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The Egg Donation Process

Author: John Adam
by John Adam
Posted: Sep 16, 2014

Women who choose to donate their eggs are committed to an extensive procedure that can sometimes be unpleasant due to the hormones they’re required to take to stimulate the production of eggs. This is one of the reasons why the psychology of donors is screened in order to make sure they’re able to handle the stress of the experience.

Eggs are not randomly harvested and stored in a giant freezer somewhere. After a donor has gone through all the required testing and meets the requirements of a viable donor based on the clinics guidelines, information about her race, ethnicity, religious background, education and health background and often age are placed in a database. Those looking for an egg donor purse this database until they find a donor or two who appeals to them. The potential recipient sends a letter providing some information about themselves and the donor uses this information to decide if she will donate her eggs to that particular recipient.

After a match has been made, legal papers need to be filled and associated preliminary medical criteria needs to be completed. A multi-step medical process is started before the actual egg harvesting begins.

First, the donor and recipient’s menstrual cycles are synchronized through the use of medications. A fertility physician monitors the donor’s ovarian function before suppressing her natural ovulation cycle through daily injections of gonadotropin agonists. During this period a donor goes through blood tests and vaginal ultrasounds for monitoring.

When the donor and recipient’s cycles are in sync, the donor takes a new dose of chemical injects to stimulate the release of mature eggs. Women generally release a single egg during monthly ovulation, but during the ovarian stimulation process, women will release several.

At the same time the recipient uses medication to thicken the lining of her uterus for embryo implantation and to suppress her own ovulation.

The egg development from the donor is closely monitored and when the follicles are fully developed, she injects herself with human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) to release her eggs. During the same period of time, the recipient takes progesterone injections to thicken the lining of uterus.

The timing of egg donation retrieval is delicate and must be done within 34 to 36 hours after the hCG injection. The egg retrieval is done with an ultrasound guided needle while the donor is under anesthesia.

The collected eggs are combined with sperm and placed in a tube for a few days incubation as the fertilized egg transforms into an embryo. The embryo is placed into the recipient’s uterus using a tube inserted through the cervix.

Most of the time all harvested eggs are inseminated and any embryos not implanted legally belong to the recipient and can be used for future invitro fertilization attempts if the first one didn’t work.

The process of being an Egg Donor is complicated and not without medical risks because of the amount of medications that need to be taken. Those considering egg donation need to be aware of this before making the commitment. Compensation is generally in the range of $5,000, an amount recommended by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

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Author: John Adam

John Adam

Member since: Sep 11, 2014
Published articles: 21

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