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Monday, March 18, 2024

IVF With Donor Eggs

Egg Donor Related Frequently Asked Questions

We understand that receiving IVF treatment abroad can be overwhelming, especially when you are using an egg donor for your treatment.

For this end, we have put together a number of questions with answers to guide you through the egg donation procedures at North Cyprus IVF Center.

Please look through our Q&A and let us know if there are still questions that might remain unanswered.

For more information on Egg donation program at North Cyprus IVF Center, please visit our “IVF with Donor Eggs” page.

If we have not answered all your questions, please feel free to contact us.

1- Who needs an IVF treatment using an egg donor?

Generally speaking, women whose ovarian reserves have been depleted, or women who are not able to get pregnant using their own eggs are ideal candidates for IVF treatment using an egg donor. Patients who need an egg donor can be broadly categorized as:

– Women with premature ovarian failure and/or premature menopause.
– Women who have received radiation therapy or chemotherapy and therefore lost ovarian function.
– Women with genetic condition who are at the risk of transferring this genetic condition to their offspring.
– Women whose ovarian function have greatly diminished or ended due to advanced age.
– Gay male couples who need the help of a female egg donor to become parents.

2- Who are egg donors in Cyprus?

Egg donors who donate eggs at North Cyprus IVF Centre are predominantly consisted of international students studying at the universities in North Cyprus. There are also local donors but their percentage is lower compared to the student donor population. For an effective donor mathcing process, you will be provided with a donor/recipient form to fill out so that you can specify your requirements for your egg donor. Once the donor list is narrowed down based on your requirements, you will be offered a few egg donor profiles to choose from. These profiles will include physical information as well as information on your egg donor’s background and ethnicity.

3- How are egg donors selected at North Cyprus IVF Center?

For a woman to be accepted as an egg donor into the egg donation program at North Cyprus IVF Centre, she needs to fulfill the following conditions:

– She must be aged between 19-28. However, since most of our egg donors are university students, they are mostly aged between 19-25.
– Her BMI must be within the “normal” range.
– She must undergo infectious disease screening and must test negative for all the infectious diseases.
– Her hormone levels must be in the “optimal fertility” range.
– She must be a non-smoker and at most, a “social drinker”.
– An egg donor candidate must not have any genetic conditions in her immediate family.
– A potential egg donor must pass our psychological evaluation.
– She must not be a carrier of Beta Thalassemia.

Additional testing can be administered to donors upon request. It is not a standard procedure to have an egg donor undergo additional genetic testing such as karyotyping or testing for specific genetic illnesses unless there is a reason to believe she needs these tests. If you come from a region with predisposition to certain genetic disorders and require that your donor is also tested for these diseases, then an additional fee will be applicable for each test requested.

4- Will a child born as a result of using donor eggs resemble his/her birth mother?

If you are to use an egg donor in an IVF treatment, half of your child’s genetics will come from your egg donor and the other half will come from your partner, or whoever the sperm provide is. However, if you request an egg donor who shares your physical features and has some resemblance to your own appearance, then our donor coordinator makes sure that you are matched very carefully with an egg donor that will result in maximum possible resemblance. However, you should keep in mind that there are children who don’t look anything like their biological fathers or mothers, so while the main features can be matched (skin color, eye and hair color as well as body type and shape), a specific look for a child cannot be manufactured.

5- Can I see/meet my egg donor?

Due to donor anonymity laws and regulations in North Cyprus, we are not allowed to share our donors’ personal information or their pictures. This means that you also do not get to meet your egg donor. You are, however, provided with a document which has profile information on your egg donor including physical features, educational and occupational background, medical history, hobbies and a personal note. However, if it is absolutely important for you to see a picture of your egg donor or perhaps meet your egg donor, we can offer known egg donors via an international egg donor agency. The cost of this option would be approximately 8,500 to 10,500 Euros more on top of the cost of treatment at our clinic. The cost of a known egg donor includes your egg donor’s compensation, medication, medical care, IVF related procedures, flights and accommodation in Cyprus as well as all her consults and scans. If you would like to have a known egg donor, please let us know and we will be able to provide you with international egg donor profiles accordingly.

6- What is your stance on donor anonymity?

Egg donation is a form of IVF treatment where the recipient of the eggs used for treatment is different from the biological owner. This treatment option not only provides a solution for women with ovarian failure, but also to those who have had repeated IVF failures with their own oocytes. Using donated eggs has always been a controversial issue in a number of dimensions. These controversies have mostly included ethical debates about right to parenthood, financial compensation of the donor and religious considerations. More recently, the medical field seems to have a disagreement over whether egg donors should be anonymous or the unborn child should be given the right to know her “biological mother” once (s)he reaches the legal age. The historically prevalent and default idea of donor secrecy and anonymity has been greatly challenged within the past twenty years and this has been reflected onto the legal framework. In the UK, donor anonymity has been lifted and any donation that has been done after 2005 has to be registered to a database so that the child can have the right to contact his/her biological parent in the future.

