Egg Donor Program
AFS's Egg Donor Program
Until recently, a woman who was unable to use her own eggs (oocytes) to have a baby had no chance to experience pregnancy and childbirth. Today, thanks to egg donation, women with this form of infertility may now have the chance to experience the joy of childbirth and start their own families using eggs donated by other women.
AFS's Egg Donor Program helps infertile women to build families using donated eggs. In most cases, the egg recipients in our program are women who previously were unable to conceive a pregnancy with their own eggs due to either ovarian failure, a depleted or diminished ovarian reserve, a lack of ovaries, or a lack of success after repeated attempts to use their own eggs. Other women have chosen egg donation at AFS because they wished to avoid the possibility of transmitting a significant genetic illness for which they were known to be a carrier. For all these women, egg donation by a healthy donor may allow their dreams of having a family come true.
In an egg donation cycle, the donor is treated with fertility drugs to stimulate the formation of a group of healthy eggs; meanwhile the recipient is treated with hormones to synchronize her cycle with the donor's and prepare her uterine lining for implantation. The donor's eggs are then removed from her ovaries in an egg retrieval procedure. These eggs are then fertilized with the recipient's partner's or donor's sperm, and the embryos that result are transferred into the uterus of the recipient woman. Usually only two embryos of high quality will be transferred at one time to prevent a multiple pregnancy of more than twins from taking place. The remaining high-quality embryos may be cryopreserved (frozen) for future transfer, which is especially helpful in the event that the initial transfer does not produce a pregnancy.
Our Egg Donor Program is looking for women ages 21-32 who wish to help infertile women by becoming egg donors. Previous donors to our Egg Donor Program have almost without exception described their participation in the program as an extremely rewarding and deeply moving experience. Retrievals are done on an outpatient basis in our office, and donors can usually resume their normal activity within 2 days.