Become an Egg Recipient Parent
Overview
The Texas Fertility Center is pleased to offer donor oocyte services to patients in the Central Texas area and beyond. We offer recipient couples the options of choosing a donor from our own select pool, coordinating donation with a known person (sister, friend, or other family member), or working with an established donor egg agency. TFC is continuously adding to our own pool of donors. Our donor pool is designed to represent various ethnic groups, and it consists of healthy women 21-32 years of age. We maintain an ongoing advertising and recruiting effort designed to attract eligible young women who wish to donate their eggs in order to provide compatible matches for women who would otherwise not be able to conceive.
Process
First Step
Recipient couples typically make the decision to pursue donor egg IVF with the help of their TFC physician. If you are not an existing TFC patient, you must schedule an initial consultation with one of our physicians. At that meeting, your doctor will determine what elements of testing will be required and review the entire process with you. Following that meeting, an additional meeting with our Donor Coordinator will be scheduled in order to provide further details about the program, and coordinate the screening tests, donor selection, and stimulation process.
Initial Screening Tests
Initial screening for the recipient female involves a uterine evaluation, blood testing, and a Pap smear. A routine mammogram is required for women over age 40, and those over 45 are required to have an EKG, Chest X-ray, and an OB clearance. The male partner will typically undergo blood testing and a semen analysis. A psychological evaluation of each couple, performed by a licensed psychologist or social worker, is required for all recipient couples.
Stimulation and Coordination of Cycles
Once the initial screening and donor selection process is complete, coordinated synchronization of the recipient and donor cycles is accomplished through the use of oral contraceptive pills and Lupron. The remainder of the stimulation protocol will be managed on an individual basis as determined by your physician. Preparation of the uterus for implantation involves taking oral estrogen pills for several weeks, followed by initiation of progesterone injections on the day of the donor’s egg retrieval. The initiation of uterine preparation usually precedes the stimulation of the donor by approximately one week.
On the day of the egg retrieval, the male partner provides a fresh semen sample to be used to fertilize the eggs. The following day, one of our donor coordinators or IVF nurses will notify the couple about the number of eggs fertilized. Embryo development will be monitored on a daily basis, and the majority of patients will undergo the embryo transfer on the fifth day following the donor’s retrieval. The embryos have typically reached the blastocyst stage at that time. In our experience with our donor program, this is the embryonic developmental stage which will yield our recipient couples the highest chance for a viable pregnancy. The pregnancy test is performed two weeks after the egg retrieval, which is nine days following a blastocyst transfer. If the test result is positive, the recipient will be instructed to continue her hormone (estrogen and progesterone) supplementation.
