XP: Donor eggs

[Deleted]

It was recommended on the IVF board that I re-post here, hope you don't mind.....

The Third Party Reproduction board is dead, so I thought I would ask here if anyone is using donor eggs for their IVF. I'm sure not many people are in this situation....

Long story short, I have had 5 losses with my eggs and we have decided to move on and start investigating donor eggs, as we are fortunate that a donor is covered by my insurance and all we have to pay is the donor fee.

I had a couple questions, if you don't mind me asking....

How did you decide to use donor eggs?
How much did you pay your donor fee?
Did you use a company to search for a donor or did you doctors office have a database?
Did you meet your donor?
What criteria did you use to select your donor?
Do you plan to tell your family/friends?
Did you undergo any counseling?
What was the hardest thing so far in your journey?

I appreciate any response. I am researching the best I can, but hearing from people who are in this situation far outweighs google in my opinion:)

[DrHooch]

I don't have any advice, but I just wanted to say I'm glad to see you back. I remember your post in 3T a couple of weeks ago, and I'm happy to see you haven't given up hope. I wish you the best of luck with this new path!

[IFinTN]

Tagging @jimbobcooter. Can you help connect OP to the TPR gals?

[bluefairy5]

If jetta83306 is around these days, I know she just had success with a DE IVF.

[ronniesgirl]

Never mind! I see you already made your way over here!

[Deleted]

I'm currently 25 weeks pregnant from DE IVF.

How did you decide to use donor eggs? - I'm in my 40's and the IVF stats are abysmal for success. We could only afford one shot so we went right to DE IVF. I had no other issues other than age related stuff and had one prior successful pregnancy (natural & with OE) and our RE felt we had about a 70% shot at success vs. 3-5% with my own eggs.  Financially, it was a no brainer for us.

How much did you pay your donor fee? - Donor fee was $5000 for a first time donor, but there were agency fees too.

Did you use a company to search for a donor or did you doctors office have a database? We went through an agency because our RE maintains a small practice and has no internal pool. We changed agencies half way through the process.

Did you meet your donor? - No. Never had the desire and neither did she.

What criteria did you use to select your donor? - Someone who has as many of my physical features as possible. We wanted our child to look like what we would have had with my OE, where at all possible. We wanted tall, fair skin, blue or green eyes, not black hair, and neutral features (ie no large lips, specific nose, etc.). From there we chose based on how her profile read to us.

Do you plan to tell your family/friends? - I've been open about it with friends. Of our family only my mother, IL's, and one SIL know.

Did you undergo any counseling? - Yes it was required before we could cycle. And very worth every penny. I definitely recommend it, even if you aren't required to do it.

What was the hardest thing so far in your journey? -DE eggs gets sold as the easy solution compared to using OE but it still is not easy. You have to be ready to let go of your DNA being involved, which may come with a mourning process, and then finding a qualified donor is not as simple as it sounds. We had four donors rejected at the medical stage before finally having one approved. Each time it happened it was a huge emotional blow because we would get emotionally attached to each one we picked.. And some offices with internal lists have huge waiting list. And then even after our donor had rock star production, we had terrible fertilization, even with excellent sperm quality and only had two transferable embryos and nothing to freeze. It's just as emotionally draining, even though the success rates are so much higher than with OE.

But over all, our time line from decision to do it to transfer was six months, which is pretty fast. And then our first cycle worked, so I don't want to complain. There aren't many TPR people who came over in the change but I'm always open to helping anyone who has questions so feel free to page me any time. And runcici is here too. She is another success story and may be open to giving you more info.