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Infertility Veterans
mainesmichelle
member
Question-DE/DS decisions
mainesmichelle
member
I am in the midst of choosing donor eggs and I was hoping that you could share with me what characteristics were most important to you when choosing.
If you don't have to use a donor and would like to respond to what you would consider when choosing a donor that would awesome...the more the merrier!!
BTW I am using frozen not fresh donor eggs.
TIA,
Michelle
Michelle
Blythe Elizabeth is here March 27,2012
Blythe Elizabeth is here March 27,2012
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Question-DE/DS decisions
Our priorities were
proven donor
clean family health history
could donate relatively quickly as we lost a couple of donors due to issues and I ha some insurance coverage that was going to run out.
Those were our main criteria. I had to think the donor was "cute" (call me shallow). She didn't have to be a 10 but I couldn't get comfortable with anyone I didn't find "cute". I didn't concentrate on finding one that looked like me because DH and I could come up with any combination. He is tall, I am short. I have dark hair/eyes and DH has lighter hair/green eyes.
I hoped that when I read the questionnaire I liked her personality. DH and I had a lot of nature vs. nurture conversations because we are both bookworm/nerds and our donor never went to college. DH convinced me that if we instilled our love of reading and made school a priority our kid would do fine.
DH and I are both Eastern European Jewish and our original donor was Jewish but she was donating for another couple and that clinic scared her off from donating again. So I had to decide was it important to share ethnic backgrounds. Luckily for me in the Jewish religion, as long as the woman is carrying the baby is Jewish the baby is Jewish whether it is her egg or not. So in the end our donor had some similar countries in her background but most not.
Feel free to ask follow up questions. Good luck!
Our clinic had a pool of donors - probably not unlike your bank - so we were able to narrow down right away based on basic criteria. We chose based on:
1. previous successful cycle history, tied with clean family health history
2. personality (did she seem like someone we liked)
3. availability
4. appearance (not really similarity to me, but overall would her features seem familiar in our families).
DH and I each ranked our top 5, and had one or two in common. We chose one, she fell through due to scheduling, then our clinic suggested another three donors based on the choice we originally made. The donor coordinator had met all of the donors, so was able to make suggestions that were slightly more subjective like "She reminded me of you" or "She is a real firecracker", etc. We chose from those donors and hit the jackpot.
I'm a firm believer that there are many "right" donors, and that you will never look at your child and think that you made the 'wrong' choice. We could have waited for our "first" choice to be available, but really - we just wanted to start the journey to our baby. I'd say it worked out great
I am a runner, knitter, scientist, DE-IVF veteran, and stage III colon cancer survivor.
For us
1) Clean/Good Health History
2) Proven Donor
4) BMI, I've struggled w/ weight my whole life I figured why not at least use DE to reduce the weight issue for DD.
5) Blood Type
6) Looks
That's what worked for us, good luck!
Our most important preference for an egg donor was for someone who had donated eggs with success in the past. We also wanted someone with a clean health history for themselves (no drugs, smoking or drugs). Somewhat important but not as important was a relatively mild family health history. Both of our own extended families have issues like high blood pressure/cholesterol, some cancer, etc. So we were ok with that in our egg donor's family history. I also wanted someone who had blue eyes like my DH and I do, but that ultimately became trivial as time went on in our donor search.
Many of the first donors we chose were ruled out for us because their cd 3 b/w wasn't within the desirable range. The donor we're actually using was recommended to us by our RE. RE has worked with this particular donor several times and apparently she has helped several couples have successful pgs. RE said she makes "beautiful, healthy babies." She doesn't look like me too much. But both DH and I thought she was "cute." She's a few inches shorter than me, has darker hair and has brown/hazel eyes as opposed to my blue eyes. But the fact that she has a proven track record with donating her eggs speaks volumes for us at this point in our IF journey.
We haven't started our DE cycle yet but we should be within the next week or so. So I don't have a success story at this point, but if I can answer any questions for you, feel free to ask. GL!!
With our first donor, we picked based on a combo of similarities in appearance, clean family health history, ethnic background and personality. She was unproven but got 20 eggs for us.
With our second donor, since we doing a shared cycle we had to pick a proven donor. I thought I might have to give up on ethnic background and personality, but it turned out that she was a match in both areas, luckily!
With frozen eggs a proven donor shouldn't be a concern since the eggs are already there for you!
Early loss 10/08
Lap 1/09
IVF #1 "natural IVF" - 1 egg retrieved, missed m/c
Tried several mini-stim cycles with no response
Switched clinics - dx'd as carrier for Fragile X
IVF #2 MDL protocol Jan/Feb converted to IUI, BFN
IVF #2 take 2: Antagonist, one embie, BFN
IVF #3: Antagonist, no fertilization
One last ditch effort at OE IVF (antagonist with Clomid) cancelled
DE cycle #1 Jan/Feb 2011, BFP, ectopic
DE cycle #2 June/July 2011 - BFP
10/28/11 Baby girl lost at 17 weeks due to pre-term labor. We love and miss you.
DE cycle #3 June/July 2012 - BFP, twins, both heartbeats stopped, D&C
2 frosties but don't know what's next
FET Dec 2012: BFP! Praying this one sticks for the long haul!
We used both DE and DS, so we have quite a bit of experience with choosing donors. We really looked for clean family history (especially of mental illness since we have quite of bit of problems in that area in my family and have seen how devastating it can be), education/intelligence (kind of a combination of the two - either relatively high educational attainment or well-written answers on the essay questions, etc.), looks (generally similar to us but didn't have to be a perfect match), and a sense from the profile/essays that the donors had personalities similar to ours. It was really important for the donors to "seem" like us.
I wish you all the best moving forward!
IVF#1 Oct 2009 (CCRM) - BFN
IVF#2 March 2010 - Poor response/cancelled
DE IVF#1 Aug 2010 - BFN
DE IVF#2 Dec 2010 - Transferred 1, 2 frozen - BFP!
TTC#2 FET Jan 2013 - Transferred 1 - BFP!
Similar look to me, i.e. same coloring, similar height & weight
Health history
Proven: this is on my wish list, but I have now ignored it twice. My clinic doesn't have that many available, proven donors in the pool.
Intelligence: evidenced by education or answers to essay questions
Connection: someone I felt a connection to through essay answers and pictures.
I usually post on IF but hope it's ok to answer this. As we have just picked our donor also.
Most important was: proven donor, younger, and clean family history. Plus she has done it before and agency said she was good to work with previously (very responsible and sweet). We had three previous picks fall through btw which stunk! That is an issue that you would not have to face with frozen luckily <:
Secondary is she looks similar to me but has blonde hair. She actually looks much like my first cousin. We share a few of the same ethnic backgrounds also. I really liked her profile. Some random things stood out like she was left handed like me and we looked very similar when we were babies (little baldies with long faces and big button eyes). I felt a connection to her also and she was local so going to our hospital would be convienient for her and less money for us!
Some of these things wouldn't matter to you as you are using frozen. We were going to do that originally till we found out our insurance would pay for more than we thought! If you are going with the frozen bank in Georgia I think you only see the baby pics-fyi.
She is doing her psych and medical stuff right now <: can't wait to get this show on the road!!