Egg Donor FAQ

Central Coast Surrogacy, LLC works in conjunction with the best fertility clinics. We help women who are unable to produce their own eggs achieve a pregnancy through the use of donated eggs and if needed, surrogacy. The donated eggs are fertilized with the sperm of the recipient’s partner, and the embryos that form are then transferred to the uterus of the recipient.

There are many reasons why infertile couples need donor eggs in order to conceive a baby. The most common use of egg donation is to treat women in their 30s and 40s who have run out of fertile eggs and are unable to get pregnant on their own. The age of a woman’s eggs is the main factor that determines her fertility from her teens until her mid-30s. This is the time of her life when she ovulates her best and most healthy eggs.

By the time a woman reaches her 40s, she will have used up her healthy eggs. The majority of eggs that remain in her ovaries by that time will have abnormal chromosomes and are incapable of producing a healthy baby.

Other women lose their ovaries or have damaged ovaries due to the result of surgery or treatment for various cancers, endometriosis, or pelvic infections.

A very small percentage of women suffer from early menopause and run out of eggs before they have their children.

Although a woman may run out of healthy eggs in her 40s or lose her ovarian function to premature menopause or surgery, her uterus remains a healthy place to have a baby well into her 40s. Since it is the age of her eggs, or her lack of eggs, and not the health of her uterus that determines whether she can have a baby, receiving eggs from a young, fertile woman is a great solution to many couples’ infertility problems.

After being selected by a recipient family, and passing medical and psychological screening tests, you will participate in the first half of an in vitro fertilization cycle. in vitro or IVF is the process of retrieving eggs and fertilizing them in a petri dish.

Your job is to make eggs! You do not carry the pregnancy or have any other responsibilities beyond that.

Medication brand names may vary from clinic to clinic, but the process and procedure you will experience as a donor should be very similar to the description that follows.

You begin the process by taking birth control pills for 21 days which will help to “down-regulate” your ovulation and synchronize your menstrual cycle with that of the woman you are donating to.

Upon completing your pill pack, you’ll begin injections of FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone) a hormone that women naturally produce as they ready for ovulation) for the next 12 days. Common brand names are Follistim or Gonal-F.

This hormone is injected into the top fat layer of the skin (not into a vein) with a very tiny needle. Additionally, you’ll take one or two supporting medications that work in conjunction with the FSH. After a short training session with a medical provider, donors become comfortable injecting themselves, but a friend or partner may also help out if they are on the same daily schedule as you.

Injections need to be given between 7-9 pm each evening without fail. The medications you will be taking stimulate your ovaries to mature multiple eggs – usually about 15-20, rather than one, which is what your ovaries normally produce each month.

While you are receiving this medication, you will be very closely monitored through blood samples and trans-vaginal ultrasound to see how the follicles (eggs) are developing. The ultrasound is painless. You will need to go to the fertility clinic for a short appointment approximately 8 times over the course of a week and a half for this testing. You must have flexibility in your schedule to attend these appointments.

They cannot be missed or rescheduled. You will be given plenty of advance notice of when these appointments will take place so you can plan for them.

When the doctor determines that the follicles (eggs) are nearing maturity (they can tell by ultrasound), you will stop taking the FSH hormone and you will receive one final injection of a different medication which will allow the eggs to become completely mature and ready for release.

Before they are released, however, the doctor will remove the eggs during your egg retrieval, which lasts about 15-20 minutes. During this procedure, you are given medication to fully sedate you. You will be completely “out” and will not remember anything when you wake up.

Because you are fully asleep, the procedure itself is not painful. A needle is guided via ultrasound into the ovaries to aspirate the eggs. This is done through the back of the vagina. You will be sleepy for the rest of the day because of the sedation and should not plan on returning to work or school that day. You will also need a ride home from the clinic.

You’ll need to rest the remainder of the day; you may have some cramping, bloating, or discomfort but generally by the next day you should be able to return to school or work. Some donors will need a few extra days to start to feel back to normal, so it is best if you have a little bit of flexibility in your schedule around the time of retrieval.

Your period will return about 2 weeks later and should resume the normal pattern and regularity that you had before the procedure. If you were using birth control pills for your regular method of birth control, you will re-start them at that time. Your personal fertility remains unchanged.

Once the eggs are retrieved, they are “cleaned”, inspected and placed in a petri dish where they will be fertilized. There, they will grow and develop into embryos. Three to five days later, one of the embryos will be placed into the uterus of the woman you are donating to. While you are taking your medications, she will be using estrogen and progesterone to prepare her uterus for a possible pregnancy.

She will receive her first pregnancy test approximately 2 weeks after the embryos have been implanted. Any embryos that were not placed in her uterus will be frozen so that the recipient couple may have several attempts at getting pregnant.

If a couple is lucky enough to get pregnant on their first try, they will often attempt to try again in another year or two to conceive a second child. There is a high probability that your couple will become pregnant as success rates with donor eggs are now approximately 75%.

Once you are selected by a recipient, the medical and psychological screening appointments take place over the next several weeks. If you successfully complete the medical and psychological screening, then a legal contract with be drafted and reviewed by both you and the intended parents. The egg donation cycle itself takes approximately 6 weeks to complete. Overall, please count on a 3-4 month commitment to the process.

The simple answer is that it varies. Some donors are selected immediately, some wait several months for a match. We try to accept women I believe will have the best chances of being matched.

To improve your chances of matching, complete your profile professionally, using complete sentences and proper grammar, use clear pictures from different ages and other blood relatives, clearly label pictures, make sure your resume is up to date, make sure transcripts are up-to-date, upload any certificates or awards, make sure your annual physical and pap smear is current and medical records are loaded into the system.

You should be available and willing to start the process for at least 4 months from the time you complete your application. It's important to remember that not every donor is matched. Intended parents have the option to look at and select from all available donors.

No. A woman naturally goes through more than a thousand eggs each month to select the single one that is ovulated. The eggs that don’t complete the development process normally dissolve and are absorbed by the body. The fertility medication you will receive preserves a portion of these excess eggs that the body would ordinarily discard. No extra eggs are used up in the process.

If you are within 6 months of your 21st birthday, you may begin the application process. Statistically, donors over 31 do not produce the necessary quality or quantity of eggs for this process, and therefore do not give couples the best chances of succeeding. You may still be fertile, but with advanced age, “older” eggs will not work as well in this process.

Yes, you may begin the screening process while on any of these types of birth control. You will be asked to have the patch or NuvaRing removed and to have 1 complete cycle before the medical clearance. It is typical for IVF clinics to request that a potential surrogate be on a monthly birth control pill.

Yes, if it’s a ParaGard non-hormonal IUD. No, if it’s a Mirena IUD which releases hormones.

No, you cannot donate while Depo Provera is active in your system as it interferes with ovulation. You must wait 6 months after the date of your last shot and have approximately 2-3 normal periods before you proceed with the donor screening process.

Yes, you may.

No, because the amount of eggs available at the time of retrieval will be greatly reduced.