Transformations in Egg Donation: One Woman’s Voice, 1980s-Today

Most medical revolutions start in a lab.

This one started with a woman who refused to take “no” for an answer.

In the early 1980s, Diana Thomas, now Founder of The World Egg and Sperm Bank (TWESB) found herself in the one-in-six women worldwide facing infertility. Back then, “treatment” meant painful daily injections, surgeries for maybe-endometriosis, and hormone meds made from tanker trucks of menopausal nuns’ urine (not joking). Clinics offered little anesthesia, lots of guesswork, and success rates that barely cracked double digits.

And after years of failed IVF attempts, Diana was given the ultimate non-answer: “unexplained infertility.” Translation? We don’t know why, but good luck.

Turning Grief into Grit

By 1994, donor eggs were barely an option. The fine print: anonymous donors, a 12% chance of pregnancy, and almost no transparency. That wasn’t enough for Diana, and why should it be?

So she did what no one else would: she placed her own ad in a newspaper, wrote her own donor contracts, and pioneered one of the first open-identity arrangements in the U.S. Long before “patient advocacy” was a buzzword, she was already living it.

In 1995, her first son was born, one of the very first 100 babies in the U.S. conceived through donor eggs. Her fight for her family had quietly rewritten the playbook.

From “Experimental” to Essential

By 1996, Diana founded one of the first donor agencies in the U.S. By 2003, she co-created the first commercial egg bank in North America, proving that frozen donor eggs weren’t “too experimental”, they were the future.

This was a bold career leap for someone whose professional roots were in architectural restoration. Diana once revived comfortable spaces for people; now, she was helping build the families who filled them. In many ways, she never left design behind, she brought it under a new roof, drafting an entirely new blueprint for egg donation.

It’s a blueprint rooted in transparency. And that matters. Just ask actress Kerry Washington, who revealed on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast that she only learned at 41 she was conceived through anonymous sperm donation. Her parents’ silence wasn’t cruelty, it was the norm in the 70s and 80s, when donor conception was shrouded in secrecy. Kerry described the moment as finally finding the missing puzzle piece of her life: one that didn’t fit until the truth was spoken.

Out of her own journey, Diana recognized that secrecy wasn’t just a symptom of the times, it was an opportunity to change things. And choices can be changed. She set out to prove that building families didn’t have to come at the expense of donor transparency, that intended parents and donor-conceived people should always have the ability to access more about their health and rooted background.

The Fight That Still Matters

Today, egg banking is a global industry. Success rates are higher, science is sharper, and families have more options than ever. But Diana hasn’t stopped raising questions:

• Why are so many eggs imported from developing countries with little transparency? And, how do intended parents ensure they are asking the right questions?
• Why do some clinics still value profit over people?
• Why do patients have to wade through smoke-and-mirrors marketing to find the truth?

Her voice remains clear: families deserve honesty. Donors deserve dignity. And clinics deserve a partner who puts ethics first.

A Legacy in Motion

Diana Thomas’ story isn’t just about building a family. It’s about building an industry that remembers there are humans on both sides of every petri dish.

Her fight turned personal heartbreak into a global mission. And today, The World Egg and Sperm Bank carries forward that vision: open-identity donors, ethical practices, and a commitment to keep this space both human and hopeful.

Because transformation doesn’t just happen in the lab. Sometimes, it starts with one woman’s fight.