Understanding Your Egg Donor IVF Options

When you make the choice to use an egg donor, you have the option to choose between fresh or frozen egg donation. Donor eggs can give you a great opportunity to conceive. We’ll explain the options you have below and touch on the process involved.

Using egg donor in vitro fertilization

After your doctor discusses with you and your partner the risks and benefits regarding donor egg in vitro fertilization (IVF), you can then select either a fresh or frozen egg donor. Success rates can be as high as 70% using donor eggs.  

Using fresh and frozen eggs involves choosing whether to use our clinic’s internal donor program or an outside agency, such as Fairfax EggBank. While most egg donation is anonymous, some patients have friends or relatives who offer to donate their eggs. All donors are examined and go through a screening process for evaluation. The next step is the egg donor IVF cycle.

When you go through the donor egg IVF process, you will need a course of hormone treatments to prepare you for the fertilized egg or embryo. 

When you decide to use a local donor

The fresh egg donor process is a tried and true proven method. Fresh donor eggs have been in use in IVF in the U.S. since 1984. Generally, the egg yield from a fresh egg donation cycle is higher than a frozen egg cycle. The first step is to review the egg donor profile book in our clinic to see if one of our donors is a good fit for your family. 

The local donors are screened extensively and during the process, we review their medical history, conduct a physical exam, obtain genetic screening, ovarian reserve testing, and they undergo psychological screening. Less than 10% of all women who are interested in becoming an egg donor actually become an active donor with our program due to a rigorous screening process. 

Once you are matched with an egg donor, we begin fertility injections on the egg donor to grow multiple eggs for egg retrieval. Once we retrieve eggs, they are immediately fertilized with your partner’s sperm.

When you decide to use frozen eggs

The frozen egg donor IVF process is less involved than using fresh eggs. We work with Fairfax EggBank and they have multiple cohorts of frozen eggs available at any time for purchase and shipping. You can review the donor profiles online and once you have chosen a suitable donor, the eggs can be shipped within a short time frame to arrive at Alabama Fertility Specialists. 

Once you are ready for embryo transfer, the eggs are thawed and they are fertilized with your partner’s sperm. And after the embryos are grown for 5 days, the best embryo can be selected for embryo transfer and any remaining can be cryopreserved for future use. 

Both fresh and frozen eggs afford high chances for a successful pregnancy and can be a wonderful way for our couples to have children.