Guest Post by Sonja O’Hara
“Submit for the Role of a Lifetime. Become an Egg Donor!” I remember how those words stood out next to listings for non-union commercials and Off-Off-Broadway plays. I had been flipping through Backstage Magazine looking for my next gig and I paused momentarily on the picture of a gaggle of beautiful, glowing sorority sisters. “Do something meaningful. Help a woman in need. $10,000 dollars.” They were marketing a dangerous procedure to fledgling actresses. Young women who are more often than not desperate and financially impaired. It was despicable. And I couldn’t get it out of my head.
I had just moved back to New York from Los Angeles, where the roles that I was getting as an actress in my early 20s were disheartening, to say the least. Slutty cheerleaders. Horror movie starlets. Sensationalized rape victims. No real backstory, no character arcs. Glorified set dressing. I had started studying screenwriting and hoped to write and produce movies featuring the kind of roles that not only passed the Bechdel Test, but would really challenge me as an artist and human being.
When I responded to the tacky “eggs wanted” ad it was partly because I was broke, but also insatiably curious. I sent in a headshot and described myself as a “leggy redhead with high-cheekbones.” And the powers-that-be ate it up. A few days later, I was summoned to come to the fertility clinic, a sterile, palatial building in an elite neighborhood in Upper Manhattan. I was called by my “donor number” and introduced to the Ovum Coordinator: a pristine, almost android-pretty lady who explained that I, as a young, fertile woman, had the power to make someone’s dreams come true. My screenplay seemed to write itself.
After two months of intense testing, I was notified that I had been matched with a prospective couple. I began obsessively Googling everything about real donors. Who were these girls? Why did they do it? Was it personally fulfilling? The more I read, the more I was blown away by these brave young women. They weren’t millennials funding extravagant lifestyles — many were using the compensation to pay for hefty college educations, and not everyone was even financially motivated. In England and Australia, for example, payment in exchange for donation is strictly prohibited. And yet women were still undergoing this risky procedure. I was deeply struck by their incredible altruism.
But what ultimately made me decide to go through with my egg donation was when I discovered that in vitro fertilization can actually be more affordable than adoption in New York State. All this time I had had this stubborn idea that “buying eggs” was somehow only a cosmetic thing. This entirely shifted my perspective. I could really help a woman in need and use the compensation to make a piece of art that would put a spotlight on a taboo subject. It seemed like a win-win.
Ultimately, I used the generous fee I earned through my “donation” to help fund “Ovum,” a dark comedy about an actress who will do anything for a part, and who must give up a part of herself when her method acting exercise goes too far and she ends up selling her eggs. I played the lead role, and the feature is based on my own bizarre experience selling my eggs in upscale fertility clinics in New York City.
Writing and producing the project has probably been both the most exciting and challenging thing I have ever done. At the clinic I began to feel the same sense of objectification that I felt in casting calls. The parallels between “auditioning” as an actress and as a donor were unsettling. I also had to inject myself daily with powerful fertility drugs that limited my physical mobility and made me experience intense emotional mood swings.
“Ovum” screened at numerous film festivals and even won a handful of awards along the way. This entire experience led me to discover filmmaking, which has turned out to be the most artistically fulfilling thing that I have ever done. My eyes have also been opened to the plight of so many anonymous egg donors who have been treated more like science projects than patients.
“Ovum” is now available on VOD, DVD, and iTunes.
Sonja O’Hara is a Brooklyn-based writer, director, and actor who originally hails from a fishing village in Nova Scotia, Canada. Her debut film, “Ovum,” won Best Picture at the Big Apple Film Festival (chosen by a jury from IndieWire, HBO, and Film Buff) and was named Best Dark Comedy at The Manhattan Film Festival. O’Hara was given the Indie Soul Special Recognition for Acting award at the Boston International Film Festival. She stars in “Doomsday,” an upcoming dramatic series.
