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Dear Teri-chan,
We are just starting a donar egg cycle. I am a bit worred that our donar is 30 years old. She is a first time donar but she has two children. We had a long wait finding a donar because of my physical chacteristics.
laura

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Laura,

I don't think I'd be particularly worried about the fact that your donor is 30. That's still very young as far as reproductive abilities go. And she has children, so that should offer you a good deal of reassurance.

How long did you wait to find this donor?

I'll probably be waiting for about 4 months for another donor. Because of my nearly unheard of bad experience with my donor cycle, my clinic wants to match me with someone who does very well during the current round of donor cycles, to keep the anxiety down a bit. Somewher out there my donor is probably in a cycle now, then they'll ask her if she'll do a second cycle (for me), after resting for 6-8 weeks.

Please let me know how things are going in your cycle. Most donor cycles go so well. And that should leave you feeling very hopeful going into this. Of course there are never any guarantees, but your chances are good. I wish you the very best of luck with this.

Teri

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Dear Teri,
We waited 7 months for our Donor. We decided to go with a local donor that was found at our clinic. I thought this would be easier for the Donar sence they might not have the support I do with all the meds. This made the search take longer as well as the characteristics we were looking for. Tomarrow I have my starting ultrasound and start Luepron If everything is OK.
Lets keep in touch,
laura.

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Laura,

I'm so glad you wrote. I really feel that it helps to be able to talk with someone in a similar situation. Please keep me posted on your progress! I look forward to hearing how your visit goes tomorrow. What will they look for on the u/s? Will they also be doing bloodwork?

Teri

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Dear Teri,
My ultrasound went great. They look for small or absent folicals. I have been of BC pills for 30 days to syncrinize our(me and the donar) cycles. They will not do blood work untill 8/6 (E2V level and U/S). I stop the BC pills on 8/25. I start lupron at 20 untils today and for the next 10 days, then the decrease this th 10 untits for 14 mor days. I start E2V injections on 8/8 and continue untill we find out if this worked. Progesteron injections start right befor my doars retrvel and continue untill...Is this simmiller to your last time?
laura

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Laura,

It sounds like our protocols were similar, but still pretty different. They never had me on BCPs. The donor was on them and so they just syncrhonized her cycle with mine. Two things really strike me about your protocol. One is that you stay on BCPs all the way through 8/25/06. The other is that you take an injectable form of estrogen. (I assume that's what you meant by 'E2V injections'. What's the 'V' for in 'E2V', do you know?) I didn't know there was such a thing. My protocol had me on estrogen patches and an estrdiol tablet inserted like a vaginal suppository. One of my worries is that on my donor cycle my uterine lining measured only 7mm (and it should be between 8mm and 13mm from what I understand). I wonder if injectable estrogen might be an option I should find out about.

You didn't say the tentative date of the donor's retrieval. Do you know it yet?

It's really nice to communicate with someone else who is going the donor route. I understand from your other posts that you feel you have the funds to try it exactly once. I too feel a lot of financial pressure. I think we can afford one donor cycle in addition to the one that our clinic is giving us to make up for the badly failed cycle. We don't have coverage for IVF in any form--whether with my eggs or a donor's eggs. If I can be of any help, please let me know. I really wish you the very best with this.

Teri

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Dear teri,
E2V stands for estradiol valerate under the brand name delestrogen. I start injections on 8/1 (mistated in my last post) at .28mls. They give these injections every 3rd day and the check the estradiol level on 8/6 as well as an ultrasound on 8/6. Then the dose is ajusted as needed. My donar's retrieval is hopfully 8/14-8/16. They usually do day 3 transfers and freeze blasts. However, we have agreed that if there are at least three 8 cell on day 3, we will try to do a blast transfer. This is our last try. I am gardedly optimistic. I know anything can happen during stimmutation. We were lucky with the 4 IVF cycles financialy. My insurance coverd all but 10,000 $. They do not cover donar anything. This cycle costs 11,300 but this dose not include medical screening for recipients, recipiient medications, semen analysis & freeze, ICSI, embryo cryopreservation, annual storage fee, confirmation of pregnancy, treatment associatted w/ hyper-stimulation an frozen embryo transfer.
How easy was is to get your donar's stimualtion protical from your center?
Is is great comunicating with someone doning the same thing! thank you!
laura

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Laura,

Great to hear from you! Since we seem to be in a one-on-one conversation, I wonder how you'd feel about turning this into an email conversation instead?

