BECOMING A PARENT

Finding an Egg Donor

CONCEIVING THROUGH EGG DONATION

Choosing Egg Donation

Egg donation is an exciting option for women and men who otherwise would not be able to conceive.

Because the eggs used in egg donation are obtained from young, healthy donors, pregnancy rates are extremely high, exceeding those of all other fertility therapies.

As a rule, the age of the egg donor is the most important factor that determines whether a healthy pregnancy is established..

As long as the recipient’s uterus is capable of carrying a pregnancy (which is typically not age-dependent), she can almost always have children using this revolutionary therapy.

UNIQUE & EXCEPTIONAL WOMEN

Our Egg Donors

At our Egg Donor Agency in San Francisco, one out of approximately every thirty donor applicants is selected. Some are chosen and matched due to outstanding academic accomplishments ( based on level of educational, SAT scores, or GPA), while others may be prioritized based on their willingness to meet the people they are donating to and be know to them in the future.

Sometimes a unique heritage or specific ethnic background make make a donor highly attractive to some parents. Others just exhibit the right balance of everything.

Start Your Journey

IVF with egg donation involves careful synchronization of the donor and recipient or surrogate.

Four steps are necessary as part of the medical process:

Treatment of the donor with fertility medication to stimulate the growth and development of multiple follicles and eggs.
Removal of those eggs from the donor’s ovaries.
Placement of the eggs and sperm together in the laboratory to achieve fertilization, followed by embryo growth under optimal culture conditions.

Transfer of the embryos into the recipient or carrier’s uterus to establish a pregnancy.

To achieve these goals, the recipient must take medications in synchrony with the egg donor, so that the recipient’s uterine lining is at the optimal stage of development when the eggs are ready for fertilization and embryos are optimal for transfer.

Even before the donor has begun her fertility medications, the carrier has been placed on other medications which are designed to “rest” her ovaries and optimize her uterine lining for implantation. After the donor begins her stimulation medications, the donor will then undergo monitoring with ultrasound and blood testing of her hormone levels to assess her response to these medications. Based on this monitoring, the clinic will adjust her dosages as needed, and also further synchronize the carrier’s cycle with the donor’s, to ensure that when the eggs are ideal for collection, the uterus is most suitable to receive them. Usually an egg donor produces up to 20-25 eggs, but this may vary.

Results from the recipient or carrier’s ultrasound and hormone tests will be communicated directly to her. Her uterine lining (delete cavity of the donor egg recipient) is hormonally prepared prior to the embryo transfer to allow implantation to occur. Birth control pills may be used to first regulate the recipient or carrier’s menstrual cycle so that it becomes physiologically synchronized with the donor’s cycle. Lupron® is also used frequently to further “suppress” her hormones that may prematurely stimulate the lining of her uterus. When the recipient’s hormones are appropriately suppressed, she then takes estrogen pills (Estrace®) to stimulate the uterine lining in preparation for embryo implantation. The estrogen pills are taken for at least two to four additional weeks before the transfer of the embryos, and she continues to take them following a positive pregnancy test.