How many used donor eggs and got pregnant?

[karin1]

Hi ladies!

I was just wondering how many of you used donor eggs and got pregnant? At what point did you decide to use donor eggs? How did the process work? Was it hard to find a donor? I have so many questions. I am now in an IVF cycle now and hopefully will make it to ER and ET. I am a poor responder to meds and it seems like every cycle my RE brings up donor eggs. I'm not ready to go there yet, but have to start considering it if this cycle isn't a positive one. I am trying to prepare myself if I have to.

I appreciate all who is willing to reply.

Congrats on all of your pregnancies! I am so happy for you! It gives all of us hope that it can happen!

Take care and God bless.

[rayofsunshine]

Hello Karin1!!

I am now pregnant with twins using donor eggs. I'll share my story and try to answer your questions because I know what an overwhelming decision it is to make.

I am 33 years old, my DH is 35. We have a daughter that we conceived naturally and then tried to conceive for 4+ years when we finally went to see our RE. My DH has a low count/low motility but had surgery to try to correct the problem. We attempted 4 IUIs that all failed. Then my RE said IVF was the best chance for us and we moved on to that. I went through the blood tests before the IVF and my FSH levels were at 20 ("normal" is 4-7 I think). My RE thought with my age that it would still work so we did the normal IVF protocol using Lupron. I only produced 2 eggs so I was canceled. Then I did a 2nd IVF attempt with only 5 days of birth control and no lupron and I produced 0 eggs. I was canceled again and my RE told me that my best bet was to use donor eggs.

My DH and I had to walk away for a few months to gather ourselves and make that decision. We knew that we could do more IVF attempts but the emotional and financial tolls were too much and I knew our chances were very slim. We weighed adoption and donor eggs, then finally decided to do donor eggs because of the time/cost and the opportunity for me to carry the pregnancy.

First we had to meet with a pyschologist to determine if we were emotionally ready for this process. Then, we went to our RE clinic and looked through a binder of potential donors. The info. was very extensive-some clinics don't have their own donors but there are "banks" where you can select a donor. Then my clinic had the donor go through the first part (up to retrieval) and called me to do transfer when it was time. The only meds I did during the process were a short time on birth control, then progestrone and estrodial (no shots!!!). I got pregnant the first time with DE. We still have 2 embryos frozen from this cycle. When my babies are born I will go through a step-parent adoption so that they are legally my children.

It is huge decision and you really have to think about what it is that is important to you. Our children are biologically still my husband's but not mine-I'm okay with that because the most important thing is just to be a mom to them. They are mine,no matter where their DNA came from, period. My family and friends were also very supportive and cheered me on from the beginning.

I wish you the best of luck-I am always on here (on the Winter mommies group) so you can PM me if you have more questions I can help with or just for support.

Take care and keep the faith!
Sara

[wishfull27]

Hi - I did 2 cycles with my own egss at 38/39 both with max dose of stims and produced 2 and 3 eggs both BFN - RE suggested ED but in UK there are no anonymous donors so waiting lists are huge - we went to Prague and I got pregnanat on 2nd attempt from a FET and have 4.5 month old twin boys - the decision to use a donor was not a hard one as that was our only chance to be parents - donor match was close and from deciding to go ahead we only had to wait for donor and my cycle to syncronise!!

Good luck - any questions feel free to PM me !!

Carolyn xx

[Kamaile]

rayofsunshine- do you have to do a step parent adoption to be the legal parent of the twins? a friend of mine used DE and she never mentioned step parent adoption to me...just wondering if there is something she doesn't know about..

[SaRaaa]

Hello hun! I hope you'll become mother soon! You really deserve to be happy after everything you've gone through. I'm currently into my de ivf journey. My dh and I have just came back from Ukraine. We use clinic there, biotexcom. It was our second visit. We had sperm pick-up, fertilization of donor’s eggs and embryos transfer into my uterine cavity. I'm very nervous. We have 5 attempts of ivf with donor egg. In case of failure of all 5 tries, the clinic pays money back. But I really want and hope this attempt will be successful. I can't wait to do pregnancy test! Wish me luck! I wish you all the best!

