The egg donation process can take time, and we know your time has value. That’s why we provide generous egg donor compensation. Our egg donors juggle multiple priorities: jobs, families, school, and more. You may wonder how much time you’ll have to commit to the egg donor process. In this blog, we’ll break down each step of the egg donation process.
As a frozen donor egg bank, we must rigorously screen potential egg donors for health, family medical history, and much more. Our egg donor requirements allow us to find the best possible donors. On average, the screening portion of the egg donation process requires 2 to 4 appointments over 2 to 3 months. After filling out the initial application, which should only take 3-5 minutes, we will notify you if you can move forward to the full medical application.
The full medical application can take anywhere from 20-40 minutes. You’ll need to complete the submission of all required documentation, childhood and adult photos, and family medical history. We recommend collecting your family medical history ahead of time to help reduce the time it takes to complete the application. Upon submitting your full application to donate your eggs, you must complete the screening process to be accepted into our egg donor program. Our thorough process ensures that intended parents have the best possible donor egg options to build their families. The screening process includes:
The first step of the screening process is a 30 minute informative video required by all donors to watch and a 30 minute interview with one of our donor coordinators. The Information Session will provide an in depth review of our egg donation process and answer commonly asked questions. The interview provides all of our donors the chance to ask questions to ensure they fully understand the entire process.
You’ll undergo a physical exam, lab work, and genetic screening. This’ll include basic blood work, a vaginal ultrasound, and a urine test. The tests include a urine drug exam, infectious disease testing, basic fertility hormone testing, genetic carrier screening, and more. This will be very similar to your yearly wellness exam and will be completed in 1-2 appointments lasting 2-4 hours each depending on the clinic. You’ll also undergo a mental health screening, completed in a 1-hour virtual appointment with a mental health professional.
Fairfax EggBank will do a final review of your donor profile. You will receive a decision regarding your eligibility and can begin donating eggs. You’ll also receive an initial reimbursement upon acceptance into the program.
Unlike fresh egg donation programs, frozen egg banks do not require a match for a donor to cycle. With frozen eggs, you don’t have to wait until you’re accepted into the program; you can begin a retrieval cycle without waiting to be matched or have your menstrual cycle coordinated with the recipient of your donated eggs. The donation process happens on your schedule.
For comparison, when a woman chooses to donate her eggs through an egg donor agency, she must wait to be matched to a recipient family needing eggs to begin their own families. This process can take months or even years—or it might never happen.
The donating eggs process begins with your period. Once your cycle begins, the process goes as follows:
On day 3, after your period, you’ll begin to take oral birth control pills. The pill will keep your hormones and your ovaries in a non-ovulatory state while you wait to start ovarian stimulation.
In 2-3 weeks, you’ll go in for a 1-2 hour baseline appointment, depending on the clinic; they’ll conduct blood work and an ultrasound. If everything looks good, you’ll begin your fertility medication injections. These medicines will stimulate multiple eggs to grow and mature in your ovaries.
For approximately 10 days, you’ll give yourself an injection. During this period, you must visit a fertility center for a daily monitoring appointment to check on your ovaries. You should expect these daily appointments to take 15-30 minutes each day.
When the time is right, according to your monitoring appointment, you’ll receive the Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) trigger shot, a type of hormone injectable medication that can increase a person’s chances of pregnancy. Your egg retrieval will begin 34-36 hours after you receive this shot.
The retrieval appointment will be short. The egg retrieval procedure itself only takes about 15-20 minutes. However, you’ll need to arrive an hour before your appointment and remain for about an hour afterward, so you should expect the appointment as a whole to take 2-3 hours. We’ll instruct you to take the rest of the day off to relax. However, you can resume normal activities the following day.
Recovery is generally quick following the egg retrieval. You’ll be advised to rest on the day of the procedure but can return to normal activities the next day. Donor safety is always our highest priority, so it’s important to be aware of the potential side effects of egg donation.
Overall, the egg donation process typically takes donors 10-20 hours of their time over the course of 4-5 months to complete. Your timing may vary—the process of donating eggs is different for every potential donor! But this should give you a rough idea of how long it takes to donate eggs.
We understand this is a commitment, and we financially reimburse all of our donors for their time and effort during the medical screening and immediately after you’ve successfully donated. Because of our donors, infertile families longing for children have hope. You value your time—and we do as well.
Written by: Julia Gytri There is a quiet frequency that can be inadvertently silenced for…
Written by: Kate Morgan When you’re exploring options to grow your family, it’s natural to…
Written by: Julia Gytri In fertility care, the loud moments are the numbers. Eggs retrieved.…
Written by: Julia Gytri If you're thinking about becoming an egg donor, you've probably read…
Written by: Kate Morgan The field of egg banking is relatively young. Thanks to advancements…
Written by: Julia Gytri National Infertility Awareness Week means many things for everyone involved in…