What is Egg Donation?
When traditional IVF is not a viable option for individuals, the use of donor eggs or donor sperm may be worth considering. Egg donation is a process that involves a donor who provides eggs to a recipient for the purpose of getting pregnant.
Who are İdeal Candidates for Using Egg Donation?
Female infertility is a factor in roughly half of all the cases that fertility doctors treat. Age and poor egg quality and quantity is the most common factor that affects fertility.
Generally, the women that have poor-quality or no eggs, but still want a biological child are the ideal example for the individuals that use egg donation.
Also; women with no ovaries but an intact uterus and women over the age of 42 may consider using egg donation.
In the case of genetic factors that individuals don’t want to pass to their children, using egg donation is also a fact that needs to think of.
Who are İdeal Candidates for Egg Donation?
Being an egg donor is a serious case where the egg donors undergo lots of psychological and medical screening.
To be an ideal candidate for egg donation, the individual has to require all the conditions such as a healthy medical history, physical exam, and ovarian reserve assessment.
Egg donors are healthy young women, usually between ages 21 and 30.
How Egg Donation Process is Performed?
The egg donation process mostly looks like an IVF egg collection and transfer procedure. The main difference is the eggs are retrieved from the donor and after fertilized implanted in the recipient. Let’s see how it is performed step by step;
1- Hormone injections to induce ovulation; To achieve multiple eggs at one time, the egg donor will get hormone injections. The injections help get a large number of eggs to mature at the same time.
2- Egg Retrieval; When the eggs are mature enough the egg donor will be ready for egg retrieval. For the egg retrieval procedure, the donor will be put under sedation. With an ultrasound-guided needle, the surgeon will carefully retrievals the eggs out of the donors ovaries over the course of 15 to 20 minutes. After this part egg donor’s role is completed.
After taking the eggs from the donor, the eggs will sent to an embryologist for evaluation before frozen or fertilization.
IVF with Donor Eggs
IVF involves several steps — ovarian stimulation, egg retrieval, sperm retrieval, fertilization and embryo transfer. When it comes to IVF with donor eggs, the part of the process involving the ovarian stimulation and egg retrieval are produced from the egg donor. In essence, the rest is performed in a similar way as it is in the IVF procedure.
The donated egg is fertilized in a laboratory using the recipient’s partner’s sperm. After the egg has divided and become an embryo, it is then transferred into the recipient’s uterus. The rest of the embryos may be frozen for a secondary or more pregnancy.
The donor and the recipient’s cycles are synchronized using medication if the IVF treatment is planned at the same time. If frozen oocytes are used, donor ovulation is not stimulated.
Success Rates of IVF with Donor Eggs
The success rates of IVF with egg donors mostly results with the embryos implanting into the uterine lining and develop into a healthy baby. The study outcomes shows that about 12 percent of all IVF cycles involve the use of donor eggs and the success rates of donor egg IVF are around 52 percent.
Is Egg Donation Painful?
Generally egg donation is not defined painful. However there are a few possible sensations and side effects that the individuals may experience.
The first major step in the egg donation is the hormone injections to stimulate ovulation. This process involves several injections and requires self-administered by the egg donor. This part may give pain and physical discomfort for some individuals.
The hormone injections includes more than one drugs and may cause some side effects on the egg donor. Most common ones thats reported are; bloating, breast tenderness, bruising at the injection site, mood swings, and/or an upset stomach.
Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) is also a risk to consider for egg donors. It’s recommended to report any symptoms to your doctor. OHSS symptoms mostly characterized with cramping, bloating, nausea, diarrhea, and ovary tenderness.
Egg retrieval process is done under sedation anesthesia. During the egg retrieval process, the egg donor will not experience any pain or discomfort, thanks to the sedation.
After the egg retrieval, the egg donor generally feels groggy and will need someones company. Some mild cramping and light bleeding may be experienced for a few days but these symptoms will last in a week time.