Pregnancy with Donor Eggs
Egg donation is a procedure in which an egg donor donates eggs to a recipient for the purpose of making a pregnancy. While donor eggs may not be the first choice of treatment for someone struggling with infertility, pregnancy with donated eggs offers a very high rate of success. In addition to the success with donor eggs, the recipient is able to experience pregnancy, breast feeding, and the peace of mind that there are no concerns with parental rights or problems typically encountered with adoption. Infertility treatments using eggs from an egg donor is frequently misunderstood, however, women around the world experience the joy of motherhood each year through the use of egg donation. The treatment is more common than what most people think.
Donor Eggs
Any woman who is interested in egg donation and using an egg donor as a way to conceive can speak with an infertility specialist about choosing donor eggs – or even donor embryos – as a means to achieve a pregnancy. Most of time, women use donor eggs – or donated embryos – to overcome infertility due to diminished egg quality and after a failed series of IUI and in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments. Whatever the reasons may be, the benefits of donor eggs and donor embryos for an infertile woman is that both third-party reproductive treatments allow for the experience of getting pregnant, carrying a child and giving birth. Patients generally use donor eggs – or donor embryos – as a fertility treatment for female infertility when:
- The cause of infertility is age related and the patient is over the age of 39
- A woman has high follicle stimulating (FSH) levels
- Low follicle count indicating lower chances of producing multiple eggs with fertility medications
- A low anti-mullerian hormone (AMH) level indicating diminished ovarian reserve
- A patient failed IVF treatment because stimulation of her ovaries did not occur
- The risk of genetic diseases is high due to age or a family history of genetic diseases
- The primary cause of a patient’s infertility is poor egg quality
- Menopause or ovarian failure is early and premature
- Recurrent pregnancy losses, or miscarriages
Typically advancing age affects a woman’s egg quality by causing a reduction in the number of eggs available for fertility treatments as well as a higher rate of genetic mistakes.
Advancing Age
The pregnancy success rates for patients using fresh embryos created from donor eggs are substantially higher than other fertility treatments. This is especially true for women over 40. Choosing an egg donor and using donor eggs with your partner’s sperm or pursing embryo adoption with donated eggs and donated sperm may provide many couples the best chance of bringing home a baby.
A woman has her eggs throughout life. As age advances, the eggs become less efficient at sorting their genetic information and combining with the genetic information from the sperm. This results in an increasing rate of genetic mistakes which can cause problems getting pregnant, cause increased rates of miscarriage, and result in pregnancies with genetic abnormalities such as Down Syndrome. Some estimates indicate that the rate of genetic mistakes at age 40 is 85% and by age 42, 95% of eggs are genetically abnormal after fertilization. By using donor eggs or donor embryos, a woman can have a pregnancy with an egg from a younger donor and drastically reduce the risk of an abnormal pregnancy.
Reducing the risk of an abnormal pregnancy and increasing the chances for a successful pregnancy and healthy baby must be weighed against the financial and emotional costs of treatments using one’s own eggs. Patients should explore all options thoroughly to be certain they are making an informed decision. Fortunately with shared donor egg programs and the California Conceptions Donor Embryo Program, there are affordable choices.
California IVF Egg Donor Programs
California IVF Fertility Center offers shared and non-shared donor egg programs. The shared donor egg program is a popular choice for patients looking for a cost effective means to increase the chances of success but still use their partner’s sperm for fertilization of the eggs. By sharing the cost of the egg donor, the shared donor egg program offers a very high rate of success at a fraction of what other clinics charge for donor eggs. Our donors programs collect the eggs from the donors as patients are preparing for the transfer. Patients should be cautious about programs that charge similar rates but provide 6 frozen eggs. It is very possible to have only 1 embryo for transfer in a program that can be more expensive than our program. Usually programs offering frozen eggs have higher costs and lower overall success than using your own egg donor. Patients that would like to increase the opportunity for frozen embryos that could lead to genetic siblings in the future should consider our non-shared program.
California IVF Fertility Center in Sacramento offers very competitive pricing for our donor egg program. Patients frequently travel from other large cities such as San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and New York due to our lower cost and very high success rate. Many of our patients come from overseas due to restrictions on oocyte donation. In most cases, the shared donor egg program costs less than $20,000 including the donor fees, medication, and associated procedures.
