Egg Donation from Sister

[KarenD]

Hi
Can anyone help. I've been diagnosed with POF and our only chance of having a child would be through egg donation.

My sister has kindly offered to donate however she is 42 years old! Does anyone know if it would be possible for my sister to donate considering her age?

Very grateful for any advice.

Thanks
KarenD

[BevT]

Hi Karen, unfortunately, if you are in the UK, they will only accept donors under the age of 36.

I had the same situation, several good friends and family offering to donate, but they were all too old. After waiting nearly 2 years to get to the top of the waiting list for donors in the UK, we went abroad for treatment, and within 3 months of my initial contact with them we were receiving 12 donor eggs. We were very lucky that our first tmt cycle worked. I am now 18 weeks pg with 5 embies in the freezer for future use too.

If you would like any info on clinics abroad, I may be able to help you. Just let me know. Going abroad is not so scarey as it sounds, there are other support networks out there and we found the whole process very straightforward.

Bev xxx

[KarenD]

Hi Bev
Firstly so sorry about mc.
Thanks so much for your message I wasn't expecting a reply so quickly. I thought that may be the case I had prepaired myself for that, I think its really unfair.
Thank you for your offer and yes any info you can give me about going abroad would be great.....its our last hope. Where did you go? How do you choose a doner? How many times did you go? What's the cost like?
Sorry to ask so many questions but I'm sure you understand.
Thanks again.
KarenD

[Rileydee]

Hi Karen-
I just went through IVF with egg donation from sister. I also have ovarian failure, but not premature, I've always been that way. Thats depressing that you cannot have your sister help you. I know what its like to go through. I just wanted to wish you all the luck in the world and hope it works out for you!! Baby dust to you!!

[BevT]

Hi Karen, sorry it's taken me a couple of days to reply - my computer hadn't flagged up the fact that you had replied so I haven't visited the boards for since Wednesday.

I know it is disappointing for you not to be able to use your sister's egg but I guess they put the ceiling at the age of 36 because after that age one's fertility is substantially reduced together with the risk of maternal age related chromosone abnormalities.

The positive thing about using donor eggs is that the donors are generally in their twenties - therefore young eggs.

We had our tmt at Isida in Kiev (Ukraine). We did visit IM at Barcelona first, but after our initial consultations with both, we decided to go with Isida. Several reasons, they were cheaper (about half the cost of Spain), they only used proven donors, i.e. girls who already had at least one child of their own - so no risk of young students being made infertile through hyper stimulation or other associated risks, there is no waiting list for donors, the hospital is a state of the art maternity and obs & gyny unit and very very clean.

Spain were also reluctant to freeze any embies that you may have left, in fact they seemed reluctant to even try and produce any spares! It seemed that you would need a fresh cycle for each attempt (if the first failed) and at 9,500 euros a go, it was very expensive.

Isida however, charge about 4,000 euros and with the cost of flights and accommodation, I guess we spent maybe about 5,500 euros. We were very lucky that it worked first time for us.

The overseas patient co-ordinator (English speaking) matched me to a 23 yr old girl who fitted my physical characteristics, which I was happy with. Others specify they would like a donor to match their "artistic" side or equal their university educations etc, but for me the physical likeness was important.

If you would like to pm me with your email address, I can introduce you to another group, Conceiving Abroad. It is a smaller group for women that are seeking egg donor tmt abroad and due to unwanted infiltration by journalists you can only join by being invited by the group leader. Hence if you send me your email, I can forward it to May who will set up your membership. It is a great group, with women going not only to the Ukraine for tmt, but also to South African, Crete and Moscow. There is such a huge amount of support and information that others have "filed" on the site, it is bound to help you enormously.

PM me if you would like.

Look forward to hearing from you,
Bev xxx

[AMck]

Hi Karen, have read your post and just wanted to say that if you wanted any info on IM in Barcelona please let me know. I know it was more expensive than where Bev went but we were very happy with our tmt. I am now 11 weeks pg with a donor egg from a 23 year old.

Take care and good luck

Anna x

[KarenD]

Hii
Thank Bev for all the information, I've sent you a PM with my email address.
Anna - Thanks for your message and congrats on the BFP, so good to hear about a positive result. I wish you a happy and healthy pregnancy best of luck.
Rileydee - Thanks for the message really glad things worked out for you. I wish you a happy and healthy pregnancy best of luck

[usma3690]

Hi I'm actually going through my first round of IVF right now. My retrieval is Friday. I'm 40, only producing 4 eggs and have only a 15% chance. My sister, who is 28, just today asked me if she could "donate" her eggs to the cause. I was shocked, but then it all started to make sense. Has anyone else done this? What do you think?
Vic

[Kat]

Hi

Karen - Anna & Bev have probably already answered your questions but just wanted to say I too went to IM in Barcelona and was very happy with the tmt though sadly my pregnancy did not last.

