How to Go about Egg Donation

WHO reports on infertility rates all over the world indicate how the numbers haven’t changed much in the past twenty years. On a rough estimate, 12 percent of this globe’s adult population suffers from the inability to reproduce.

A woman may have low egg reserves, be over-age(40 or above), or carry an abnormality that creates hindrances in her way of getting pregnant.

The donation of eggs has surfaced as a solution to many such cases of infertility. Women who are fertile can give up a few of their eggs to the women who aren’t. A healthy egg from a healthy woman increases the chances of getting impregnated. It serves as an incredible support and allows willing women(who are otherwise unable to) to become mothers.

If you are in fact considering egg donation, congratulations! You are about to make someone’s life better. Let’s educate you on the requirements and methodology of this process.

The Donor Screening Process

If you wish to donate eggs, you need to go through a thorough screening first. Many rules govern the system of retrieving eggs from a woman’s body.

Your age should fall between 22 and 30. While fluctuations are possible here, the age window is necessary because it is when women have the largest egg stores of all time and are most fertile.

A physical exam will test for any diseases that can get transferred to the embryo. The list involves Chlamydia, HIV-1 or 2, Hepatitis C antibody, Hep B (Surface Ag or Core Ab), and a few more.

The doctors will sit you down for a psychological analysis. It will be for two primary reasons. First, it will provide insights about the baby that will carry your DNA. and second, it will help you understand and make a decision while the doctors can be sure that you are under no wrong impressions.

There will be legal paperwork and consent form for you to fill out. You will have to pass the genetic screening to catch any chromosomal abnormalities or defects that may get passed on to the embryo.

The doctors will conduct a baseline ultrasound to determine the quality and health of your egg follicles. The test usually takes place on the third day of a menstruation cycle.

Your Donor Profile

Your donor profile contains information about you that sheds light on your performance in academics or employment, talents, hobbies, etc. However, it refrains from including any bit that may lead to your identification as the donor.

What Happens after You Get Chosen?

The egg donation process involves suppression of menstrual cycle and hyper ovarian stimulation followed by retrieval.

Syncing your cycle with the recipient's is necessary and is achieved by suppressing yours. The doctor will give you a few drugs in the beginning to contain your menstrual cycle. You will probably have to self-administer the hormones(Lupron, for example) on a daily basis.

After achieving parallel cycles for the two of you, your daily injections will be changed to gonadotropin. Gonadotropin works towards stimulating your ovaries to release multiple follicles. These follicles contain eggs.

After regular ultrasounds confirm that the eggs have matured, you will get a trigger shot to ensure full maturity in the eggs. Two days after this, the retrieval will occur. While you will be sedated, the doctor will use a needle to get to your ovary via the cervix and fetch the eggs.

The retrieval procedure may require half an hour. However, you will need a day’s rest afterwards.

You Can Only Donate Eggs Six Times

Egg retrieval is a discipline that needs a lot of perfecting. Restricting you from donating by giving you a limit of six times is necessary for many good reasons.

Gonadotropin injections have to be monitored extremely carefully because any imbalance poses a danger of causing hyperstimulation syndrome. Giving you a free pass to egg donation, besides the threat of hyperstimulation syndrome, can also leave you exposed to side effects or damage your ability to reproduce.

On the other hand, there is the ethical dilemma around inadvertent consanguinity. What if a child born of one of your eggs ends up procreating with another child born of your eggs? Since the donation process is strictly governed by rules that are bound to protect your identity, both the persons would have no way of knowing who may or may not be their half-sibling. By restricting the numbers of times one donates eggs or sperms, authorities are trying to minimise the chances of consanguinities.