You may be days into injections already, wondering what you missed.
Reassurance and skimmed forms let donors down, and this check relies on neither.
Here is a five-part test for any ad, including the one that found you.
1. The dollar figure is loud and the risk is silent
Recruitment ads lead with "$10,000" or "$50,000."
Research found only 35.9% of those ads mention any donation risk at all.
Only 16% pair a risk with the benefit language.
A fair ad puts the price next to the prize.
Here the price is hormone injections, a surgical retrieval, and complications like OHSS.
Find the risk sentence in the ad. If you need a magnifying glass, count that as a sign.
Among surveyed donors, 55.2% did not feel well informed about long-term complications.
They got the number and had to find the rest on their own.
Next, look at the words the ad uses to describe the work.
2. It calls a medical procedure a side hustle
Look at the phrases. "Side hustle." "A few weeks of work." "Buy a car."
One social-media ad promised $20,000 and framed the process as quick and painless.
Marketing has always dressed up its product, so that part is ordinary.
The test is whether the same words could appear on a consent form.
Nobody writes "side hustle" above a description of surgery.
Donation can do real good for families who badly want a child.
A fair ad can say so and still show the cost.
One donor described her stomach as "the size of a basketball" from OHSS.
That sentence is missing from every "easy money" ad.
So ask who the ad was built to reach.
3. It found you when money was tight
Campus flyers promise a dollar figure per retrieval. Ads say "pay off tuition."
One donor recruited by a flyer used the money for "her second senior year."
Financial need makes it psychologically harder to scrutinize an ad or a contract.
You might assume an ad on campus must be safe, or it wouldn't be allowed.
A flyer on a wall tells you nothing about safety.
The old ASRM figures of $5,000 and $10,000 still circulate as if they were a rule.
That guidance was removed in 2014 and 2015.
One donor learned this years later. The dollar cap she thought protected her was gone.
Peers in donor circles warn that unusually high first-cycle offers are a red flag.
One creator posted that she made $44,000, and advocates pushed back because the risk framing was missing.
Every influencer saying it went fine is one voice about one cycle.
Outcomes swing from donor to donor, and from cycle to cycle.
One donor had an easy first cycle and later faced severe OHSS.
That leads to the reassurance donors get, and what it leaves out.
4. The reassurance has no numbers, or no symptoms
Many donors hear that a complication is "less than 1%" likely.
A researcher surveyed 617 donors. Ten percent reported severe OHSS, and 1.62% reported critical OHSS.
A vague number is easy to say and hard to check.
Then there's the phrase "no evidence of long-term complications."
Donors read it as "proven safe." It means nobody has studied it.
Even an honest number leaves out what matters to you right now.
It never says what the complication feels like.
One donor described fluid buildup that left her unable to "breathe past her sternum."
Another spent four days in the ICU after a 53-egg retrieval.
Swelling that keeps growing is not you being dramatic. Ask for an exam that day.
If the clinic stalls, get seen by an ER or a doctor of your own.
One donor was dismissed by her clinic, and a separate local medical team later confirmed what she felt.
Several donors also heard about cancer and hospitalizations from other donors, only after multiple cycles.
Then there's the part no ad mentions at all, which is how you get out.
5. The ad never mentions the exit
The last sign is what an ad leaves out about paying you and letting you go.
One donor was promised $10,000 within 90 days.
She says she went five months without payment after an invasive cycle.
Another was told two weeks. Reality ran closer to eight.
Withdrawal terms follow the same pattern.
Who pays if you stop mid-cycle, and who covers complications, often surfaces only under stress.
So here is the thought that may be stopping you. If you stop now, they'll say you broke the contract, and you'll owe for the medication.
I can't tell you what your contract says. Nobody can without reading it.
I can tell you this fear grows in the gap the ad left open.
Some donors who tried to back out report being shamed, contacted repeatedly, or threatened with legal consequences.
Pressure is not the same as a term written on the page.
Agencies, doctors, and lawyers are often paid by the intended parents. Donors say that shapes how they answer.
Asking what stopping costs is not breaking a contract.
It's a question you're entitled to have answered in writing.
Start with the withdrawal clause. Then the payment clause. Then the line about who pays for complications.
Have someone not paid by the clinic or the intended parents read those lines with you.
Donors who asked for more have gotten it.
One repeat donor negotiated a higher rate after realizing she could have asked sooner.
Your ask can be smaller today. Get the plain answer first.
Tonight, take the contract out and read that first clause.