[rahulkumar123]

thanx a lot ladies for your wishes

[lanabanana]

Hi dear! I had de ivf abroad. We used Ukrainian clinic. Though we had some worries about being in foreign country, but thanks to the clinic we were caring only about the procedure. All services were already included in our package. We paid €9 900 for everything. The clinic never asked to pay extra charges. We had 5 attempts. I've got pregnant from 2nd attempt. The clinic returns money in case of 5 failures. So we had nothing to lose and that's why we've chosen this package. They also have packages, which include 1 or 2 attempts. They cost less. And also there was a package with transfer from de ivf to surrogacy. I don't remember all details. You can look through all terms and conditions on the website of biotexcom if you're interested. We didn't pay all money at once! The sum was divided into 2 parts. We paid one half after signing the contract. Then we paid second half during our second meeting.

At first we were sceptical about Ukraine. Positive reviews convinced us only to go there and check the clinic. We were not sure about signing the contract. They have some photos on their website, but you know photos may be faked. Such things happen. But our doubts faded away as soon as we saw the clinic. Also seeing so many couples there convinced us that it's professional clinic, which is popular in the field of reproductive medicine.

All requirements to donors were set in our package. Age of all donors is 18-25 yo. All of them should have perfect physical and mental health. The clinic also checks donors and their relatives. They should not have any genetic diseases. We didn't choose donor, but our doctor did. We were told that contact of clients with donor is prohibited by law. But we had an opportunity to provide desired phenotype. So we make a list of features, which we want to see in our donor. We put there desirable hair color, eye color, face and nose shape, etc. In one word we wanted our donor to look like me. Then our program coordinator presented us 3 variants and we chose the most suitable donor for us.

[aleksk]

I said to myself when I got baby, nothing will stop me. I am smiling all the time. He is restless but amazing. I know, even I didn’t meet him yet. Egg donation was very successful. He got good genes. So I am sure he will be special.

[xenia]

Two friends of mine - IVF with donor eggs, and IVF de combined with PGS NGS

[Millia]

I'm so lucky I found this thread! I'm currently looking into de ivf option. I have so many questions and concerns, but you helped me a lot to figure them out. I'm surprised to see so many women who used donor eggs! Now I know this procedure not odd at all. It helped so many women to get pregnant. My dh and I were ttc for so long... It's been almost 5 years. I hope with help of de we will finally have our baby.

[Ghost]

I'm so lucky I found this thread! I'm currently looking into de ivf option. I have so many questions and concerns, but you helped me a lot to figure them out. I'm surprised to see so many women who used donor eggs! Now I know this procedure not odd at all. It helped so many women to get pregnant. My dh and I were ttc for so long... It's been almost 5 years. I hope with help of de we will finally have our baby.

Some of the posts above are sock accounts advertising for Ukrainian clinics by pretending to be patients.

However, success rates with donor eggs tend to be higher than for autologous IVF due to the use of ideal egg sources. At a decent center, the live birth rate will be more than 50% with single embryo transfer.

[leila]

Hi all,

your feedback is really helpful, thank you all for sharing!

I'm still at the beginning and quite desperate. My husband and I have been married 5 years and we’ve been trying to conceive a baby. Unsuccessful because when I was 19 I had an abortion and became infertile. So we decided to try IVF and had 5 cycles and all of them failed, but we really want to have children.

We think about surrogacy and trying it with egg donation now. I did a bit of research and found www.first-egg-bank.com for egg donation. They seem to have a huge egg donor database.

Maybe you could give me advice on other good egg donor banks? And also IVF procedures pulled a lot of money from us, so maybe you know clinics with affordable prices? Thanks all!