Chances of getting pregnant with donor eggs

What Is Egg Donation?

Egg donation involves an egg cell, also known as an oocyte, being extracted from a donor and utilized to create an embryo during the process of IVF. Before the egg extraction process, the donor takes medication to stimulate their ovaries to produce multiple eggs. An embryo is then created in a lab using the donor eggs and either sperm from a male partner or donor sperm. The resulting embryo can then be implanted into your uterus or into the uterus of a gestational carrier. In the case of a gestational carrier, the embryo is not genetically related to the gestational carrier.

There are a variety of reasons why people might choose to use donated eggs.

Why Use an Egg Donor?

People who have low ovarian reserve or who have experienced early menopause might choose to use an egg donor. Some of the reasons for low numbers of oocytes, according to Gloria A. Richard-Davis, M.D., a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist, infertility specialist and advisor to Alloy, a tele-health company serving women over 40, are:

• Early menopause due to cancer treatment
• Early onset of menopause due to genetics
• Naturally low ovarian reserve from unknown causes
• Being born without ovaries
• Poor egg quality
• To avoid passing on known genetic disorders or diseases

It’s also common for LGBTQ+ couples to use an egg donor to become parents, especially if they are not physically able to carry a baby (like a same-sex male couple), says Angeline Beltsos, M.D., a clinical and reproductive endocrinologist and CEO of Clinical at the fertility clinic Kindbody. “In a same sex female couple, patients may opt for reciprocal IVF, where they can achieve pregnancy by one giving the eggs and the other carrying the baby,” adds Dr. Beltsos.

Using donor eggs might also be a choice of the parent, rather than a biological necessity—if there are known genetic diseases in a particular family lineage, donor eggs might help the child avoid those, explains Dr. Beltsos. Using eggs from a donor who is younger than the egg recipient might help in that case, according to Dr. Beltsos. “A younger egg has less risk of making genetic errors when the sperm fertilizes it,” she says.

When using donor eggs, prospective parents may use a male partner or relative’s sperm to fertilize the egg or choose an egg donor the same way they’d choose a sperm donor, says Dr. Richard-Davis. The donor could also be a friend or female relative of the birth parent who’s unrelated to the sperm donor.

Finding and Choosing An Egg Donor

It’s now more simple than it was in the past to connect with an egg donor. Egg banks, which function just like sperm banks (where people are able to look through a database of sperm donors), have opened in the U.S. within the last 10 years, explains Dr. Richard-Davis.

Originally, egg donation (complete with screening donors and recipients), egg harvesting and an embryo transfer would typically only be done with fresh eggs, says Dr. Richard-Davis. “Now, with egg banks, recipients can look through the database of frozen eggs, similar to sperm banking,” she adds. Also, according to Dr. Richard-Davis, using frozen donor eggs is less costly and risky than using eggs from a fresh cycle, as the number of fresh eggs available to be extracted can be unpredictable.

What to Expect With Egg Donation

Before egg donors are able to go through with the process, they are subject to a physical exam, lab testing to ensure they have no STIs or other infections present and an examination of their medical history. There’s also an examination of the egg recipient to ensure they’re healthy enough to carry a pregnancy and have no infectious diseases either, says Dr. Richard-Davis.

After the recipient selects an egg donor, the next step is to prepare the uterus for implantation. Whether an embryo is being transferred into your uterus or that of a gestational carrier, the process involves a combination of estrogen and progesterone medications in order to thicken and prepare the uterine lining for implantation. The donor egg is thawed (if previously frozen) and fertilized in a lab and then transferred into your uterus or that of a gestational carrier. If the endometrium, or uterine lining, is receptive and the eggs are good quality, the entire IVF process has a good chance of succeeding, says Dr. Richard-Davis.

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How Much Do Donor Eggs Cost?

The cost of donor eggs ranges from about $15,000 to $20,000 per cycle, says Dr. Beltsos. You have the option of using fresh eggs that are retrieved and used immediately, or eggs that are extracted and then immediately frozen to use later, and both are similarly successful in terms of a resulting pregnancy, she adds. Again, fresh donor eggs cost more than frozen eggs because you have to coordinate using the fresh eggs immediately.

It’s a possibility that you could have some financial assistance from your insurance company to cover the egg donation and IVF process, depending on your coverage. “Some insurances cover this, and employer fertility and family-building benefits providers for employers like Kindbody cover the cost of using egg donors,” says Dr. Beltsos. The entire process—from egg retrieval to embryo creation, embryo transfer and hopefully an eventual embryo implantation— could cost up to $20,000 total, according to Dr. Beltsos.

Legal Rights of Egg Donors and Recipients

It seems like there’d be a bit of legal gray area with egg donors, who would technically be the biological “parent,” but that’s not the case, explains Dr. Beltsos. “The person giving the eggs has no rights or responsibility to the children born from these donations,” she states. Part of the screening process for egg donors is legal counsel on relinquishing their parental rights, and the egg donation recipient or recipients also sign a legal agreement acknowledging their parental rights.

What’s more challenging is anonymity, as most donors do not choose to meet the resulting child of their egg donation, according to Dr. Beltsos. However, genetic testing through services like 23andMe make genetic information accessible to a wider range of people, making total anonymity for donors more difficult.

“There are many endeavors to not say ‘anonymous’ anymore, since direct to consumer DNA testing is available, making it easier for children conceived through donors to find each other,” adds Dr. Beltsos. It’s also more possible through genetic testing to find a donor sibling registry and learn more about your origins, she says, which could complicate things for an egg donor who prefers to stay anonymous.