Choosing the Right Egg Donor for Your Family

Written by: Courtney Solstad | Posted: December 2, 2021

When it comes to choosing an Egg Donor, there are many decisions to be made. It can feel overwhelming. Ultimately, you will want to pick a donor who you feel comfortable with. Egg Donor Solutions has added an option for Egg Donors to upload a video to help you get a feel for their personality.

Most Intended Parents find it helpful to make a list of “must have” and “would be nice if.” Having this list helps when you start to look at profiles. Here are a few things to consider when you make your list.

Are you comfortable with paying for the donors travel expenses? (If you choose a donor in another state, you will need to pay for their travel. We give you this breakdown upfront when you inquire about a specific donor.) Donors can use a local (to them) clinic for monitoring, but then travel to your clinic for retrieval. This decision is likely a financial one. Keep in mind, we take care of their travel arrangements, and you will not have to plan or book any of this for them. Obviously using a Donor that lives in the same area would be cheaper due to no travel needed.

Do you want a proven egg donor OR are you comfortable with allowing your fertility clinic to do a comprehensive screening to be sure that the donor is a great candidate so a first time donor works well too? We take care of setting up all of this. All donors have to start somewhere, so just because they aren’t proven, doesn’t mean they aren’t good. If your doctor and agency are flexible, you might be able to save money with a first time donor.

If you are not locked in with an agency by having to pay their full agency fee upfront this can allow flexibility as well. If choosing a traveling donor, ask your doctor what screening can be done locally to the donor to prevent travel cost and be sure you choose an agency who asks the same questions. There are many screenings that will give your doctor a good indication of how your donor will do in a cycle (FSH, AMH, antral follicle count). Having this information can help intended parents choose the best donor regardless of their past donor (or lack thereof) experience. If we have this information on hand, we provide it.

Most intended parents are looking for a connection with their chosen egg donor. Sometimes this is based on physical characteristics, personality, interests, goals in life, or sometimes it has to do with the donors willingness to be a ”known/open donor”. Decide what factors are most important to you and put those on your list.

The choice of which egg donor is ultimately up to you as an intended parent. If you are looking for an agency who is flexible and will keep bringing you newly screened donors to review, consider contacting Egg Donor Solutions!

We help Intended Parents Create Happy Families via Egg Donation & Surrogacy  

with the help of caring Egg Donors & Surrogates. 

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Advice for intended parents

Written by: Hillary Redwine | Posted: November 18, 2021

As our team guides and supports intended parents (IPs) in finding the right egg donor for their family, we often focus on the importance of choosing someone with whom they feel a connection based on the donor’s profile. That connection can go both ways, particularly when IPs take the time to write a letter to their donor and/or send her a gift as a token of their appreciation. Many donors have shared with us how small gifts and letters help to personalize the experience and make them feel connected to the IPs whose families they are helping to create.

Marissa*, a six-time egg donor, says she felt good about all her donation cycles, but two stand out because of the thoughtfulness of the IPs. She received a gift bag with a Target gift card and some snacks for the plane trip home following the retrieval for one of her cycles and a letter from the IPs during another cycle.

“The gift basket wasn’t extravagant, but I appreciated it so much that the IPs thought to do that for me,” she says. “It was nice to get the letter because it allowed me to learn about the IP’s motivations, why they needed an egg donor, and how they planned to raise their child.”

Marissa offers the following advice to IPs: “I know the parents are going through a lot to have their child, but the donor is too. Being an egg donor requires a lot of time, dedication and mental focus, but it’s 100% worth it. When IPs take the time to write a letter, it really goes a long way in helping you feel comfortable and good about what you are doing as the donor.”

Marissa also has a message to share with the families she helped create through egg donation. To the parents, she says, “A lot of time and love was put into making this child, so give them that same love and time.” And to the children, she says, “There’s nothing your parents wouldn’t do for you because they went through a lot to have you – so never doubt that.”

When asked about the best part of her experience as an egg donor, Marissa says it’s the satisfaction of knowing that she helped a family become a family. “Being able to help a family that couldn’t have kids or wanted to expand their family (to complete their family) means a lot to me.”

Are you an IP searching for the right egg donor to help you create your happy family? Our team at Egg Donor & Surrogate Solutions would love to support you on your journey to parenthood! Please contact us at Match@CreateAHappyFamily.com. You can also read about how some of our former IPs chose their egg donors here and here on our Intended Parents Blog.

*Name changed to respect privacy.

We help Intended Parents Create Happy Families via Egg Donation & Surrogacy  with the help of caring 

Egg Donors & Surrogates. 

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Donor Eggs: Fresh or Frozen – Which is Best?