Teri

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Dear Teri,
That would be great! My email is arcadiavet@aol.com.
laura

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Hi Teri-Chan= Sorry to answer you so late in the game. I have had 2 different donors. The first looked nothing like me was 30 years old and gave me only 8 eggs and only was good. My next donor was 24 and gave me 19 eggs . ( She looks alot like my family) I think both pregnancies would have made it had they found out about my septum then. The thing with donors is that they might look like you but no guarantee that the kids will take their characteristics- considering their gene pool. I adopted my first child and I am not to worried about how they look actually - it was more for my husband. If i had a donor I would get one in her early 20's. One that has had kids before. Than you know it a good chance of being a good one. Mine had even donated before and that always helps.
Take care and ask away. I dont mind.

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Hi all. I could't help barging in. Reading your stories brought tears into my eyes. I wasn't in your situation, I didn't need a donor, but I can feel your pain and anxiety.
The only thing I can do is to send your way tons of baby dust and wish you good luck.
Fiso

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Teri and Laura

I'm just starting the process of IVF with DE. DH and I have had 3 m/c in 3 years, I never make it past the first six weeks, I've never seen a heart beat. I have a daughter 22 years old from my first marriage but DH has no biological children of his own. We desperately want a baby. We looked into adoption, went as far as scheduling a home study but had to be honest that it wasnt for us. We have heard so many great statistics for donor eggs and my Re says I'm a good candidate as I'm healthy in all other aspects except my degenerated eggs! (I turned 41 in May, my FSH at last check was 8 but I've been told that means quantity not quality so I have a lot of eggs and a lot of them are cooked).

As far as a donor, I have a question, if you dont mind me butting in. Why does it take so long to get a donor? Is there a shortage or does that have to do with your unique physical characteristics? I cant imagine it would be difficult to "match me" as I think I'm pretty ordinary. Dh and I kind of look alike so that will help.

Thanks for listening

SharonAnne

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SharonAnne,

I think the exact waiting time varies a lot from program to program and case to case, but I'm also under the impression that four to six months is pretty standard.

I think Laura had very special characteristics to match. Mine were so hard to match that we finally went with a sperm donor who matches me (just on ethnicity alone, even when not trying for an exact match, but just for someone with my "unusual" half, there were only five donors at California Cryobank and none at Fairfax during the period of time when I was actively looking). My husband's a little easier to match, especially given the makeup of the population where we live, and it took only three months to find an egg donor who matched him.

Teri

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Dear SharonAnne,
It took 7 months to find my donor. I am tall. My husband is tall. We needed some one tall. The rest was easy. I never though the tallness would be so difficult to find.
Laura

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I know its more expensive for California but in LA they have alot of donor agencies. I never had to wait on anything but my period when using a donor. Baby dust to all.

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There's a woman who posts here from time to time as "laura" who has undergone a donor cycle at NCCRM. From what I remember, their prices were very reasonable as these things go--on the order of $10K for a single recipient cycle. The clinic I used charged $20K for a single recipient cycle and $12K for a double recipient cycle. Donors at my clinic receive $3K of the fee. Everything else is for meds, lab, and professional services.

At this point in technological development, there's really no such thing as EGGS that people get from a donor that the recipeint does not use. That's because insemination is attempted on all the eggs that are retrieved. Sometimes there are "leftover" EMBRYOS that people donate free of charge to others, but that doesn't really help in your situation, since you want your husband to be involved genetically.

I don't know anything about clinics in other countries, except that I've heard that the costs are significantly lower in some cases.

I'm sorry for your despair. This is a good forum for finding others who have first hand experience with it. I also found age-related infertility financially draining. I spent a total of about $35K to get to this point (which is between 16 and 17 weeks pregnant with a fetus that is the product of donor egg and donor sperm). That's about half our gross income for a year. My insurance covered nothing.

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