Newbie with donor egg questions
We just finished our first IVF attempt using my eggs without success. Knew starting out due to low egg reserve, age, quality of eggs; that we might have to use donor eggs in order to conceive and we are both fine with that. We could try 3 month's of estrogen, then another cyle of drugs (they hit me with strongest drugs they could last time) and see if that would work. Chances are only about 10% that the estrogen would help 'plump up' the follicles at all and give us a successful attempt. The wait list is about 40 people long and at least 6-12 month's for donor eggs at our RE. They don't accept frozen eggs from other facilities for transfer either if we were to go and buy them. We are looking at out-of-state facilities in NYC and Atlanta. Has anyone used donor eggs and been successful? If so, how did you go about it and where did you go? Thanks for the help!
Re: Newbie with donor egg questions
I'm sorry about your unsuccessful IVF. There is a donor egg check in on Tuesdays on the Infertility and IF Vets board. You should feel free to join the group. I got lots of good advice and support there.
I used the frozen DE program at RBA in Atlanta - they were already my RE so that might have sped things up but we decided to move forward with DE in Nov and had my transfer in January. It could have gone faster but for the Christmas break. I was very pleased with the program and would highly recommend it. It's so much easier than a fresh IVF cycle and they make it easy for out of town clients.
Best of luck.
Not in the areas you specified but I used DE but was not successful. We waited 3 months to find our donor who was a proven donor (had one successful donation previously which ended up with 1 baby and 11 frozen embryos). Our cycle produced 14 very poor quality eggs (super I could have produced those for crying out loud) which didn't fetilize even with icsi..
We are too bummed to go to the WTF appointment yet. But we will eventually.
Hi there,
I was just looking through different boards and stumbled across your post. I thought I would share my story with you. My husband and I have a 5 year old son who we conceived the old-fashioned way when I was 35 years old. When he was 1 1/2 years old we decided to TTC baby #2. We tried for 3 years unsuccessfully and finally got fertility testing done. It turned out my FSH level was high (i.e. my eggs were too old) and I had two doctors tell me that I probably had a 2% chance of conceiving using my own eggs. I was diagnosed with "secondary infertility."
Not willing to give up, we tried an IUI cycle taking all the meds (I produced 3 eggs and only one made it to the transfer) -- but that was unsuccessful in getting me pregnant. Since I only produced one good quality egg with all those drugs, my RE told me that IVF would be a waste of money unless we considered using an egg donor.
After a few months of considering it, we asked our RE for a list of egg donation companies that she recommended. We chose an on-line company called "The Donor Source" and searched their database for someone we thought would be a good donor. We went through drawing up the legal papers with a lawyer and all the shots/meds. They extracted 10 eggs from her. All 10 got fertilized -- but only 3 eggs made it to embryos. We did the transfer with all 3 embryos, but unfortunately I didn't get pregnant. My RE said that it was unfortunate that only 10 eggs were extracted (she said that it should have been twice that number) , but I guess we gambled with getting a first time donor who did not have a proven track record. (We didn't know that getting an experienced donor was a better option). We learned a tough lesson with $30k down the drain...
Luckily my husband had invested what money we had left in our bank account in a few lucky stocks. We then decided we could afford to try the process one more time. This time we went with a company called "Egg Donation, Inc." and chose a donor who had done it before so that we knew that she produced a lot of eggs. Once again, we drew up the legal papers, and had everything ready. We were waiting for our transfer in July since I am a teacher and I wanted to be off of school for it.
Wouldn't you know it, the unthinkable happened during our waiting period... In April I felt a bit sick, my boobs hurt, and my period was a few days late, etc... I called my husband and joked with him to pick up a pregnancy test from the grocery store on his way home from work. I knew I couldn't be pregnant because my husband and I had not been together very much since our 5 year old had been sharing our bed that month. Well, what do you think, I was pregnant (the old-fashioned way with my own eggs)!
I can't believe my luck because I am now 40 years old and didn't think it was possible with my high FSH level. I am currently 20 weeks pregnant (half way there) and our amnio and ultrasounds are all showing normal development.
As for our donor experience -- We were very satisfied with both our on-line companies -- they were both professional and honest. But if I were to pass on any advice on using a donor, I would say that we learned the following:
1. Younger is better. According to our RE, choose a donor below the age of 27.
2. Definitely go with one who has donated before (not a first time donor like we did). You will be able to find out how many eggs she produced, how many were frozen, and if a pregnancy resulted from her last donation. We didn't know this the first time around, and spent a lot of money on a few eggs. It's not worth the gamble.
Going with an egg-donor is an expensive and emotional process, but in the end, I would have done it again if we weren't able to get pregnant on our own. After all, no matter how you get there, it is the end result of having a baby that makes it all worth it.
Best of Luck to you!!!