Egg Donor with pictures

[lemonmelonapple]

Hello All,

Partner and I are exploring IVF with a donor egg. Just wondering if anyone has experiences with using a donor egg organisation that provides adult pictures of the donors?

Many thanks,

<3

I haven't come across that. We had no photo of our egg donor and a photo of the sperm donor as a child only. It'd be pretty easy to identify an adult donor on social media with their adult photo?

I have a feeling that in the U.K. that wouldn't be permitted. Some places won't even provide a child photo.

I think these things do exist:

For example:
https://catalogue.ovoria.com/

Just curious if others have had experience with them? I understand that UK has anonymity laws, but other countries are different here, for example the scandinavian ones, Norway, Sweden, etc.

You can get photos or even meet the donors by FaceTime in the US.

Why a picture..?

Presumably you might want to pick a donor with a similar features and colouring to you (the mother to be).

So presumably you're looking at going abroad for treatment then? I have to say, in my experience even seeing child photos was unhelpful as inevitably you see things that don't look like you and they're never going to be your double. I found that unhelpful. The clinic I used did the matching, give you confirmation of the key physical characteristics for you to say yes or no. People keep saying my 15 month old looks more and more like me and I chuckle inside every time.

Is info on colouring etc not available anyway? I don't know, but I'd assume so? I know a.family member had basic height/colouring etc info on a sperm donor. Being honest if I could see pictures pictures I'd look and pick a decent looking one, but that's probably why it's (quite rightly) not a thing according to pp.

I’m not aware that this is currently possible anywhere in the UK?

Ovoria bank aren’t approved by HFEA at present. I have personally used them abroad and had a terrible experience (19 eggs and nothing to transfer). Their shipping is also crazy expensive (€1000s) as the situation in Ukraine means everything has to go via Slovakia.

There are a few other frozen egg banks in Europe which offer both child and adult photos. Cryos in Cyprus is the main one but they don’t ship to the UK and I don’t believe any of the others do either.

The place to go is the US where there are quite a lot of banks which will provide you with a full set of ‘lifetime’ photos (Fairfax, Donor Nexus, Donor Egg Bank USA, American Egg Bank, etc.). There’s also Sunshine Agency in South Africa.

Eggdonationfriends could help. They list the best IVF clinics, and pretty well know which clinics (countries) provide pictures of adult egg donors. Hope this helps.

Hey, has anyone else got an experience with Ovoria? I’m considering using them in the UK as they’re now HFEA approved.

@PurpleRayne89 Which clinic are you with? Lister has used them previously. Stats were quite low relative to the other options they offer (it was around 40% live birth rate IIRC compared to approaching 70% for the bank they use in Cyprus). However the sample size was very small so they said not to be too influenced by that.

Actually those figures may have been pregnancy rather than live birth rates. Obviously there’s a difference.

@ListerMummy Thanks. Was Cryos the clinic in Cyprus? Would you suggest moving forward with Ovoria? I’m currently with Acorn Fertility.

The bank they use in Cyprus is ISIS and I know they’ve been very pleased with the results from there. It doesn’t compare with Ovoria though as the team does the matching for you rather than you browsing a catalogue yourself. There are no photos available to recipients.

Not egg donor but I have adult pictures of my sons sperm donor from a US bank (I’m in the UK). I don’t see why it wouldn’t be the same for egg donor pictures there? Technically due to different privacy laws in the UK you aren’t supposed to have donor pictures (so I wasn’t allowed to purchase the photos only see them), but at least then you still know what the donor looks like so have some idea of similarity of features to you (and as a big bonus might be able to copy the watermarked photos to show your DC if they ask 😁).

@IamnotwhouthinkIam Yes you’d think this, wouldn’t you? Yet options for donor eggs are a long way behind options for donor sperm in the UK at present. I looked into shipping eggs from a US bank but all either gave a blanket no that they just don’t ship to Europe or said they’d need to set-up a contract with a clinic here which is very lengthy bureaucratic process. Clinics here in the UK would need to get HFEA approval which they’re reluctant to get involved with for an individual case. AFAIK none have existing contracts? I was keen to get started so it made more sense to fly over there.