We're excited to share that our amazing Intended Parent Case Manager, Jazmine, was recently interviewed on the Donor Egg Mama Podcast, where she shared her inspiring journey and unique perspectives as both an egg donor and a case manager. 

Special thanks to Adele from Donor Egg Mama for the wonderful interview and giving us the opportunity to share a behind-the-scenes look at Donor Nexus! 

If you prefer text, we have the full podcast episode transcribed for you below.

Listen to the Full Podcast Episode Wherever You Get Your Podcasts:

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Behind the Scenes at Donor Nexus: Jazmine's Journey from Egg Donor to IP Case Manager

Podcast Introduction: Hello and welcome to the Donor Egg Mama Podcast, the soul led intended parents considering a donor egg pathway and parents of donor egg conceived children. I'm your host, Adele O'Connor, a qualified fertility coach and proud donor egg mama. I'm just a normal mum that went on an extraordinary journey to conceive. I hope this podcast helps you in some way to break free from emotional overwhelm, face your fears, and find the courage to move forward, and bring that baby that's on your heart into your reality. Let's talk openly about our emotions and all topics Donor egg IVF.

Thanks for listening. Hello, and welcome back to this week's episode. My mission is to support women and men on a donor egg journey. And this podcast has explored many inspirational stories of fellow donor egg mamas worldwide, who've been through a challenging donor egg journey. And now I'm starting to explore the perspective and insights from people who work in the fertility industry and dedicate their careers to helping couples and singles create or complete their families.

So today, I have a wonderful guest who I'm connecting with across the time zones from Queensland, Australia to California. Welcome, Jazmine Corona. Thank you for having me. You're so welcome. So I'll just give a little intro to Jazmine.

Adele: Jazmine's a case manager at Donor Nexus, a boutique egg donation and embryo donation agency in California. And in her role as an intended parent case manager, she helps couples and individuals navigate the process of selecting an egg donor for a fresh or frozen donor egg cycle and with the unique perspective of having been a donor herself. So Jazmine is passionate about egg donation and is happy to share insights from both sides of the journey. So this is so wonderful. Jazmine and I have got a lot of questions, so I'm going to dive straight in.

I'm curious about your personal journey as an egg donor and how it led you to working as an intended parent case manager at donor nexus. Can you give us a little bit of detail about your journey starting off as an egg donor and why you did that? 

Jazmine: Yeah. Of course. So I actually came from a background of client relations, and I really wanted to transition to a role that was, like, really rewarding.

So I started at Donor Nexus in 2022 as an egg donor case manager. When I just saw the positive impact that it had on others' lives, I decided to be an egg donor myself. And then when I became really knowledgeable of the egg donor case manager role, I wanted a new challenge and became an intended parent case manager. 

Adele: That's so fantastic. And what was your experience as an egg donor like? How did that go for you?

Jazmine: It was really good. I've had 2 donations, and I'm actually just matched for my third one. So I'm, like, going through, like, the medical screening process, and I got to Zoom with these intended parents. So I'm just really excited to do it all over again. 

Adele: Oh, that's wonderful. So you actually get to connect with, is it all of your intended parents? The donors get to connect if they want to, or is it just some? 

Jazmine: It depends. Most of the time, it's a nondirected donation where you don't know any information from either party. But in this sense, since I do work for the agency, we did say that it, should be a directed donation. But I was also really, comfortable with that. And this third donation also wanted a connection with me, so we'll we'll actually be exchanging emails after the donation just in case they have any questions for me or if the future child has any questions. So it it's up to the intended parents if they want them.

Adele: That's so beautiful. And how did you feel about being a donor? What were your sort of motivations to do that?

Jazmine: I would say when I first started working here and I would see, like, the pictures of the babies that we would receive, I think that was, like, so wholesome and, like, my whole team would get really excited for it. When I thought, I'm not doing anything with my current eggs, so, let me see if if I just put my profile on there. And I was really excited when somebody initially matched to me. And my first donation was completely nondirected, so I had no information from them. But just knowing that they were able to have a child after is just more than rewarding for me. 

Adele: That's so beautiful. So, yeah, just to know that you've really helped somebody. Yeah. That that that's amazing. And and was the process, physically demanding for you being an egg donor? Was it was it was it painful? Was it hard? 

