LEB vs Care - egg donor

[99pctpractice]

Hello - just wondering if anyone has any experience of Care for egg donors? We're already registered with the London Egg Bank but it looks like the pricing is a lot more reasonable with Care (base price of 10,500 with 9 donated eggs vs 14,000 with 10 donated eggs at LEB). The only thing is that with LEB you can see the potential donors online for free whereas with Care you have to pay £500 to see the donors and i asked Care to tell me know how many donors they have on average in their bank and they refused to. I don't really want to pay only to find out that they only have 20 donors or something and no one close to matching our physical characteristics. They also don't seem to publish success rates from donor eggs...so any experiences of others would be very helpful!! Thanks v much!

We went with LEB. Even though they advertise ten eggs you often get 12 and can ask for the exact amounts when selecting the donor. LWC isn’t perfect and there are elements that frustrated us with the admin side and it does feel a bit commercial and at times impersonal. However we found their implantation clinic and Drs there excellent and had DD on our second FET (double transfer) so can’t thank them enough for that. I heard on forums that Care didn’t have as many donors to select from but have no direct experience of this and that was a couple of years ago so it may have changed.

Hey @99pctpractice

What did you decide in the end? I'm currently pondering the same thing... I'm with Care and have been given access to the egg bank which has been disappointing to say the least. There aren't many donors and you don't get to read the full profile without reserving the eggs and waiting for the office to give you access to the profile which can be time consuming. I'm currently considering moving to LEB but it isn't ideal being this far along with Care and the LEB clinics aren't close by.
I'd really appreciate your feedback.
I hope the journey has been kind to you 🙏 x

Hi @Pippin34 - we ended up going with LEB. I liked the ability to view the donors online and that they had new ones coming on fairly regularly. We went with 10 eggs, they defrosted 12, all survived the thaw, only 6 fertilised, which I was nervous about after having had a near 100% rate with my own eggs, but then 4 made it to blastocyst. They transferred a 4AA and we were lucky enough to get pregnant first time, so I'm now 34 weeks. I know others with LEB have not had such a positive outcome though, and I would recommend going for a donor with proven fertility because that seems to be a helpful indicator of potential success.

I found the experience with LEB/LWC generally a bit patchy (I felt like I had better care with my previous clinics), and it felt quite commercially- , rather than patient-, centric . But ultimately we are (hopefully!) now one step closer to the outcome we wanted, so as long as you don't expect too much hand holding then the process seems to work. We didn't have any issues other than my age/egg quality, which was resolved by using the donor eggs, so I don't know how well they would deal with any additional complexities (eg immunes, endo etc). Wishing you lots of luck in finding a donor ! 🤞🤞🤞

Thanks for your reply and congratulations!! So pleased it worked out for you!
The issue is my very low ovarian reserve so hopefully there won't be any additional needs to battle, fingers crossed.
Do you mind me asking what the total cost was with LEB? I know they're more expensive than others but it reflects in the ease of viewing the donor profiles. Perhaps that's why they publish them for all to see.
Good luck with everything x

Of course - I think it depends a bit which LWC clinic you go to, and we went to Harley Street because it was the easiest for me to get to from work/home. So the donor ivf cycle cost was £6945 and the cost of 10 eggs was £7500. We already had our blood tests etc from a recent ivf round, so didn't have to get those redone. The cost only included one transfer so if we'd needed another then we'd have had to pay for that too. It was very expensive and it really made me frustrated that the clinic was able to charge an extra £2500 for 4 extra eggs when their costs wouldn't have changed (that would have been from one donor ivf cycle) - the HFEA prohibit the donor from being paid more than £750 per cycle but are fine for the clinics to make more money if the donor produces more eggs! I know there are much more affordable overseas routes (which have better guarantees around blastocysts etc), but we wanted convenience and didn't want donor anonymity...

Hi,

Hope you can help me? I know this post is a little old but we are in a similar situation.

We are looking to continue with egg donor IVF due to DOR and were wondering whether to choose Care or LEB. We had consultations with both and chose Care as they were closer. Our nearest LEB clinic is over 2 hours away.

However we paid the £525 access fee for the Care egg bank and to say I was disappointed with the choice is an understatement. I feel we have been misled as at no point did they tell us there was a shortage of frozen egg donors

Considering now moving to LEB but just wanted to ask for advice or any help moving forward. Did anyone have a positive experience with Care of did everyone end up moving to LEB?

Many thanks for any help you can give me x

Hi @Donoghsc
I stuck with Care as it was easier as we are also around 2hrs from a LEB clinic.
We eventually chose our donor but it took us some time due to the small amount of choice and how drawn out it is getting the full profile. It was starting to cause issues between me and my partner as he was becoming impatient and thought I was being fussy. I stuck it out as I wanted to feel a connection with the donor and I'm so glad I did. If you are not getting that at all with the choice available at Care then perhaps it is best to change as the mental process has been easier for me now I feel happy with the donor.
In terms of the treatment at Care, I haven't had a transfer yet due to cysts so I can't comment on that side of things. The staff are friendly but I don't find the process as organised or clear as Create, who I used before. This is not my first rodeo so that doesn't bother me too much as I kinda know what's going on but it isn't ideal if it's your first treatment.
I did raise the issues around the egg process with Care and they said they are hoping to change this soon (perhaps this has already happened) however this doesn't change their Egg shortage.

Good luck! Xx

Thank you so much for getting back to me. It is much appreciated. I am the exact same. I want to feel a connection with the woman we choose and even with lots of choice, I feel this would take time for me. So the lack of options at Care concerns me .

Best of luck with your future treatment and thank you again xx