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Donor conception

For anyone with experience of sperm or egg donation to share support and advice. Please remember this board isn’t for debate about donor conception.

Donor embryo

6 replies

GreyGoose1980 · 13/11/2019 20:46

Hi all
After failed ivfs with my OE we are currently at the stage of considering both an egg and sperm donor. In this case it seems to me a donor embryo may be the way forward? Has anyone experienced donor embryo treatment? How easy is it to have donor embryo treatment in the UK or do people tend to go abroad? If possible I’d like any future child to be able to trace both donors. I’d be very grateful for anyone who has experience or knowledge of this to share experience / advice. Many thanks in advance.

OP posts:
Persipan · 14/11/2019 06:50

Hello!

I've had several rounds of treatment with both donor eggs and donor sperm, and I'm currently almost 19 weeks pregnant following my most recent cycle.

I'd draw a distinction between 'donor embryos' - clinics that have frozen embryos available ready to use - and 'double donor' treatment where you use both an egg and a sperm donor but the two are brought together at the time of your treatment.

In the UK, the law requires that donor information be made available to any donor-conceived child once they turn 18, giving then the opportunity to potentially establish contact with their donors. In other countries the law can be very different - in the majority of the European destination countries for IVF, the law requires absolute anonymity. (There might theoretically be the possibility that family DNA services like Ancestry might one day help children in this circumstance trace donors, but of course it's hard to know how a donor who has signed up under the expectation of anonymity would respond to this.) Personally, it was a priority for me that any child have the opportunity to have this information in future, so I chose to stay in the UK for treatment. (It's also worth being aware that laws around who can access treatment vary wildly from country to country, so for example single people and same-sex couples may have a more limited range of options in terms of treatment location.) Treatment in Europe can be considerably cheaper in some circumstances, and is generally considered to be very modern and effective.

Donor embryos are relatively unusual to find in the UK (they're more common in the US, but there are often religious expectations around the recipients). They would generally be donated by couples who had completed their own treatment, so there would potentially be full genetic siblings somewhere out there. The advantage of using existing embryos is that, well, they exist! So you can be reasonably confident that you will get to transfer with a good-quality embryo, rather than having to wait to see how they fertilise and develop.

Some European clinics do have donor embryos available - it's worth checking the details of these. In some cases they essentially create double-donor embryos ready for use; in others they are the remaining embryos from other couples' treatment. In the latter case it's also worth checking whether they have genuinely been donated by the couples involved - I know of at least one clinic where they use embryos which couples have essentially left in storage but not come back for, rather than explicitly choosing to donate them.

If you choose to pursue double-donor treatment, you'll usually have a guaranteed minimum number of eggs available (sometimes with the possibility that the actual number could be higher). In the UK, one option is to use an egg-share donor - someone who needs IVF for whatever reason, but has good-quality eggs which they are willing to donate. In effect, you pay for (most or all of) their treatment, and they donate half their eggs (in some circumstances, you would get less than half, but there's a guaranteed minimum number). The waiting lists for egg-share donors can be shorter than for fresh eggs donated in other circumstances, and the aspect of helping someone else may also appeal to you, although it can be emotionally complicated if either the donor or recipient conceives and the other doesn't.

Fresh eggs are generally considered to have a higher success rate. The treatment involves synching up your cycle and the donor's, which can take a little time.

If you were to use frozen eggs, these can be available more quickly, and the protocol is more like an FET. With frozen eggs, you would also tend to have more choice of donors, since there isn't a waiting list involved in the same way.

Phew! I hope that helps a bit. Feel free to ask if I can be of more help!

GreyGoose1980 · 14/11/2019 20:51

Thanks very much for your informative reply @Persipan.
Great to hear you are 19 weeks.
We initially thought of seeking a donor embryo that was already created as we felt it may be less expensive than purchasing both sperm and eggs. However I will also explore ‘double donor’ especially if this is more easily available in the UK. Our current clinic have said donor embryos are relatively rare in the UK and more readily available abroad. I briefly looked at Reprofit in the Czech Republic as they offered donor embryos however I don’t know if anonymity would be the right choice for us...Lots to think about....

OP posts:
EarlGreyT · 14/11/2019 21:51

I just wanted to add to @Persipan’s comprehensive post and say that if you are going to have double donor treatment (rather than donated embryos) you don’t necessarily have to synch your cycle with your donor.

Some clinics will do the egg collection and fertilisation and then routinely freeze all the embryos for you to have a transfer at a later date as this means they don’t have to worry about syncing your cycle with your donor and they say their success rates are the same for fresh transfer as they are for frozen.

This isn’t the same as using frozen eggs as frozen embryos have a higher success rate then frozen eggs.

Carajillo · 15/11/2019 10:19

Hi,
Just to add to the brilliant posts above, I am a mum to 13 year old donor embryo conceived twins and I went to Spain for my treatment. 13 years ago the law in the UK had only just changed and waiting lists were 5 years hence my choice. However, my children are definitely affected by having only the age and blood group of their donors and would like to know more as well as finding their donors/half siblings. They are aware of the law in the UK and say they would rather I had chosen an ID release donor. Having said that, I have been open and honest from birth about their conception and I believe this has gone a long way to help them discuss and talk about any issues they have. I would recommend having a look at the Donor Conception Website and maybe calling their helpline for a chat. It is a very hard decision but it is worth doing the research now so that you can be as confident as possible that you have made the best choice for you. Leaving the door open for your child to find out about their donor is something to think about. www.dcnetwork.org/home-or-overseas

GreyGoose1980 · 15/11/2019 16:08

Hi
@EarlGreyT - thanks for the additional information.
@Carajillo - thanks for sharing your twins’ perspective.
My preference is for Id release. I will do some more research on clinics and the regulations in various European countries as am not yet familiar with these. We’d initially ruled out the UK due to availability and also the cost, but will review them all together along with the dcnetwork website. Thanks again all.

OP posts:
An0ther · 14/01/2020 21:29

Hi we want to go for embryo adoption because I’m 41 and we have only been able to scrape enough for that so...... this is our last chance so I want to Mack sure I deffo get pregnant. I will be devastated if I didn’t get pregnant. We have borrowed to get this far. I don’t have any children but one step son and because of this I don’t get any help from Nhs, I did wait until I found my soul mate and want to have a baby with.
We have contacted a Spanish clinic (on Christmas Day they have only just replied) we have a pricelist that states we could afford two goes for the same price as the clinic in manchester
We really want to make this time work could do with some help in deciding at the moment we are leaning towards the manchester clinic due to the quick response of manchester clinic

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