Jazmine: I would say my first donation was probably the smoothest one. Some of the medications do sting a little bit, but nothing crazy. And my recovery process was really easy. I went to work the next day.

Granted, I work for Donor Nexus, and I just sat down. So it was a low level impact of, physical exertion. For my second cycle, I did experience a little bit more symptoms, because considered a high producer of eggs. So sometimes I get more symptoms than others, but it was nothing too bad.

Adele: Oh, from my heart to yours, you're amazing, being a a donor egg mama myself. I'm just so grateful to people that do this and so amazing. You've been working with egg donors and assisting them through the process and now looking after intended parents. So could you tell me what does a typical day look like for you as a case manager for intended parents? What are your sort of responsibilities, your goals? How does it all work? 

Jazmine: I would say that my day mainly, consists of, like, just pure communication. And I would say that it's the consultation side, and then, for people who have already selected their donor. So for the consultation, that's more making sure that the intended parents are making an informed decision and choosing the best program for them. Let's say an intended parent wants it to be quicker or they only want one child, then we might recommend frozen eggs versus somebody who wants numerous children or have specific characteristics that they're looking for in a donor, then I might recommend a fresh egg donation cycle. And then for the process of when they're already in the donor journey, then I'm speaking between, the professionals, the fertility clinic, the intended parents, the egg donor, the psychiatrist, things of that sort. 

​​Adele: Yeah. So it's fascinating. You're getting to deal with, you know, many different people. What do you enjoy the most about your role?

Jazmine: I really enjoy communicating with the intended parents, so it's nice that I do it all day. And intended parents will want to me meet us in person, so we're more than happy to do that. Sometimes they prefer Zooms or phone calls where I’m right there on the phone ready to give them every update. We do have some intended parents who want to keep it very private, so they'll make a new email just so that it's there. But regardless, I'm gonna treat all the intended parents the same as how much information I'm giving all them, just so that they are aware of every step of the process. 

Adele: Tell me, Jazmine, what's your reach? Is it people in in the California area, or do people tend to come to you from out of state as well and internationally? I'm just curious about that. 

Jazmine: I would say most of the intended parents are from the United States. It's not just bound to California. But we do also work, quite often with international patients as well. So I would say all over the US, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Australia. Those are the main areas.

Adele: Okay. Amazing. And from your experience dealing with intended parents, what are the most common concerns and fears that people have when they're starting their donor egg journey? 

Jazmine: I would say that the biggest fear that they're gonna have is this is going to be a very emotional decision, and they're gonna be spending a lot of money. And the fear of what if I don't get any eggs? What if I don't get any embryos? What if I don't get pregnant? So we're just here basically to counsel them, and we’re going to tell them all the milestones just to ensure that they get a positive outcome. For example, with our frozen egg prorgram, we do guarantee a blastocyst embryo. And for our fresh cycles, the donor is going to go through an extensive medical screening process. So let's say their physician doesn't deem them like a optimal donor. They're able to select new donor. Or let's say while the donor's on medications, she's going to be monitored very closely. So then your doctor gets to decide, okay. Should we increase the medications, or should we just cancel the IVF cycle right now, just to make sure that we get the best result?

Adele: Yes. There's so much to consider. And what happens when it doesn't go to plan? Like, that must be hard. That must be really hard when you’re working with people in that case.

Jazmine: So for our frozen eggs, this one's a little bit more straightforward. If they, unfortunately, don't get a blastocyst. We will connect with their lab and get the report, the outcome, like, what happened, and then we're more than happy to send them a replacement cohort.

Whereas fresh eggs, again, the physician does get to see the results of the donor's medical screening. And then let's say it's not exactly the best results that they're looking for, let's say a low antral-follicle count, most of the time, the physician will go to the intended parents and say, oh, this is her follicle count. We mainly want to see somewhere around this number. Would you feel comfortable proceeding? Because ultimately, it is up to the intended parents, and sometimes they only want one child or sometimes they've been looking for many years for their perfect egg donor.

So they'll say, okay. We're willing to proceed knowing that the outcome may not be as great. Or sometimes they'll say if the donor's okay with it, we also are considering doing the 2nd cycle after just to increase their chances of good quality embryos. 

