Egg Donor FAQs

NO, we are not recruiting any “extra” eggs to grow in a cycle than you would not have all ready lost in that cycle. Every cycle you have 20-30 eggs that begin to grow and around cycle day 7, only 1 becomes mature and ovulates. When you take fertility medications, more eggs are stimulated to grow that would normally have been lost that cycle.

The egg retrieval procedure is done in our office, under conscious sedation. It is very similar to having oral surgery, in regards to the medications we use for pain control. The procedure takes approximately 10-15 minutes to retrieve the eggs from the ovaries. You will need to be in the office for about 2-2 ½ hours. Most of this time is giving you instructions, starting the IV for the pain medications, and monitoring you afterwards.

You will need to have someone with you on this day to be responsible for making medical decisions and to drive you home.

We will not release any information, voluntarily, to any recipient or future child. However, if there are court orders forcing us to comply with releasing medical information, we will have no choice. There are no laws governing egg donation, however, most likely the court would look to the current laws regarding sperm donation, as it is very similar. It is EXTREMELY rare that any recipient would pursue this, but we cannot anticipate what the child born from egg donation, at the age of 18, will do.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (the governing body for infertility) recommends an egg donor be limited to six cycles. We currently limit egg donors to 3-4 cycles here at our office. Please contact our office if you desire to do a repeat cycle and we will let you know if you qualify. Once you inform us that you desire to repeat a donation cycle, we then review your previous donation cycles with our IVF team to determine if you are a good candidate or not.

This is a very difficult issue because the recipients have been waiting a long time for a donor cycle and are VERY disappointed when a cycle has to be cancelled or postponed. However, emergencies arise or unexpected situations can occur and you may have no other choice. There is no financial compensation if you need to cancel your donor cycle once you are matched. If you begin the screening process and at any time, feel that being an egg donor is not right for you, please let the donor coordinator know BEFORE we attempt to match you with a recipient couple.

The recipient couple provides a semen sample and the eggs are attempted to be fertilized. Once they become embryos, the Dr. decides how many will be transferred to the recipient and typically, the remaining embryos are frozen for future use. These frozen embryos can be used at a later time for siblings or right away if the first procedure does not produce a pregnancy. Occasionally, the recipient couple does not need the remaining embryos for pregnancy attempts and they will have the choice to donate the embryos to another infertile couple, send them for scientific research or destroy the embryos themselves. We feel it is important to inform our donors of the options the recipient has, so that you can make an informed decision as to whether this is something you are comfortable with. If you are a repeat donor and we were able to retrieve many eggs, we may match you with two recipients for one cycle to split the eggs. This would be determined when you informed us of your desire to be a repeat donor. There is no additional financial reimbursement to you as the donor if we split the eggs between two recipients. It is a way to lessen the costs for some recipients that could not afford to do this procedure otherwise and limits excessive numbers of embryos frozen.

NO. The recipient couple will pay for all your lab testing, Ultrasounds, medications, appointments and procedures. All of your bills from our office will be directly forwarded to the recipient anonymously. We also require all recipients to pay a premium for a supplemental medical insurance policy for you, in case of any complication related to the egg donation process. This is for complications ONLY, not for routine visits. 

If you have Medicaid insurance through the state of Michigan, we cannot accept you as an egg donor in our program due to legal issues with billing.

YES. You will receive a 1099 form from us after your donation cycle. A copy of this is also sent to the government, so you NEED to claim the income. This is a federal law for any income over the amount of $500.  Failure to do so, could result in an audit and/or penalties.