My hubby has questions about donor eggs

Mistyhf · January 2014

My husband asked me a few minutes ago about the pros and cons of a shared donor and frozen eggs. Why do people choose one over the other? TIA

stinkerbell6879 · January 2014

Bottom line. Cost. Frozen eggs also have the pro of timing and not trying to sync cycles with the donor. BUT. It is still very very new and it has that as a con.

Again the pro with shared is saving cost, the con is syncing cycles between the other recipient and donor and you....so you have to decide if your ok working with another persons timing.

Good luck with your research and decision!

ksgsmu · January 2014

I am new here and to Donor eggs so I am sure others have way more insight but for me I decided to not share donor eggs because I wanted to make sure I had as many eggs as possible from just one donor. I have some immunological issues as well as crappy ovaries. With my loss history I want to have as many eggs as I can get in case I have more losses in the future. The biggest con is the price for sure and of course there is no guarantee.

I did research RBA in Atlanta though and their program with frozen eggs looks pretty interesting and I know a few ladies on here have used them and had success. It just wasn't for me.

xmaystarx · January 2014

I chose to go with frozen eggs at RBA because of the price as well as the timing. By the time I was ready to move over I was impatient and ready to cycle right away. I was comfortable with the success rates they had and the donor selection. You could potentially get more eggs with a shared cycle but you could also end up with the same or less.

Lacyj67 · January 2014

We did a shared donor egg program because it was much more cost effective and we wanted to pick our donor from our clinic and get as many eggs as we could. I didnt know getting frozen eggs was a option for us at the time. Pretty amazing what they can do these days!!

brooklynesque · January 2014

The others here have covered it: the main benefits are cost and, in the case of frozen eggs, immediacy and reliability (you know you're going to get eggs because the eggs already exist!). Just wanted to throw out that you might want to combine a shared cycle or frozen eggs with a guarantee program. A number of clinics have such programs. That way, even if you're dealing with fewer eggs, the clinic still keeps having to hook you up (for at least a few cycles) until you're pg (or you get a refund). I know RBA has a frozen-egg guarantee program; Shady Grove is well-known for their shared fresh cycle (2-way split and 3-way split) guarantee program though other clinics have them, too.

I did an exclusive cycle mainly because we decided to use an agency donor (my clinic has a wait for in-house donors) and you generally are limited to an exclusive cycle if you do that. On the plus side: We have so many extra embryos we will almost certainly never have to do another fresh cycle, even if we want 3 kids! On the downside: It was expensive. Oh, and we have to figure out what to do with all of those extra embryos. (Before the cycle my husband promised me we could donate extra embryos, but I think psychologically for him it's going to be a bit tougher to donate, say, 12, than it would have been to donate 2 or 3. That's a lot of potential kids with DH's genes!) If I had known ahead of time that my donor was capable of producing 30+ eggs, I would have had them fertilize a limited number of them and freeze the rest. But she surprised us with more eggs than she had ever produced before.

BeckyP005 · January 2014

Everyone has given you great info!!

We chose to do a shared cycle at my local clinic for cost reasons. When we started this journey 2.5 yrs ago I never really researched frozen eggs. MH didn't want to travel.

Only downfall was that I was on the waiting list for one year which totally sucked. Good luck to you in whatever decision you decide on!!

sarahjeri · January 2014

The RE we ended up going with does not do shared risk, but we felt like the cost was something we were willing to take on to be able to use that RE. Mostly it was logistical for us. We only have 2 REs in our area, and we couldn't (due to work) drive an hour plus to see someone different. We also ended up using a known donor, and she wasn't willing to share eggs with other people. Hind sight? I'm really glad we chose how we did because we ended up with 7 eggs. If you were to share that with someone - well, the amount just isn't that great when shared.

Want a personalized experience?

My hubby has questions about donor eggs

Re: My hubby has questions about donor eggs

Choose Another Board

Search Boards