Adele: That's great. Sounds like you've got some good options in place. How do you help intended parents balance the emotional and practical aspects of choosing a donor? What's your advice? I know when I've been sort of working with people who can really get stuck at choosing a donor. So, yeah, how do you guide people through that? 

Jazmine: So I would say that the best thing that I can do is just help them make the informed decision of  what program they're looking for and take it from there. What I've seen on the emotional aspect is when intended parents zoom with the donor, they get this connection with each other. And then so let's say after that, the donor goes in for medical screening and  the physician might think she's not an optimal donor or she doesn't pass medical screening. That's where it gets to the emotional aspect.

But, again, it's up to the intended parent if they want to move forward. But I would say the more practical side or aspect would be considering the financials of it. We do try to have that very honest and delicate conversation in the beginning about what their budget is. So, for example, when you go into buy a house or a car or a wedding dress, you have to look within your range. Otherwise, you might be attached and then can't proceed.

So we do have a lot of open and honest, conversations in the very beginning about what are you looking for in a donor, what are your non-negotiables, what's your price range, and go from there. 

Adele: Yeah. Sure. And do people tend to match with the eye color, hair color, that kind of thing, or what do you give them any guidance on that? 

Jazmine: It depends. Most of the time intended parents do come up to us and already have their general criteria. So they'll say hair color, eye color, height. But that's more the vague criteria where we want to get to the bottom of what's more important to make sure. Because there could be a ton of brunette donors who are all 5’8”. So from there, we want to  get into a smaller donor pool.

Adele: Do you do you often see an intended parent and go, oh, I've got a leg donor in mind. Does that happen at all? 

Jazmine: I've done that sometimes. So, we do do emails and phone calls with intended parents, so I don't always get to see what they look like. But we do offer Zoom consultations, and I do encourage it to have one with an intended parent, then I also do get to see what they look like. And then after the zoom call, I'll say, you remind me a lot of this donor, check out her profile and let me know if you're interested in it. It's worked a couple of times. 

Adele: Oh, that's wonderful. And how has your experience as an egg donor influenced the way you support intended parents? 

Jazmine: I would say the way that I support intended parents hasn't changed too much since I've been able to donate myself. I would say that kind of helped me a little bit more when I was communicating with egg donors. But because I have been a a donor myself, I do feel like I I come with a unique perspective to the intended parents. 

For example, sometimes they'll ask me questions like, Do you think I should have contact with my donor or no contact, or if I do, how much? So that's where I'm able to say I've actually experienced all 3. For my first donation, it was completely nondirected. We didn't have any information. The second donation, I did Zoom with them before I donated, and then they sent me a picture of the baby after. And then for my 3rd one, I've already Zoomed with them, and then we are going to be exchanging email contact soon.

So I just tell them, either or. Like, it's ultimately up to the intended parents, but I'm sure the donor would be comfortable with whichever one they wanna proceed with, and it's just amazing to see them connect. 

Adele: Yeah. That's so good having that perspective of all the different situations that you can have and being able to share that and comfort people and give them that confidence that if you wanna connect, them, that's fine.

As long as obviously they're open to that, then it's awesome. It's really great. Do you get any questions about what happens if, obviously, we have a baby and telling their future child about the egg donation? Does that come up at all for you?

Jazmine: They only bring it up very rarely, but we do have a lot of resources on our website. So most of the time we'll provide them with support groups or we know other intended parents who created a book about how to talk to your child and a book about how they're they used an egg donor. So we definitely try to provide them as much as resources as possible since we know it's going to be an upcoming conversation that they might have. 

Adele: I think until you're of the journey, you don't realize how many questions and considerations there is to to think about. And can you share some success stories as well as challenges that you've encountered in your work with intended parents? 

Jazmine: So luckily, I would say most of our clients have all been success stories. The only recent thing that I've encountered was, it did turn into a a success story, but it involved an intended parent who, due to religious reasons, didn't want to discard of any leftover embryos, and they wanted to be able to donate them to other infertility patients. Whereas the egg donor that they have already been matched with weren't as comfortable with donating the leftover embryos, and the donor explained to me that it was because she wants to know exactly how many families are using her eggs. I had to recognize that this was something that was a non-negotiable for the intended parents.

