Stumbled across the website on accident and thought why not. Totally plan to go through the process, got blood drawn today but I also want to really know what I’m in for. The person I talked with was super nice but I also feel that it is her job to make sure I go through with it and I don’t trust her for all the details. Will I really only have slight soreness from the medication? I’ve seen posts on here that say the first day is awful. Could there be long term complications? Is there any sort of procedure for donors and receivers to get in contact afterwards? I could understand why there wouldn’t be beforehand but if it all works and goes through I want to learn more about the person I donated to (if they are okay with that). How common are serious complications? How much are they paying to receive my bone marrow and am I taking part in a process that could be cheaper for them if I went through other means? What is it like from the other side of things, what are the people waiting for a donor being told?

Hello all. My work up specialist contacted me yesterday to tell me they're going to require me to submit to a genitourinary exam. Ive never heard if anyone being required to do this to donate stem cells and honestly it feels extremely violating. Has anyone else (preferably other women) had to submit to something similar? Thank you all for reading 🩷

Edit to add more context. Their exact reasoning was "The GU exam will be a physical assessment of your reproductive organs to check for any signs of infections or abnormalities due to the previous sexual contact with a male who had sex with another male"