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Intended Parents

How to Find an Egg Donor

You may need to find an egg donor to continue on your in-vitro fertilization (IVF)and surrogacy journey.

Whether you’re exploring options after a failed IVF cycle or looking for a donor to help you create embryos, understanding how to find the perfect match for your family is key.

Fill out our online contact form if IVF and surrogacy could be right for your circumstances. We can provide you with more information about what to expect from surrogacy with an egg donor.

This article will take a look at egg donation and its role in IVF, where you can find an egg donor, how to choose an egg donor and the costs that come with the process.

How to Find an Egg Donor

Egg donation can be part of the IVF process. You may need to know how to find an egg donor if you or your partner:

  • Have uterine health issues

  • Are a same-sex couple

  • Have experienced repeated IVF failure

  • Have unexplained infertility

  • Do not want to pass genetic conditions

    When you go to find an egg donor, the professional you work with matters. They’ll carefully screen and vet all potential donors based on their own practices as well as Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requirements.

    The FDA regulates the testing of all donors of human cells, tissues and cellular and tissue-based products. Their requirements include:

    • Physical exam
    • Questionnaire
    • Infectious lab tests at an FDA-approved laboratory 30 days before, or up to 7 days after egg acquisition

    In terms of the professionals that can help you find an egg donor, there are:

    Fertility clinics help hopeful intended parents learn why they haven’t been able to conceive, providing treatment plans and options moving forward. More and more clinics have begun adding in-house services to meet customers’ needs and your fertility clinic may have an egg donation program.

    Working with a donor egg bank skips the need for egg retrieval. Any egg donor will need to have met and passed the requirements and medical screening of the donor bank in order to become an egg donor.

    Egg donor agencies are another professional that can help you find an egg donor. Industry professionals in this field will typically have egg donor databases. An egg donor agency will be able to find you a donor that meets your preferences.

    A directed donor is someone that you know like a family member or a friend. In addition to the genetic connection it can provide if they are a relative, directed donors can lessen the overall cost of the process. Legal and psychological factors can help determine if it’s right for your circumstances.

    Choosing  a Professional

    The choice is ultimately yours to make but looking at those options you may be wondering how to find an egg donor and what professional you should do it with.

    Beyond the obvious of meeting all of the FDA requirements and any state laws when it comes to egg donation, here are some examples of questions that may spark what’s important your situation:

    1. What do the steps look like in order to work with you?
    2. What do your services entail?
    3. How much do your services cost?
    4. What are your screening requirements?
    5. What kind of information will we be able to know about the egg donor?

    Contact us online if you need a fertility clinic for your IVF and egg donation journey. We can connect you with reputable fertility clinics that are close.

    Reviewing Egg Donor Profiles

    No matter how you come to egg donation as a way to help grow your family, you have options when it comes to finding an egg donor and what you can choose.

    Egg donor profiles are there to help you sort through your options, providing you with the ability to filter through donors that meet specific criteria you are looking for.

    This could include aspects such as:

    Having a child that looks like you or your partner may be important to you both. It could be height, hair color, eye color or body build. Whatever your preferences are, you can find an egg donor with those traits.

    If religion is a big part of your life and you want that for your child, you can choose a religious egg donor.

    Egg donors are thoroughly screened before they can become donors. There still may be unproven genetic risks or mild symptoms that qualify them as egg donors that you still are not comfortable with.

    Gaining insight into an egg donor’s education and how it helped them become who they are today could play a role in your decision making progress.

    An egg donor profile shows more than just their genetic and medical traits. From how your donor was raised to how they live now, lifestyle could impact your decision.

    If your ethnicity helped shape who you are today, you may want that for your child. You can choose an egg donor who has a similar ethnic background that emphasizes an importance on things like cultural traditions and heritage.

    How do I find the perfect egg donor?

    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What you deem perfect may not meet the same definition as another parent. That’s OK. No matter whom you end up choosing as an egg donor, family is built on love. Love, not genetic background, is the basis of your relationship with your child. 

    Cost of Finding an Egg Donor

    The cost to find an egg donor is entirely dependent on how you do it.

    Directed donation, for example, may have less overall cost than an agency or bank due to directed donors not typically being paid. Although there are still medical and legal expenses that may be needed to be paid for, donor and agency fees would not.

    Here are a couple of examples of industry professionals and what factors into their costs of finding an egg donor:

    Egg Donor Agency

    GoStork noted that the actual cost varies depending on each situation but gave an average figure of $20,000-$60,000. Here’s a breakdown of what made up that average cost:

    • Agency Compensation:  $8,000-$17,000
    • Egg Donor Fees: $10,000-$40,000
    • Legal Fees: $500-$1,500
    • Egg Donor Screening:  $450-$1,000
    • Miscellaneous: $325-$1,400

    The Fertility Agency gave an estimate of $36,000 at the lowest:

    • Agency Program Fee: $8,000+
    • Egg Donor Compensation Fee: $7,000-$12,000+
    • Escrow Management Company Fee: $400
    • Psychological Evaluation: $400
    • Genetic Counseling: $300
    • Legal Fees: $1,500
    • Egg Donor Insurance: $400
    • Travel Expenses: $3,500-$6,000
    • Egg Donor Appreciation Gift: $100
    • IVF/Clinic Costs/Monitoring/Medications: Dependent on your IVF clinic

    Donor Egg Bank

    Egg Bank America broke it down between a frozen egg batches of six to eight eggs ($16,900) vs. a premium batch of six to eight eggs ($20,900) that allows you to choose an egg donor of unique ethnicity.

    Their fee structure is made up of:

    • All donor testing (labs, genetic screening, sonograms, psychological evaluation)

    • All donor medications

    • $5,000 compensation for donor

    • $100/day per diem for donor travel days

    • Travel expenses for donor and a companion (airfare, hotel, rental car, etc.)

    • Donor insurance

    • Retrieval and freezing of eggs

      Cryos International put the price of donor eggs for IVF at $2,550-$2,885 and broke it down like this:

      • Type of Egg Donor: Non-ID and ID release Egg Donor
      • Cost Per Donor Egg: $2,550-$2,885
      • Shipping Cost: $175-$550

      Whether you are looking into using a known donor, egg donor agency or donor egg bank to find an egg donor, you can see the wide range of prices and what goes into those prices with just these examples.

      Be sure to ask questions and be thorough when it comes to choosing your professional as they will directly impact how your journey plays out.

      Where is the best place to find an egg donor?

      It all depends on your circumstances, preferences and how specific your professional allows you to be. Industry professionals give you a wide variety of egg donors to choose from. If cost is a concern, then direct donation may be the best place for you.

      Egg donation could be right for your journey if you or your partner is infertile, a LGBT couple or a single individual. No matter what your reason is for looking into egg donation as a way to grow your family, we’re here for you.

      Fill out our online contact form to find out more about when you might need to find an egg donor.

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