So I just had to have a little bit more conversations with both parties and with the clinic and with the lawyers. And, overall, we just ended coming to this compromise where the donor agreed to donating the leftover embryos to one set of family if there were any leftover. And then the intended parent also agreed to only fertilize a certain number of eggs to help minimize that number of any leftover embryos. So just open communication with everybody really helped on that case. 

Adele: Yeah. And that's a a big thing that couples don't or singles or families don't expect to come up against is, oh my gosh. What do we do with all these, you know, amazing embryos that are leftover? That can be a really challenging aspect of the journey. But you, Donor Nexus offers embryo donation. Is that right?

Jazmine: Yes. We do. 

Adele: I think that's another fascinating subject that I'd like to talk about at some point. Another episode, the considerations about having leftover embryos and and what to do. That's a a really interesting topic of conversation. Thanks for bringing that up. 

And what's the sort of the those beautiful success story that you've had recently or that comes to mind? 

Jazmine: It's hard to pinpoint because all of them are truly successful, whether we find out what the outcome was or not, just letting intended parents know, your frozen eggs have arrived to your clinic. That's a success story to us because they're really excited. Like, now they get to start the embryo creation. Same for the fresh egg donor cycles. They'll fertilize the eggs, like immediately, and then let us know. Just wanted to let you know we had x amount of normal embryos. Please thank our donor. 

And then of course, the best success ones are when they send us baby photos. I think I'm just obsessed with baby photos that just warms my heart to see them. 

Adele: Absolutely. Do you find that a lot of your intended parents are looking more for proven donors, new donors?

Jazmine: It just depends. I feel like most of the time we have to take into consideration what the clinic and the physician advise. So sometimes they'll say we recommend only using a proven donor. We recommend them having a certain AMH hormone level, a certain antralfollicle count. But sometimes we just have our intended parents say, I just feel so strongly about this donor.

I know she's a first time donor, and I'll just have to take that risk and cycle her for the first time. And what I usually tell intended parents in that case is everybody was a first time donor at some point, and they still produce just as amazing as proven donors. So don't always cross them off too soon. 

Adele: Yeah. Absolutely. And that's really great advice. Everybody has to start somewhere. So, Jazmine, how do you feel being involved in the fertility industry? How does it make you feel about your own hopes and dreams for having a family in the future?

Jazmine: I think I'm definitely very open to it. I am single right now, so I'm not planning to have children at the moment. But in the future, even if I am still single and I am ready for that moment, I will do so with open arms. And I've already talked to my family about it saying when I told them that I was gonna become an egg donor and they had those conversations with me as well saying, okay, we support you with this, but just think in the future of who else you'll have to tell and the first one being, like, your children. And I think that it's beautiful to donate your eggs and be able to help, other people. I think if I explain it to them to the future children that they'll understand it. So I'm definitely open to still having children in the future. 

Adele: That's absolutely beautiful. And, yeah, it's a good point. It's such a selfless act. It's such a beautiful thing to do and to be able to share with your own children in the future to let them know that's what you did. And, yeah, there are half siblings out in the world because you weren't ready to have your own family, but you really wanted to help others, which is a, you know, a beautiful thing to do. So thank you so much for sharing all of that incredible information and, yeah, advice to our listeners out there considering using donor eggs or in the thick of it, I think it's really always helpful to hear different perspectives, from people on the donor egg journey. So thank you so much, Jazmine.

Jazmine: Thank you for having me. I do wanna just say that I know speaking with the intended parents all the time, that this could be a very emotional journey. So it is really nice to know that they are able to have resources such as your podcast and your other platforms to be able to help them through their journey.

Adele: Thank you. Thanks so much, Jazmine. 

Podcast Closing: Well, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. And if you did, it would mean the world to me if you could just give me a 5 star review and let me know your thoughts. And, of course, if you know anyone that would benefit from listening, please share it with them.

Until next time, remember, you don't have to navigate the dark nights of this journey alone. There's a community of women waiting here to cheerlead you on and support you as we all work together to bring the baby that's on our hearts and in our dreams, earth side and into our arms. See you next week.