Becoming an Egg Donor

Generous and Caring Women Helping other Women

to Achieve their Dream

We are proud to offer a thriving egg donation program in which women struggling with infertility can become successful with the help from donated eggs. Without egg donation, these patients might not have the enjoyment of carrying their future child. We rely on generous and caring women to keep this program successful.

We hope that if you are interested in becoming an egg donor that you will look into our Egg Donation Program and give us a call at 615-321-8899 to start this rewarding process.

The use of donated eggs can lead to successful pregnancies for:

• women with premature ovarian failure.

• women lacking ovaries.

• women whose ovaries produce eggs of poor quality.

• women in the older reproductive age phase.

• women with chromosomal translocations or genetic diseases that they wish to avoid passing on to their offspring.

Egg donors may be a family member or friend of the woman hoping to get pregnant or an anonymous volunteer screened by our staff. All egg donors are screened before they are accepted into the program.

Screening is performed according to the standard criteria of the CRH and following the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) guidelines.

Known Egg Donors

Known egg donors must be between the ages of 21-30, non-smoker, and have a healthy medical and genetic history. Since the donor and recipient know each other, it is recommended to contact an attorney to prepare a legal contract and have it signed by all parties.

Anonymous Donors

For the anonymous donor, the identities of the donor and the recipient are maintained in strict confidence. In our program anonymous donors are women of 21 to 30 years of age, nonsmoker, normal body weight, with a healthy medical and genetic history, who must test negative for all the infectious disease screening performed according to the standard criteria of the CRH and following the ASRM guidelines. Since anonymous donors have to receive daily hormonal treatment, several blood testing and vaginal ultrasound monitoring, and a surgical procedure to remove the oocytes, our center strongly feels that these donors should receive a financial consideration for their time, effort and risks involved in the donation of oocytes. In addition, the recipient couple is responsible for paying the entire donor medical expenses related to the oocyte donation.

Screening Requirements for Donor Oocytes

• Complete the Donor Profile questionnaire

• Initial consultation and physical examination by the physician

• Laboratory testing, to include but not limited to:

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  • oLupron Challenge Test

  • oBlood type and RH

  • oHIV Antibody

  • oHepatitis B and C Surface Antigen

  • oRPR for Syphilis

  • oT4, TSH & Prolactin

  • oCervical Cultures for Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, Ureaplasma, and Mycoplasma.

The oocyte donor will undergo ovarian stimulation, which requires the use of fertility drugs such as Bravelle, Menopur, Follistim Pen, Gonal- F Pen and other commercially available products.

This treatment is known as superovulation, and it is used in conjunction with Lupron. To assist in evaluating the response to the superovulation treatment and predicting the time of the expected ovulation, the oocyte donor will be carefully monitored.

This is accomplished by several blood testing and vaginal ultrasound examinations. When the most ovarian follicles have reached adequate development the oocyte donor will receive human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), an injection to produce the simultaneous development of several oocytes and to control the timing of ovulation, so the oocytes can be retrieved before they are spontaneously released.

The oocyte retrieval is usually scheduled 36 hours after HCG administration.

For more information about the program and recipients of egg donations, please read our Egg Donation Program page.

Sometimes we spend years without living at all, and all of a sudden our whole life focuses in one single moment.

Oscar Wilde