not caring as much about the physical body and genetics our kids have. I feel like no matter that physical body, the little souls that are meant for us, will hop into a healthy body when they’re ready.

First, "little souls" are not waiting around to "hop into a healthy body."

Every time an embryo is created, a new human being is formed, and more human beings die during the process of IVF than from abortion. The embryos created using her husband's sperm and a "donor's" eggs will be a completely new person who is biologically half of her husband's DNA and half of the donor's DNA. That's just the fact of the matter.

This is why her heart is breaking. She has lost 28 children and now feels that her best option is having her husband create babies with a stranger's gametes, convincing herself it's the same thing.

And the idea of the babies hopping into a "healthy body" is troubling. What if a baby doesn't have "a healthy body?" What then? So many desperately wanted children quickly become unwanted and lose their lives once a doctor tells their parents they aren't "healthy."

The Other Side:

Saying that these babies will be so wanted and so loved doesn't help the children cope with the identity crisis they will inevitably have when they learn that they are donor-conceived. Adults created through donor gametes have warned us over and over again: donor conception is emotionally damaging to the children created — no matter how much the adults raising them "wanted" them. These children lose one of their biological parents, not by accident or death, but by design.

Yet no one seems to think about how the children will feel. They are just supposed to be grateful that they exist.

A study out of Harvard Medical School revealed that 62% of children conceived through donor technologies believe it to be unethical and immoral. They feel like business transactions. 

One man conceived using donor sperm explained, "I am eternally grateful for my life... However, being 28 years old now and having reflected extensively on growing up as a donor-conceived child of a single mother, I would not advise any other women or couples to conceive a child in this way."

Gemma, who is donor-conceived, explained that when she learned of her conception, "I physically felt different, I felt like I didn't know who I was, and I began to question every tiny thing that I did, wondering if it was down to my genetics."

Another woman said that learning she was donor-conceived made her feel "gross."

Some donor-conceived individuals have learned that they have hundreds of siblings. One couple had already been married with three children when the husband learned they came from the same sperm donor. He didn’t know how to tell his wife. “I can’t help but think ‘This is my sister’ every time I look at her now,” he told advice columnist Dear Prudence.

Then, there's the issue with your spouse having a child with someone else — stranger or not. One woman explained that after infertility, she and her husband chose sperm donation, and she became pregnant. But now her husband "barely interacts" with the little boy. After discussing her concerns with her husband, she said they had a big argument:

He ended up shouting that he hates DS (dear son) and that going with a donor was a mistake. Then he stormed out and slept on the sofa. This morning he just got up and went straight to work without a word.

I feel sick. We agreed on this together. I know it’s complicated and I know he’s struggling, but DS didn’t ask for any of this. He’s just a little boy who wants his dad.

I’m heartbroken and angry and don’t even know what to do. I feel like I’ve got to protect DS from his own dad.

This behavior is likely the result of emotional turmoil. According to Men’s Health, using a sperm donor can feel “emasculating and confidence-sapping” for men and can cause feelings of “grief” and “loss.” One man said that learning his body does not create sperm made him feel “worthless.”

And it doesn't just happen to the intended fathers.

One man, who found out he was conceived using a donor egg, explained, "Years and years later I still wonder and ponder, ‘who is my REAL Mother’… My current Mother [never] even really cared to grow a bond with me… It makes sense why now."

The Bottom Line:

The desire to have a child is natural and understandable, but children are human beings; they aren't something that adults are owed or have a right to have.

Just because adults desperately want to be parents doesn't mean they have the right to play with children's lives — create them, test them, abort them until they finally have one that fulfills their wishes but leaves the child forced to live up to some idealized version of who they are supposed to be.

Reproductive technology has caused massive problems worldwide, and the children are the ones suffering.