Now, faced with her sister’s desperate plea, the weight of love and boundaries clash fiercely within her heart. The gift she once saw as a personal lifeline has become a source of painful dilemma, where the bonds of family intertwine with the fragile threads of autonomy and sacrifice.
When I was in my mid-twenties, I froze some eggs. We ended up freezing 10 eggs. I was lucky enough that my job covered part of the costs.
Fast forward: when my husband and I were ready to get pregnant, we ended up just getting pregnant naturally (I am currently 35, I had my baby a year ago). We do want two more children, so we will likely use a few of the eggs.
My sister (30) had one kid in her teens (my 12 year old niece) and has recently gotten married. She and her husband have been together for less than six months. Even though she was young, my sisters first pregnancy was a struggle.
She has been told that she probably will not be able to have another baby.
Now, she and her new husband are asking me if they can have one or two of my stored eggs. I instantly told her no, I would feel very weird about it.
I then softened my stance, and told her that if she paid me a substantial amount of money, I would let her have two eggs. I have been paying $70 a month for the past nine years to store them and paid a hefty fine for the process of removal.
I gave her a price of $5,000. I admit that this is mostly done to dissuade her from asking me.
She’s really torn up, and blaming me for not being able to “enjoy sharing a child with her husband”. I told her to find a donor egg, and she would be able to do that. She says she wants a baby that is related by blood (my baby??).
I also told her, frankly, that if she can’t afford 5K for the egg, she can’t afford another baby. Before she got married, she was constantly asking me for money.
She has now gone on to whine to any family member or friend in ear shot about how much of a horrible sister I am. My parents are begging me to help my sister start a family, and are saying that if her new husband leaves her because he wants kids, it will be my fault.
Other people are even coming out of the woodwork to shame me for not giving her the eggs.
I feel for my sister, I really do. But these are my eggs. Even if they are not used, they are mine. Am I an asshole for not giving them to her?
Conclusion
The original poster (OP) is facing intense emotional pressure from their sister and parents regarding the use of their frozen embryos, despite the OP having legitimate claims to ownership and significant past financial investment. The central conflict lies between the OP’s established right to bodily materials they personally preserved and the sister’s urgent desire for a genetically related child, amplified by the family’s supportive stance toward the sister’s request.
Is the OP justified in refusing to share their personal, stored reproductive material without significant compensation, even when faced with familial shaming and claims that they are responsible for their sister’s potential future marital instability, or does the ethical obligation to assist a close relative in starting a family outweigh personal autonomy in this specific scenario?
Here’s how people reacted:
It’s not wrong for you to be uncomfortable with having a biological child in the world raised by someone else, even if it’s your sister. And it’s not wrong to tell her that, or that you aren’t certain yet that you may not need them yourself.
You went beyond that, though, and made it about money. From your sister’s perspective, it may seem that you’re trying to turn a profit off of her desire for another child and inability to conceive naturally. That’s fine if you’re doing it as a job of sorts, as some women do, but I think it’s understood that within immediate families, some things aren’t to be done for profit. If your brother needed a kidney, you wouldn’t charge him for yours, right?
It was also inappropriate for you to decide about and comment on her financial situation. Many parents can’t “afford” a child according to the standards you put forward, and they do just fine raising them, even if things aren’t ideal. You might well have taken that into consideration when deciding if you wanted your biological child raised in your sister’s household, but it was inappropriate to discuss it with her.
I can see how you may feel you’ve softened your stance, but what you’ve actually done is gone from a reasonable refusal of an intimate favor on emotional grounds to letting your sister believe that you would be comfortable with her having the eggs, but only if you could make a lot of money off of it. I think that was a mistake, and it’s understandable that there is backlash from within your family. Going forward, I would think the best course of action would be to explain to your sister privately that you just aren’t ready to give up the eggs, and that you only mentioned the money in an attempt to dissuade her, not because money was actually a factor.
If she can’t conceive naturally, and doesn’t want to try other people’s eggs/surrogacy/adoption or fostering, then that’s on her. Not you. If she can’t have a family, that is in no way at all your fault and your family at AH’s for saying it.
Edit: Changed my verdict
On top of that, not all eggs will fertilize. Then not all of those will develop the way they need to. Then not all of those remaining will be genetically normal. Then not all of those will successfully implant and eventually result in a baby.
Generally you want 10-12 eggs to have a good chance at ending up with a baby. You don’t just unfreeze a single egg and assume you get a baby out of it. You unfreeze your *entire* frozen egg supply to get a reasonable *chance* at a baby. No reasonable fertility clinic will let up unfreeze just an egg or two because that would be super unlikely to actually result in a baby.
Edit:
> My sister (30) **had one kid** in her teens (my 12 year old niece) and has recently **gotten married**
> My parents are begging me to help my sister **start** a family
???!!!???
Someone PLEASE tell me, how many kids does one have to have before a household becomes a family? I guess as an only child with no sibling, I must have never had a family, I guess. I fail to understand the logic here. In what world does a married couple with a child NOT equal a family?
Your sister is an AH for asking and not taking no for an answer.
You are also an AH for putting a price on it and not just making it a matter of principle and sticking to that. Nobody has the right to any of your eggs and there are perfectly viable alternatives for her, such as adoption. By putting a price on it, however, you’re signalling that it’s not a matter of principle, but a matter of reimbursement. What are you going to do if your parents (or anyone else for that matter) cough up the $5,000?
It seems clear that you don’t want to sell your eggs, and rightly so, so don’t put a price on them.
anyway, NTA. they’re your eggs. if she wants to have another baby she needs to look into other options. no means no, and you said no. she wants a blood related child? fine. she can have her own eggs harvested and get a surrogate or something. can’t afford it? oh well, maybe enjoy the daughter you DO have where so many families have no children at all.
I have eggs frozen and would not give them to another person, not even my sister. You can’t take it back so if you’re even the tiniest bit uncertain, don’t do it.
Tell your sister you won’t do it for any price. The $5k makes your sister feel like it’s possible if you waive the cost. You just need to be firm and honest that you don’t want anyone but you to have them.
Why don’t you just tell her how you feel and say straight up No? What happens if she comes up with the money? Will you just deal with your feelings or backtrack on your offer?
Edit: Thanks everyone, including those of you kind enough to give me awards. I never expected my dumb joke (although based on what I actually thought at first) to get this kind of traction. BTW OP if your post is real you really aren’t TA.
If your answer is no, you should not have offered to SELL them to her. Putting a pricetag on the eggs is pretty messed up.
Your sister is an AH for thinking she is entitled to your eggs and for whining about you and getting other people to annoy you about this.
But still. You offering to sell them to her is just a really bad look.
What is her plan, here? Use your egg with a surrogate?
You can’t start off moralising saying it would make you uncomfortable and then put a price on it (which is insanely low btw, 5k?!). She should have instantly respected your boundaries. You should have taken it completely off the table if that’s how you actually felt.