Choosing Our Egg Donor

If you have ever tried online dating then you have an idea

how strange and bizarre it is to choose an egg donor.

Once Chris and I paid our registration fee and had all our tests completed we were given full access to the available donors at My Egg Bank.

We were then able to narrow down the donors according to their race, hair colour, eye colour, and even blood type. Once it was narrowed down we could then click and read a medical history, personal questionnaire and even see photos of the donor as a child.

Chris and I had many conversations about the criteria we wanted to use in order to choose our donor eggs.

The top things that we were looking for were:

good health history, appearance and intelligence!

To clarify by appearance we were looking for someone who looked as much like me as possible. We searched for someone with the same hair and eye colour, as well as a similar height.

For intelligence, Chris wanted it to be someone who shared my love of literature and the arts... as he said there will be enough of an analytical engineer brain coming from him!

After searching for several days we narrowed it down to two candidates: one that was most like me physically, and a second that wrote the most amazing responses.

We ended up going with the donor who had, what we felt, were the most heart felt answers. The answer that really sealed our decision was the one in which she was asked why she was donating.

In her response she talked about focusing on her career and perhaps needed to use the program in the future. She also talked about the fact that she was not raised by her biological father, and therefore, understands that "parental love transcends genetics". She went on to say "Genetics aren't what binds the parent-child relationship, love and nurturing are."

Honestly is that not the best response ever?!

Its not cheap!

You may be curious to just how much it costs. I thought I would break it down as much as I could.

The costs of course vary for different clinics, but I would imagine that they would be similar- at least throughout Canada.

Although, the cost are ridiculously expensive, because we are doing a frozen donor egg cycle, it is significantly less expensive then a fresh donor cycle. (It is also the only option that we have.)

Registration Fee-                                    $825.00   

Vitrified Egg Donor IVF Cycle-            $5750.00
Donor Eggs                                            $11000.00 (US Dollars)
Shipping of Eggs                                   $1030.00
Mock Cycle                                           $250.00 (didn't need to do this)
Drug Costs                                             $500.00 to $2400.00
Embryo Cryopreservation                      $925.00
Thawing & Replacing frozen embryos  $1280.0

Who ever said having a baby isn't cheap wasn't exaggerating! But it will be worth it!

At this time I don't know the exact costs as I'm not sure how much the drugs are going to cost me. I am really fortunate to have really good coverage through my work.

*All the prices are in Canadian dollars except of course the donor eggs which is American dollars.

Egg Donation

Egg donation... I've had a lot of people asking me what it even means.

Egg donation is when a woman donates her eggs to a woman who is unable to conceive using her own. The donor eggs are then inseminated with the husband's sperm (or from the sperm of a donor). The fertilized eggs are then implanted via IVF into the woman's womb.

So this means:

Genetically the child will be Chris's, but genetically the child will not be mine.

I will, however, be able to carry, give birth and nurse this child.

By law, I will be considered the child's biological mother- as I am the one who will carry and give birth to him or her.

And the best part, if it's successful, we could become pregnant next month! We wouldn't have to wait three or four years, but hopefully only 10 months!

In Canada it is illegal to purchase eggs from a woman, however, somehow it is legal to purchase them from a woman in the United States???

I believe the get around it by the fact that we actually purchase the eggs from the clinic.

The Regional Fertility Program here in Calgary collaborates with  My Egg Bank in the United States. The eggs are frozen and transported to the clinic here where they remain frozen until the time for them to be fertilized.

We purchase 6 eggs from one single donor. It costs $11 000 US dollar for the 6 eggs.

The survival rate of the eggs is over 90%, and the Egg Bank guarantees at least 4 eggs. However, if only 3 eggs survive and we get pregnant with one of them it is still considered a success.

The success rates for an IVF with donor eggs is around 66%.

Embryo Adoption

Chris and I are on the embryo adoption wait list. 

What is Embryo adoption?

Well when couples go through IVF, the woman will often produce over 10 eggs. This means there are sometimes extra embryos that remain after the first transfer and are frozen for later use. If a couple is able to have all the children they want and still have embryos remaining they may choose to donate their remaining embryos to couples who are unable to conceive. 

This allows other couples to experience pregnancy and the birth of a child. It also allows them to raise a child from birth. These are typically closed adoptions in which the genetic parents sign over all rights to their embryos.

Initially I was so excited for Chris and I to get into this program.  

Some things I didn't realize were:

The wait time. You are on a wait list for a year and a half to two years.

The success rate. The success rate is only around 33%. (At first I was ok with this as it is higher than our chances with my eggs, however, it is still less than a 50% chance of success). The reason the rate is lower is that couples will have chosen the best embryos for themselves and donate the remaining which are typically of a lower quality.

So if you haven't already guessed, although Chris and I are still on the wait list for this, we have decided to purchase eggs from the States. More details in my next post.

Three Years

To be honest after our last let down I was convinced that adoption was going to the direction we were next heading. I got excited and started doing more and more research.

I thought that the best bet for Chris and I would be private adoption as we are hoping to get a baby or very young child. One of the things I was most shocked about was the wait time. It is typically taking couples 3 years to be able to adopt a child.

Three years!

Unfortunately, every year this wait time is getting longer and longer. I think a lot of the reason for this is better availability of birth control, many young girls are now deciding to raise their children as there is less of a stigma as there was in the past, and of course more may be having abortions.

The lady that I was talking to did mention that if we were open to taking in a child whose mother drank alcohol or did drugs while pregnant we would have a better chance of getting a child earlier.

Another thing that I was surprised about was the cost. It costs around $15 000 by the time all is said and done. $5000 is on counseling alone.

To be honest, it was these two things time and cost that made Chris and I decide not to go with this option... at least not now.

Update: I also talked to someone who adopted through the public system and found out it took them FOUR years to be able to adopt their children!

Beating a Dead Horse

Beat a Dead Horse- to waste time doing something that has already been attempted.

-Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms 

 As I mentioned in my last post there are several different options that I researched in trying to figure out what would be the best next step for Chris and I to take.  

One of the options would be for us to continue trying IUI rounds with the hopes of getting enough eggs to be able to switch to IVF. The problem with this is that each round costs around $3000 and each time we have tried I have only gotten between 3 or 4 follicles.

I have been put onto the maximum amount of medications that can safely be administered and last attempt we even tried to add DHEA and C0-Q10.

When I talked with my doctor after our last failed cycle she did have some good news. Although I didn't produce very many egg follicles my body did produce a thick lining and my hormone levels were good. Unfortunately, she did conclude that it didn't seem as though my body is going to produce enough eggs to make IVF viable.

Weighing all the information we made the difficult decision to not try IUI / IVF again. Perhaps if we had unlimited money we would keep trying, but honestly even then I don't know if we would. We have been trying for almost 2 years and we haven't gotten any closer to success.

 

Research

After our last let down I have spent hours and hours researching all the different options that are still available for us.

I wish I had know / had more information about some of these options earlier, although maybe I've needed to go through all these stages in order to get to the place I am now.

Hopefully this information will help someone else who is just starting out on this journey. Maybe it will help them to make some decisions and perhaps save them some time!

Option 1- Continue trying IUI / IVF

Option 2- Adoption- both regular and private

Option 3- Embryo Adoption

Option 4- Egg donation

I gathered a lot of information in the past month and to prevent writing a ridiculously long post I have decided to write a separate post for each option. I will also fill you in on which Chris and I finally decided to choose.

I should also mention that there is of course also...

Option 5- Live without Children

But honestly this really isn't an option for us right now as Chris and I are not ready to give up!