Vic - not sure what country you are in but in the UK I was told yes my sister could donate as long as she was below the required age and had had her own children. This wasn't practical for us though as she lives overseas and was just on the edge of the age limit at the time. They reluctantly said they would consider my other sister donating as she is younger but has no children of her own. In the end we decided it was such a complicated and emotive issue that we couldn't do it. What if it didn't work, how would she feel, what if it did work and then later she found she couldn't have her own children etc etc. Too much to handle for both of us.
The clinic would, however, have accepted her as a donor for someone else which would have, in turn, moved me up the waiting list as a thankyou.
In the end we went to Spain instead. Quicker and easier but of course, more expensive.

Not sure if that helped at all.

Good luck to both of you whatever you decide to do. Come and join us on the over 40 thread on the general forum if you like ...

Love
Kat xx

[sriche]

Hi, I know this post was a couple of years back but if anyone's still looking, I appreciated the comments as I am also considering using my sister for donor eggs. I'm 26 but in premature menopause and my sister's only 21, neither of us have children. We're looking at the ISIDA clinic in Kiev but would appreciate any tips ... does anyone have ideas?

[Kat]

Hi
I still get notified on these messages after all this time...maybe I can't quite leave it all behind me, who knows.
My clinic in the UK would have done the treatment with my sister's eggs, had they approved it in principle, which would have been cheaper than adding the travel expenses on top. I don't know about using a known donor overseas I'm afraid. My donor in Spain was matched to me physically and I knew about her interests and qualifications but I would never have known anything else about her. Had we been successful in the UK we would have been able to get hold of more info because the law works differently here.
Using your sister's eggs does seem the ideal solution for you, after all the child would be effectively yours genetically, as long as you are sure your relationsip with your sister will not suffer. That's the bit I couldn't quite get my head round - it threw up too many questions for us. Your sister is very young and this will give you a big advantage on the quality of eggs but is she mature enough to deal with the treatment and the implications of either success or failure I wonder.
At the end of the day, you know yourself and you know your sister and you will need to make a decision you are both happy with, whatever that might be. ISIDA is a good clinic, as is IM in Barcelona, both with successes in donor treatment.
I wish you luck, it's not an easy road to take but keep strong, find out as much information as you can to help you make your decisions along the way.
love Kat xx

[sriche]

Hi Kat, thanks for the post! I feel as if I already know you somewhat as I've read through loads of old threads esp re egg donation, and seen other posts you've sent. Are you still trying with the whole infertility scenario or what's the current status? I appreciate your comments regarding my situation. I have thought a lot about my sister's part in it and what I'm most concerned about is the effect of treatment on her as I've heard the scare stories about OHSS, though I know that's very rare. She is totally willing to be involved and we have a good relationship so are both happy with the idea of my child being genetically hers ... since we both have the same genetic background it seems to make sense, and my brother already has a child who looks exactly like my sister, though not conceived using her eggs! So family likenesses aren't going to be anything new. I think her main concern right now is that I could get pregnant and since I'll be the one (hopefully!) carrying and giving birth to the child I believe it will become emotionally mine during that process ... I'm not worried about either of us feeling that it's my sister's child. I just want to be sure that, esp as she hasn't had her own children yet, she will not be any the worse for egg donation and it won't affect her future fertility.

[lesserweevil]

well I'm sriche's sister. Yes, I am very young (21 in a week) but, I do want to help my sister and I know how much she wants a baby. So please, I really appreciate any advice that we're given in this. (It being all kinda new to me)

[jackie123]

Hi Sriche & sister,

Just want to let you know you two are not alone. I am my sister's egg doner. My cycle will start next week and I will have to start injection later to induce egg production. I am 38 and my sister is 43. I don't know wheter it will be successful to get my sister pregnant. All I know it's she is desparate to have a baby.

I don't know how exactly I will feel with the injection as everyone will have different effects. I will keep posting about the progress. If everything goes fine, the embryo transfer will happen in mid-October. We can just pray it will be a successful one.

Anyone with any experience with the egg donation process using nasal spray & needle injection are welcome to reply. I just hope there wasn't too much side effects.

[sriche]

Hi Jackie, just wanted to thank you for posting and to say please do keep us updated on progress as we'd really like to know how your situation goes. We'll be praying for you and your sister, and it will help to give us an idea of what might happen in our case if we go ahead with egg donation treatment. I have been researching this quite a bit online but my sister is still pretty new to the whole thing and I know she'd appreciate hearing about someone else's experience. Take care,

Sarah