Helping couples create their family
Melbourne IVF provides an egg donation program for women unable to conceive using their own eggs. You will need to find your own donor (known as Recipient Recruited Donation), but if you are unable to find a donor we can provide advice on advertising. As a clinic, we do not recruit egg donors.
Who can be an egg donor?
Ideally, donors should be aged between 25 and 40 years, and have completed their own family. Prior to proceeding with donation, all potential egg donors (and their partners if applicable) will undertake screening blood tests and we will also ask donors to complete a Genetic and Medical Health Questionnaire. If this indicates a family history of genetic conditions, a clinical geneticist assesses the donor’s suitability.
Can egg donation help me?
You may be considering using donated eggs if you are unable to use your own eggs, for example:
- if you have gone through a premature menopause
- if there is a risk of passing on a genetic disease
- if your ovaries have been affected by chemotherapy or serious illness, or
- if you have had IVF treatment but repeated cycles have indicated poor egg quality
The egg donation process
1. Egg donor counselling
After an initial consultation with your fertility specialist, counselling is scheduled for the recipient and donor (and their partners if applicable), and is mandatory to discuss the implications of egg donation. This is an opportunity to consider every aspect of being involved with the donor program, and helps everyone make an informed decision.
2. Donor IVF cycle
Should the donor and recipient decide to go ahead, IVF treatment will be co-ordinated so that the recipient and donor cycles are synchronised. This allows the eggs to be collected from the donor and transferred to the recipient at the optimum time.
Your fertility specialist will monitor the donor to determine when to collect the eggs using vaginal ultrasounds and blood tests. The egg collection procedure is usually performed under a light sedative or general anaesthetic, and takes around 20 minutes. It is usually performed in our East Melbourne Specialist Day Hospital.
At the time of egg collection the recipient’s partner (if appropriate) provides semen, which we use to fertilise the eggs in the laboratory.
Two to five days after the egg collection and fertilisation, one of the resulting embryos is transferred into the recipient and any other viable embryos are frozen for potential future transfer. After two weeks, a pregnancy test is carried out.
The pregnancy rate when using donated eggs is directly related to the age of the donor, and the number and quality of the eggs. Your fertility specialist will be able to advise you further about this at the time of your consultation.
Find out more about our egg donor program:
> Phone our Egg Donor Program Nurse on (03) 9473 4401
> Contact us for further information about egg donation
> Download our Egg Donation Patient Information booklet, which tells you more about becoming or using an egg donor
