Intro and where do you start?

zeynsom

Hi ladies,

I am coming from the IF board. I have DOR and my REs have started mentioning donor eggs for me. I do not respond to the stims much. My mother had her menopause at the age of 36, and I am getting close to that age (I am 34). I have some immune issues that I am sorting out and hoping to treat with Dr. KK, and I think I will try another IVF first with her later this year, but I'd also like to start learning more about donor eggs, especially if the process takes a long time as I suspect. But where do I have to start? I feel like googling for donor eggs does not give me enough good information (as opposed to my experience with googling for IVF). It feels more complicated than IVF. So, my question is where do I start? What are different ways of getting donor eggs? I hear people getting in lines, while others getting donor eggs immediately with their REs, how come? Some appear to wait for months, and some just do it whenever they want. Am I missing something here? And, also how do I learn more about the costs? Do I work with an agent or just with your RE and his/her clinic's egg bank? Does the cost differ? I apologize greatly if I look ignorant. I am clueless, scared, and need your nice ladies' help. Thank you!

Mrs.McIrish

Welcome to this board but hugs for having to start the research on something new. I know it seems scary and overwhelming but it will get easier with time and knowledge.
There are many ways to do donor eggs and there are different pros and cons with each avenue. First off, are you OOP for infertility? I live in a mandate state and DE is covered for the medical part if you haven't used up your cycles and qualify (you'd definitely qualify at 34 with DOR and failed OE cycles in MA). If you have some coverage, that might determine where you cycle so you can use the coverage. If you don't have coverage, you might consider traveling. A lot of us travel to "better" DE clinics since we need the best chance and you're paying a lot of $ for DE.

Type of cycles: clinics with in house donor pools. This is where you may find waiting lists for a donor. You can pay for all the eggs the donor makes or you may share them with another recipient. There are some clinics with guarantee programs where you get a certain number of eggs and a certain number of chances to get pregnant or you get a portion of your $ back. You can use an agency (like the Donor Source) to find a donor and use a clinic locally. There are also some frozen egg programs (I went to RBA in Atlanta) and did a guarantee program.

I would google for some donor egg blogs to read up on stuff. Also, some of the bigger DE programs have info on their websites. Examples are Shady Grove, San Diego Fertility, Oregon Repro medicine(ORM), RBA in Atlanta, AFCC in Chicago, CCRM (very pricey). Check out the SART stats for clinics looking at the DE numbers. I'd personally stay away from clinics who don't do a lot of DE cycles per year. The price point ranges greatly--estimate 15K to 50K depending on how you chose to cycle. Hope this helps getting you started with research.

mm29

McIrish explained the process and the options really well.  Take your time deciding which direction you are going to go.  It's overwhelming, at least it was for me.  Good luck!!

1220winterbride

Welcome and I am so sorry you are joining me in this education. I'm using anonymous frozen donor eggs. I'm a patient at CRM in Orlando and they work with a bank.

 @Mrs.McIrish made a great answer post!

ksgsmu

I agree beautiful summary @Mrs.McIrish

I used an agency and this is my experience....

We were 100% OOP so insurance wasn't something to consider.  My clinic does lot's of DE but doesn't have an in house pool at this time but works closely with several agencies.  I met with my clinics nurse who overseas all the DE patients.  She really helped me emotionally and just gave me some good tips when picking a donor etc...   She gave me the brochures on 3 agencies which I then contacted. 

The agencies once I contacted them let me look at their donor pools online and gave me all their pricing info.  Just by talking with their coordinators and seeing their donor pools I could see a huge difference in the agencies. 

I picked the agency I used mainly due to the donors I saw in their pool.  They were young ( but not under 21- my clinic won't use donors under the age of 21), smart and all very educated. I saw full health histories and family health history profiles, baby pictures, current pictures, essays etc...  They were all pretty amazing women.  I narrowed it down to my top three choices but was hoping for my #1 pick who I was just drawn to!  She accepted and we cycled very quickly!

Agencies can be more expensive but we were ok with that for the right donor.  I have a friend who used RBA and frozen eggs and got pregnant her first cycle.  SHe had an awesome experience. I didn't choose frozen primarily because I wanted LOTS of eggs to help ensure we could have all genetic sibilings and we want a big family.  We also wanted to do PGD testing (chromosome testing). What we did was pricey.... all in was about 50,000.  But we have 4 more frozen embies when we are ready to expand out family.  I am currently pregnant with twin boys.  Worth every penny.

Good luck in your journey I remember how overwhelming it was.   I also would encourage you to read lot's of blogs and check out pved.org!  This board is also super amazing and I found so much encouragement here!

Mrs.McIrish

Ksgsmu- great point about wanting siblings. It can be tough to get frozen embryos for future siblings if you do a shared cycle or a smaller egg lot like you typically get with frozen (although you can usually "buy" additional eggs for more $). We didn't intend to return for siblings bc of our ages so we opted for the smaller egg batch as I didn't want a bunch of frozen embryos that I would have to do something with later. ( I would have felt compelled to transfer again I think if I had frozens and a single child).