Written by: Hillary Redwine | Posted: October 14, 2021

Once you have decided to build your family through egg donation, the next major decision you will likely face is whether to do a fresh cycle with a donor through an agency or use frozen eggs purchased through a clinic or an egg bank. While egg banks will often market themselves as the more convenient, less costly option, there many other factors to consider, some of which have the potential to impact your future children and your family many years down the road.

At Egg Donor Solutions (EDS), we are committed to ethical standards and doing what’s best for all parties involved – intended parents (IPs), donors, and the donor-conceived individuals who are created through egg donation. Below are some things to consider when choosing between fresh versus frozen.

Someone to guide you through the process
Our EDS team is dedicated to educating IPs and donors, as well as guiding and supporting both parties through the egg donation process. For IPs, this involves everything from helping you find the right donor for your family to navigating the legal agreement with your donor to coordinating with your clinic to ensure everything runs smoothly.

Number of eggs
When you choose a donor through an agency like EDS, you will receive all the eggs that are retrieved – typically 10-25 eggs, depending on your clinic’s protocol. The eggs can be fertilized immediately to create embryos for a fresh transfer, and the remaining embryos can be frozen for future family building. A fresh cycle is often the best option for IPs who want more than one child.

When using an egg bank, you will purchase frozen eggs in a “lot” or “cohort,” which usually includes six to eight mature eggs. The eggs must be thawed before they can be fertilized, which may reduce the number of embryos that make it to the blastocyst stage. Many egg banks will guarantee that at least one embryo will make it to the blastocyst stage, so frozen eggs may be a good option for families who only want one child.              

Families with the same donor
At EDS, egg donors are allowed to complete a maximum of six cycles, the standard recommended by the ASRM, and the IPs receive all the eggs from a single cycle. This means that no more than six families will receive eggs from the same donor. With frozen banks, the eggs from a single cycle may be split between multiple IPs, increasing the number of families with the same donor, and thereby the number of potential donor siblings, exponentially.

Contact with your donor
When working with EDS, you have the ability to customize your desired relationship with your donor both now and in the future. This can include an in-person meeting or video conference with your donor (facilitated by a member of our team), options for ongoing or future contact, and the option for your future children to meet the donor one day if that is their choice.

“When you go to a frozen egg bank, you lose the ability to have direct communication with your donor and control over things that may be important to you,” says Lauren Gaydos Duffer, a Dallas-based attorney who has been partnering with EDS for nearly 10 years to draft legal agreements for IPs and egg donors. “The protection an agency gives you cannot be replaced.”

Legal protection
EDS requires a direct agreement between IPs and donors to protect the legal interests and rights of both parties. Our team will guide you through the legal process and ensure that both you and your donor have legal representation from an attorney who specializes in third-party reproduction. The agreement will establish your parental rights and terminate any rights or responsibilities the donor has to the children created through egg donation. It will also define the guidelines for future contact and communication, such the donor keeping her contact information current with the Donor Sibling Registry.

With a frozen egg bank, egg donors are almost always exclusively anonymous, so you will not have the option to have a customized legal agreement with your chosen donor. You will sign consent forms with the egg bank, but it does not carry the same weight as a legal agreement between you and your donor. 

Length of time
The timing for a fresh cycle is slightly longer than when using frozen eggs because medical screening and legal contracts must be completed before the donor begins the cycle. From match to retrieval, the average length of time for a fresh cycle is about three to four months. Donors at frozen egg banks have been prescreened, so the timing is shorter at about one to three months on average.

Investment
The typical cost for a fresh cycle at EDS is $17,000 to $27,000 with most families spending an average of $20,000 versus approximately $14,000 to $17,000 for a “cohort” of six to eight frozen eggs. These fees do not include costs associated with the fertility clinic for the donor’s medication and monitoring, egg retrieval and fertilization, and embryo transfer to the intended mother or a gestational surrogate.

Success rates
The success rates for embryo transfers and live births are higher with fresh eggs than frozen. With a fresh cycle, the average success rate for a positive pregnancy is 53% to 57% versus a national average of 35% to 50% with frozen eggs. The live birth rate using fresh eggs is 49.2% versus 43.1%.

Are you an intended parent trying to decide between a fresh versus frozen egg donation cycle to help you grow your family? You can learn more about our program at www.eggdonorsolutions.com or contact us at Match@CreateAHappyFamily.com. We would be happy to answer any questions you have and honored to support you in your journey to parenthood.

*SART 2017 pregnancy rates

**Pregnancy rates per transfer nation-wide are typically between 35%-45%

We help Intended Parents Create Happy Families via Egg Donation & Surrogacy  

with the help of caring Egg Donors & Surrogates. 

The Process, Why our agency?, How we are different, Resources, Selecting your donor, Getting started,