[ed. note: This is the first in an occasional series of features on how folks became politicized and active. Got a story to tell? Tell it! Tell us what life experiences have strengthened and shaped your activist proclivity, and why. Send your submission to editorial@eatthestate.org!]

In 1999 I was in my twenties and earning $7.50 per hour at a market-research data-entry and call center. I saw an ad on the back of The Stranger: "Help create a life! Egg donors needed! $1800 compensation!" It may as well have actually been written with that many exclamation points because that is how the ad rang out in my head. Ever the risk-taking youth, I called for more info. It was a clinic at the UW, and since my dad had been a university professor for several decades, I trusted the UW Fertility and Endocrine Center completely.

There were only two of us women at the initial info session that very rainy night in November. We were told the risk of complications for donors was about two percent. I asked responsible questions and was told the UW would take care of all expenses that might arise from an irregular outcome as a result of the hormones I was to inject into myself to stimulate the release of multiple eggs from my ovaries. Normally an ovary releases one egg per month. To be a donor required high doses of supplementary hormones.

In March the clinic called me and said a couple eager to have a child had selected my application based on genetic characteristics that would be a good fit for their family. I was excited and began my visits to the clinic for weekly exams and blood draws, and was sent home with syringes and ampoules of hormone medications. I followed the instructions and two months later was nearly ready for "harvest."

The night before the big operation (oh--I mean "procedure") I received a final shot of some weird hormone combination to make the eggs ready to be gathered. The next morning I swallowed a valium as directed and showed up at an office next to the clinic with my boyfriend. I was led back, changed into a gown and then wheeled into a small operating room. The docs played the CD I brought and an IV was inserted to begin the Fentynel anesthetic.

My boyfriend held my hand as we both watched the doctors' progress on the TV monitor. It was all so fascinating and wonderful to me, this harvest of eggs to later create an embryo. Then the pain kicked in. The nurses continually upped the dosage of Fentynl until they said they could not give me any more. The doctors continued to grab "their" eggs even when my boyfriend and I begged them to stop because I was screaming from the pain. Finally, it was over. But my nightmare had just begun.

A few days after the procedure it was evident that I had fallen into that very unlucky two percent. I was admitted through the emergency room at UW with "Severe Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome" and given a bed in the Intensive Care Unit. I'd built up a huge amount of viscous amber-colored fluid in my extraordinarily swollen abdomen, had trouble breathing to the point where I could not walk, and had constant pain and nausea. After three days in the hospital, the director of the FEC, Dr. Michael Soules, caught me alone in my room one evening after I had sent my boyfriend home for rest. "You know you're lucky" he told me. "Some women die from this."

At that moment I lost all trust in authority. Why would a respected physician put young lives at risk to make babies? It seems to me a clear violation of the Hippocratic Oath.

I was released from the hospital in the same condition I had entered. I was told to go home, stay in bed, and hope for the best. My weeping mother wheeled my into the clinic a few days later, as one of the female docs walked quickly past. No one would look at me and the clinic staff were edgy and almost hostile. Only a few weeks earlier I had been a perfectly healthy 26-year-old. Now I was bedridden, hopelessly depressed, mad as hell, and still unable to walk more than a few steps without needing to sit down and rest.

Against the advice of my family, I hired a lawyer. He carefully examined the clinic's records and discovered that several days before the "Surgical Egg Removal," my doctors could see I was at high risk for complications, but proceeded with the final steps anyway. They could have chosen to call the whole thing off and save me all that pain, but each of those eggs had a dollar sign on it in their eyes. I realized that to them in my ill condition now, I was merely a financial liability. They had risked my life to further their careers and make money for the clinic. I wanted to shoot these people dead.

Instead, an activist was born. I no longer trust an institution that is driven by profit and prestige. I learned that silence will never serve me. I am inspired by whistle-blowers, conscientious objectors, indy media truth-tellers, and many others in the radical activist community. I deeply know that these people are neither crazy nor over-the-top in their insistence of speaking truth to power--they are the every-day heroes that protect and inspire the human spirit. We are Davids fighting a Goliath that is the machine of commerce, and we shall prevail. All it takes is a little faith, and a lot of focused rage and determination.

I signed a gag order and received a settlement, but I choose to tell my story now. And I hope that you, too, will not allow your body to be used for the profit and prestige of any large institution, even one as seemingly innocuous as a University. Always be cautious, and never take what they tell you at face value. Because somewhere there is a PR consultant with a law degree ready to protect the big guy from the little guy. Guess what? Sometimes the big guy falls like a tall tree, and we win.