Who needs to use egg donation? How do you prepare for it and how do you find an egg donor?
Find out all this and more on today's episode of InfertilityTV.
If you are a woman looking to donate your eggs or a woman who is looking for an egg donor,
check out ivf1match.com or just click the link in the description.
It’s completely free to use.
Egg donation can be considered in several different situations.
The most obvious is when a women who wants to become pregnant does not have ovaries.
This usually occurs because she has had surgery to remove her ovaries but there are situations
in which a woman could be born without ovaries.
Women who have ovaries may also, at times, need an egg donor.
Common situation include
-- Advanced age.
- The older a woman becomes, the lower the chance for a successful pregnancy using her
own eggs.
If a woman with infertility is over the age of 42, the chance for a live birth with her
own eggs is extremely small
-- Poor ovarian reserve - sometimes younger women will have few viable eggs remaining
in the ovaries and may therefore have the same chance for pregnancy as women who are
much older
-- IVF problems - In some cases, when women are going through IVF cycles, it may be discovered
that she has serious problems such as fertilization failures or embryos that don’t grow and
develop as they are supposed to.
This may be due to poor egg quality for which there is no good treatment.
-- Genetic problems - women who are affected by or are known carriers for genetic conditions
may use an egg donor to avoid having a child with the same problems
The first step in the process is to select an egg donor.
An ideal egg donor is young, healthy and does not have a history of infertility herself.
Donors can be someone you know such as a relative or friend or they can be anonymous.
Once you have selected a possible donor applicant, she must go through extensive testing to look
at her ovarian function and make sure she does not have any potential infectious diseases.
For you, it is important to have a good evaluation of your uterine cavity.
This can be accomplished with a hysteroscopy or a saline ultrasound.
The actual egg donation treatment can be completed in a number of ways.
The donor will take fertility medications to stimulate the maturation of multiple eggs
in her ovaries at the same time.
After several days, the eggs will be retrieved and fertilized with the sperm of your partner
or a sperm donor.
The embryos are left to develop in the laboratory for several days.
At this point, an embryo can be transferred into your uterus provided your uterus has
been prepared with medication to receive an embryo at that moment.
This requires precise synchronization of your cycles with the donor cycle
Another option is to freeze the embryos so they can be placed into you uterus at any
convenient time.
This way, you don’t have to worry about synchronization.
It is also possible to freeze the donated eggs before fertilization.
There are a few egg banks where you can get frozen donor eggs but this is a pretty expensive
option.
Pregnancy success rates with egg donation are very high provided that the donor you
selected is a young donor.
We generally recommend donors under the age of 25.
The risk for multiple pregnancy is higher with donor eggs so you should never transfer
more than one embryo at a time to your uterus.
Donors generally produce a lot of eggs so there is a good chance for having extra embryos
that can be frozen for your own future use.
Pregnancies conceived with donor eggs may have a higher risk for blood pressure problems.
Be sure you discuss that with your doctor.
This is a big topic, I could probably talk about it all day.
Instead, why don’t you let me know what specific questions you have about egg donation
in the comments and dont forget to subscribe to InfertilityTV for weekly tips to guide
you on your Infertility Journey
If you liked this video, remember to "LIKE" this video!
Have a question? Leave it in the comments below. We'll answer.
Subscribe for new episodes of Infertility TV weekly.
Click the link in the description to visit our website where you can register to become a new patient.