Treatment with donor eggs
Treatment with donor eggs
Donor egg treatment involves three people: the egg donor, the egg recipient and the person who provides the sperm to fertilise the donor’s eggs. This could be your husband or partner, or a sperm donor. At AVA-Peter, the egg donor is normally an anonymous donor matched to you from our database. Our doctors meet our donors personally, so that the matching is as individual as possible. If you do not come to AVA-Peter for an Initial Consultation, we use your photographs and the information you provide to ensure a suitable match.
Parameters for treatment using donor eggs
At AVA-Peter, we accept egg recipients up to the age of 50 in our egg donation (ovum donation) programme. Anonymous egg donation is allowed under Russian law, and there is no waiting list for people seeking donor eggs. If you prefer to bring your own donor (such as a relative or friend), we can work this way too. However, most of our patients prefer to use an anonymous donor.
All the egg donors in the AVA-Peter databank are aged under 30 and have at least one child of their own. Their average age is just 26. Once we have matched you to a suitable donor and you have approved the match, your donor egg treatment can begin.
Synchronising the menstrual cycles
Both the egg donor and the egg recipient need to be at the start of their menstrual cycles in order to start egg donation treatment. So the first step is to synchronise the two menstrual cycles. Even if you no longer have a menstrual cycle, or do not have a regular menstrual cycle, we can induce it to begin at the right time. This is done by prescribing birth control tablets (combined oral contraception tablets) to the donor and the recipient according to the agreed schedule. Sometime recipients need several ‘probe’ cycles to encourage the uterine lining to grow before starting the Embryo Transfer cycle. The tablets are finished on the same date by both the donor and the recipient, leading to a ‘withdrawal bleed’ (menstruation) in both women. Both of you are now ready to start your treatment.
The egg donor’s treatment
Once the egg donor's period begins, she has an ultrasound examination (a scan of the uterus and the ovaries) to make sure the ovaries are inactive and the uterine lining is thin. Your egg donor then takes medication to stimulate her ovaries to produce eggs. After a few days, she has another scan before using another medication to suppress her own hormonal activity and prevent the premature release of egg cells. One or two more scans will be performed during the course of the treatment to monitor the growth of the follicles in her ovaries and the effect of the hormone dosage. After about 10 days, she takes an additional hormone to make the eggs ready for collection. Egg collection is performed by aspirating the eggs from the follicles using a needle introduced into the ovary via the vagina. The process is carried out under general anaesthetic to make it painless for the donor. Your donor is personal to you and you will receive all the eggs that are collected. Your donor then rests for a while to allow the effects of the anaesthetic to wear off, and takes it easy for the rest of the day. Her task is now over, and her next period will arrive in about 10 days’ time.
The egg recipient’s treatment
Egg recipients (women who need donor eggs to get pregnant) may or may not still have a menstrual cycle. Whether or not you do, you will usually be asked to take birth control pills for a certain number of days and then stop. This should result in a ‘withdrawal bleed’ or period. Sometimes more than one ‘probe cycle’ is required to ensure that your uterine lining grows well in response to the medication. Your AVA-Peter doctor will write this into your individual treatment plan. You may also have one or sometimes more injections of a ‘down-regulating’ drug to ensure optimal synchronisation with your donor. In most cases, you will then have a scan to check that the lining of your womb is thin and that there are no cysts before starting the treatment cycle. (Donor eggs are of course very precious, and your AVA-Peter doctor will want to ensure your uterus is in the best possible state to receive them.) This involves taking oestrogen tablets, patches and/or cream to build up your womb lining again. Five days before the planned date for Embryo Transfer, you start taking progesterone in addition to oestrogen. This is normally in the form of vaginal progesterone pessaries or cream.
The male partner
The donor’s eggs may be fertilised either by fresh or defrosted sperm on the day of egg collection. If your husband or partner provides sperm on your first visit to our clinic, this can be frozen and then defrosted on the day or egg collection. If fresh sperm is used, we advise the male partner not to ejaculate (during sexual intercourse or through masturbation) for 2-5 days before the date of egg collection. On that day, he produces a sperm sample to fertilise the eggs produced by the egg donor. This can either be done at a private room in our clinic or in your own hotel room. We need to receive the pot containing the sperm within an hour after the egg collection takes place, and the sperm needs to be kept at room temperature during that time.
Fertilisation and embryo transfer
The donor eggs collected are fertilised with the sperm of the male partner or a donor. They are grown in our laboratory for three or (more usually) five days. During this time, they continue to divide and develop. At five days old, embryos are known as blastocysts. By this stage, our expert embryologists can determine which are the most promising and most viable embryos. On the day of embryo transfer, one or two of the best embryos are transferred through the cervical canal into the egg recipient’s uterus using a thin, soft plastic catheter. This procedure is usually quick and painless.
We do not replace more than two embryos in any cycle in order to minimise the risk of multiple pregnancy. The rest of the embryos can be frozen if they are of sufficient quality. They now belong to you and can be used for future pregnancies.
After the embryo transfer, you continue taking oestrogen and progesterone medication for two weeks and then take a pregnancy test. This can be a blood test or a urine test. If the test is positive, you should have a scan to confirm the pregnancy two weeks later. If a ‘foetal pole’ is seen on the scan (this looks like a grain of rice within the foetal sac), this provides clinical confirmation of your pregnancy. Both medications should be continued until the 12th week of pregnancy, and then you continue taking only the progesterone until you are 20 weeks pregnant.
If your pregnancy test is negative, it is sadly very unlikely that you are pregnant. Some patients of course prefer to continue their medication and take another test a few days later. If you have another negative result, the hormone medication can be discontinued.
Please inform us of your pregnancy test result as soon as you are able to. If you are pregnant, we would like to be kept informed of your progress. And if this time things have not worked out as you would have hoped, we will do our best to offer you the help and advice you need.
As with all pregnancies, assisted pregnancies involve a small risk of miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, foetal development defects, and later complications during pregnancy and delivery. The risk of miscarriage after egg donation at AVA-Peter is no higher than in women of the same age and state of health due to the extra medication we provide to stop bleeding in the first trimester.
Interested in egg donation at AVA-Peter?
Please first fill in our questionnaire This will be assessed by one of our experienced doctors, who will then get in touch with you using your preferred contact method.
If you have any questions, an English-speaking receptionist is available to take your call on 007 81 2336 3059 between 07:00-14:00 Central European time (06.00-13.00 UK time). You can also reach us by e-mail at info@clinic.avapeter.com
We look forward to hearing from you!
Very kind regards,
Your AVA-Peter team
Related pages in other lnguages: Deutsch Eizellspende Netherlands Eiceldonatie Dansk Ægdonation
