Donor Egg Recipient Program
Our Donor Egg Recipient Program matches you with an anonymous egg donor to help you become pregnant.
If you elect to participate in the anonymous Donor Egg Recipient Program, your participation will be held in confidence.
Health care providers who assist in your care may know that you are a egg donor recipient but they have been instructed to keep this information confidential. At the completion of your cycle, your donor will not be informed of the outcome of the cycle.
It is up to you and your partner to decide with whom to share this information should you conceive. We recommend that you consider whom you will inform and the potential consequences of this decision prior to beginning a cycle of receiving an anonymous egg donation. Our staff psychologist, Dr. Julia Woodward, has helped many couples with the decision of whether to disclose and how to disclose their decision to be a recipient of donor eggs to their family and to the child conceived.
The egg donor’s identity is also protected and you will not be given any information about her. We will discuss our screening and matching procedures with you and make an attempt to incorporate any special requests that you may have in the selection of your donor. If you should use a known donor, she must meet the same screening criteria as our anonymous donors.
Charges for the cycle with either anonymous or known donors is the same with the possible exception of donor compensation. It is your decision to choose whether or not you want to compensate a known donor.
Cost of Procedure
See cost estimates for an estimate of charges that are incurred during an average cycle.
Additional charges for medications, laboratory screening, or other services may be incurred. These charges are also subject to change without prior notice.
A deposit is required prior to beginning a cycle and no medications will be started until the deposit is received. This policy is designed to help us minimize the cost of oocyte donation for our patients.
Questions regarding financial matters should be addressed to our financial representatives at 919-572-HOPE (4673), option #3.
Pre-Cycle Planning
You and your partner will need to complete a history form and testing.
This history form will need to be returned to us before we can begin the matching process. In this form you will provide physical characteristics (height, weight, hair and eye color, and blood type) and genetic or medical history of both partners.
Donors are matched with these characteristics as closely as possible.
We also require that both partners have testing prior to beginning a cycle.
The tests required are:
Female Partner:
- Lab Work: HIV, Hepatitis B antigen, Hepatitis C core antibody, VDRL, Rubella, and Blood Type
- Sonohysterogram (3D Sono): An ultrasound, during which fluid is placed throught the cervix into the uterus to evaluate the shape of the uterine cavity
- Trial embryo transfer: Usually performed with the sonohysterogram
- Pap smear
- For women age 40 or over: Mammogram
- For women age 46 or over: Maternal fetal medicine consult to consider pre-pregnancy cardiovascular testing
Male Partner:
- Lab Work: HIV, Hepatitis B antigen, Hepatitis C core antibody and VDRL
- Semen profile: A specialized semen evaluation that provides us with important information regarding the ability of the sperm to fertilize eggs. The semen profile assists us in deciding whether or not to recommend intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) to assist with fertilization.
Some tests may be performed by your local physician. The results must be current within one year and must be received by us prior to beginning a cycle. Some testing can be scheduled for the same day as your initial recipient evaluation with Dr. Copland.
We will notify you by phone that we have found a match and schedule a date to begin medications.
As standard medical inurance does not cover the egg donor for complications related to donation, you will be required to purchase an egg donor insurance policy. More information can be found at the New Life Agency’s website .
Getting Prepared
A cycle begins when we have matched you with an egg donor. The matching process may take anywhere from three to 12 months.
If you have any ovarian function we will need to suppress this by having you start a medication called Lupron. Lupron is a daily subcutaneous injection.
Before beginning Lupron you will need to have a blood pregnancy test and an ultrasound to evaluate your uterus and ovaries. This may be performed at your local physician’s office if you live far away from Duke.
At this time we will also be starting the donor on Lupron to suppress her ovaries. We will ask both of you to call us when you start your period after beginning Lupron. If you do not start a period after 14 days, please call our office to schedule a serum estrogen level. We will perform a baseline ultrasound after your Lupron period.
Once you have both had a period, we can begin to coordinate your cycles. You will start estradiol transdermal patches — two patches, change twice a week — and the donor will begin the stimulation of her ovaries with fertility medications called gonadotropins.
When the follicles on her ovaries have reached a mature size (generally 10 to 15 days) we will notify you by phone that we are ready for the next step. At the time of this call we will give you instructions to begin your intramuscular progesterone injections (25 mg or 0.5 ml every 12 hours). On this day you will stop the Lupron injections.
We will also schedule sperm collection for the day of egg retrieval. This will generally be two days after the phone call described above and will be in the morning. You may choose to collect at home if you live within 30 minutes of the clinic. Please arrange to pick up a container from us ahead of time.
We have a private room outside the clinic area with visual aids for those wishing to collect at the clinic. Very rarely, we will need to collect a second specimen so please leave a number for us to contact you should this be necessary.
Embryo Transfer
The day after egg retrieval and sperm collection, we will call you with the results of the retrieval (how many eggs retrieved) and the results of fertilization (how many embryos resulted).
At this time we will decide when to transfer embryos into your uterus. Embryo transfer will occur two or three days after retrieval.
On the day of embryo transfer, we will discuss with you the number of embryos that will be transferred. We usually advise couples not to transfer more than two embryos.
The transfer is performed in a room near our laboratory area and requires no special preparation. The discomfort is similar to a Pap smear.
Pregnancy Test
Two weeks after the embryo transfer we will perform a serum (blood) pregnancy test.
The progesterone injections usually prevent a period even if you are not pregnant. If the pregnancy test is negative you will discontinue all medications and will probably begin a period within the next week.
If the pregnancy test is positive, you will continue the supplemental estrogen and progesterone for another six weeks (until 10 weeks gestation when the placenta will be supporting the pregnancy).
Cancellation
There are several reasons why a cycle of anonymous oocyte donation may be cancelled.
The most common reasons are poor stimulation of the donor’s ovaries, excessive stimulation of the donor’s ovaries, the presence of ovarian cysts prior to beginning a cycle, or a change of heart for either the donor or recipient (this is a rare occurrence).
There is no guarantee as to the number of oocytes that will be retrieved, the number that may fertilize, the quality of the recovered oocytes, or that a pregnancy will result. There is also no guarantee that a positive pregnancy test will lead to a live birth.