BeckyP005

@Mrs.McIrish gave great info!!

I can give you an answer on my wait time. I went to a local clinic..not a well known one and did a "shared" cycle with another couple to cut costs down. I was on the waiting list for a year and then some. Partly because donor pool was small and seemed like everyone wanted to do a shared cycle! Not sure if other places have such a long wait. Others will have to chime in on that! We were also shown no pictures of donor as adult or child.

My fresh cycle did not work but my FET did. Good luck to you!! If I had to pick a clinic out of state I would of been so confused!

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chicagobride_07

Welcome to the board! Everyone has given you great advice. We've done fresh cycles now with 2 different donors (one success). In both cases, the process from start to finish was from 2 to 3 months for a fresh cycle. We used an agency and were able to cycle immediately after choosing a donor. For us, finances were an issue and we needed to go with a small independent RE instead of a large clinic. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to move forward. Definitely look into your potential immune issues with Dr. KK before starting a donor cycle. You want to give yourself the best possible set up for success, and unfortunately DE is not a 100 percent guarantee. GL!

1220winterbride

I will add that we used an egg bank and we were allowed to search donors after we paid & my DH and I passed all our screening. The screening appts took a few months because I had to make appointments with a couple of specialists and we are required to have a psych visit in FL, but after that...BOOM! 

We made a choice of a donor, Then we got the 8 eggs pronto and I started Lupron...(all within a matter a few weeks!!)

Lacyj67

My story goes....
I have DOR as a lot of us do using DE. Was diagnosed at 32 years and was devastated. What it really came down to was wanting to be a mother and parent and as much as I wanted to have a bio child after much thought and grieving over my bio child I got excited to do DE. So after three ivfs with producing only a handful of eggs from all three total we told our re we were ready to move to to de.
I think we happened to get lucky with the timing and who the donor was but we did not look through a database which I thought we would. We got offered right away from our re to be in a shared cycle with a donor who was already begun her cycle with another couple. ( they thought she was a perfect match for me... And I thought so too!) The other couple cycling were from the east coast and traveling to CA. They were doing a fresh cycle and I would be getting all my embryos frozen to do a fet at a later date since I couldn't sync in time to do a fresh. Basically they told me I would be second in line for eggs... Which ment if the donor didn't produce enough eggs for the east coast couple we would not get any and they would get them all. We'll she produced 40+ eggs and we each got 12 eggs. They were fertilized with my dh and we got 8 that made it to 5 day freeze.
I found out the east coast couple for pregnant with twins on there fresh cycle.
Doing it this way is a risk... But a huge cost saver and we just didn't have the 25k it would take to get all the eggs to our self. It cost us about 12k instead.

I did my first fet last year and got pregnant but ended in ectopic. Then my second fet was miscarriage. We put in two embryos both times. Now we have four left. Fet upcoming this oct.
Good luck moving forward. I know how much I learned from just being on this board and reading peoples stories and experiences. No questions are stupid! Ask away and we will try our best to help you.

1220winterbride

Great info, @lacyj67. Wishing you best wishes on your next cycle, too!

Mrs.McIrish

I wanted to also agree that it is a "very good" idea to deal with any possible immune issues first. I've seen too many ladies be told DE was the answer but then DE doesn't work bc there are underlying immune issues. So if you suspect any, definitely explore that before spending a ton of money and having even more heartache.

zeynsom

Ladies, you all are amazing. Thank you very much for your help!

@Mrs.McIrish Great recommendations. Thank you for the detailed information. I see that you are expecting twins! Congratulations!

@mm29 @1220winterbride Thank you for your kind words and encouragement!

@ksgsmu That is for sure a lot of money but all for the best! Congratulations for your twins! And, great point about siblings.

@BeckyP005 Congratulations for your pregnancy! It looks like the wait was worth it!

@JimBobCooter Best of luck with your transfer. Hopefully 5th donor is the charm!

@chicagobride_07 Good luck with your FET! And, yes, my focus right now is getting my immune system under control. I see that you have an appointment with Dr. KK. People told me that even if you get pregnant you may want to see her. And, I gather from your alias that you are in Chicago, so why not! She can be very helpful for the first trimester as well.

@Lacyj67 Best of luck with your upcoming FET. Hope you get the good news as the East Coast couple. I wish that I can get such a great deal!

2MamazInSeattle

Great info posted here already!

For us, we did a fresh cycle with the in-house donor pool at my RE clinic. It took a while because the donor pool is definitely smaller than demand. We cycled in Dec. 2012, transferred one and had 3 to freeze. I got pregnant but miscarried at 16w, baby was fine but it was an umbilical cord clot (totally random, unrelated to DE).

First FET was a chemical pregnancy. Second FET was a total BFN. Final FET, almost a year to the day from our fresh cycle, resulted in the sweet little baby sleeping next to me.

We really believed doing a fresh cycle we'd get two kids out of it but we only got one...even with 4 great embies. You just never know, yet we are incredibly grateful for our daughter!!