Donor secrecy and anonymity have gone unchallenged until recently perhaps due to the stigma associated with infertility and inability to conceive. By keeping the use of donor eggs/sperm a secret, the couples would be normalized as opposed to marginalized. This stigma seems to be lessening in impact due to availability of information, increased awareness and knowledge on infertility and the more widespread use of assisted reproductive technologies. All these factors have contributed to acceptance of these technologies by a broader range of people and couples undergoing treatment do not feel as ashamed as they used to. Even though secrecy and anonymity still remain the default way for oocyte donation in many parts of the world, many countries are now opting for non-anonymity and open donations. It is important to analyze donor anonymity on different levels due to the multi-faceted nature of the concept. Keeping an egg donor anonymous or making it known to the unborn child in the future is a decision that involves a number of important considerations. By default, we can only offer anonymous egg donors due to our ART laws if you are to use a local clinic donor.

7- What is the chance of success with IVF treatment using an egg donor at North Cyprus IVF?

IVF treatment using an egg donor is the type of IVF treatment with the highest chance of success. There are a number of reasons why success rates with egg donation are very high at North Cyprus IVF Centre, apart from the fact that we are a very experienced clinic equipped with latest technology:

– All our donors are very young and healthy individuals, where in most countries donors up to the age of 35 are accepted for donation where the oldest age for egg donation at North Cyprus IVF is 29.
– We call back donors who have contributed to a positive pregnancy through their previous donation. Each donor is allowed to donate up to 5 times. Therefore, we mostly work with donors who have proven their fertility.
– We are able to transfer multiple embryos as opposed to a single embryo transfer, which highly increases your chances of success with pregnancy.
Please visit our “Success Rates” section for more information on success rates with various IVF treatments offered at North Cyprus IVF Center.

8- What is the cost of an egg donor IVF Cycle at North Cyprus IVF Centre? How much does egg donation cost in Cyprus?

The cost of IVF treatment with donor eggs is much lower compared to the costs at US or UK clinics, with a substantially higher chance of success. The cost of egg donation (donor egg IVF treatment) at North Cyprus IVF Center is 5,000 Euros. The cost of egg donation includes your egg donor’s compensation and her medication. Please visit our “IVF with Egg Donation” page to find out about our affordable donor egg IVF treatment program and steps involved in treatment at North Cyprus IVF Center.

9- How long will I need to be in Cyprus for?

We try to minimize then length of stay for our traveling patients as we realize how difficult it can be to take time off work, family or other commitments. We collaborate with a number of clinics abroad to facilitate your pre-testing and scans so that we can minimize the length of your stay down to 5-6 days. You will be expected to arrive in Cyprus on the day of your egg donor’s oocyte pick-up day so that we can obtain a fresh sperm sample and proceed with ICSI accordingly. However, if you feel more comfortable receiving the entire treatment with us including the initial tests and scans, then it will be important to stay with us for a total of 18/19 days in order to start and finish your treatment.

10- Where will we stay while in Cyprus?

We try to make your stay in Cyprus as pleasant as possible. For this end, we have agreements with a few hotels where you can stay on a discounted price. We offer three alternatives that cater to different budgets. Please refer to our “Accommodation” section for a variety of accommodation options suited for different budgets.

11- How soon after the embryo transfer will I know whether I am pregnant or not?

A beta hCG test will be administered 12 days after your embryo transfer to detect hCG hormone in blood. Home pregnancy tests are no as sensitive, so we recommend that you wait for 12 days after the embryo transfer and have the beta hCG test done. Once you have your beta hCG test done, it is important to send us the result for assessment. Generally speaking, a value of 5 mIU/mL will indicate pregnancy, however, higher the value of your beta hCG testing, the higher the likelihood of having achieved a healthy pregnancy that is likely to be maintained. Very low results that are in the neighborhood of 5-10 mIU/mL may indicate a chemical pregnancy or a false positive, therefore, a re-test should be scheduled within 48 hours in order to monitor the level of increase.

12- Is there anything I need to do after the embryo transfer to help become pregnant?

There will be specific guidelines handed to you after your embryo transfer. In this document, you will find information on what to do and what not to do to help the process. Otherwise, you will be able to continue your daily chores without any interruption, but will simply take it down a notch. You can visit our blog article on “Things to do or to avoid following an Embryo Transfer” for more information on what needs to be done prior to and post embryo transfer to aid with embryo implantation. Please also make sure to carefully review the document which will be handed to you after your embryo transfer and ask our IVF specialists if there is anything that you do not understand.

13- How do I get started with treatment?

Even though chances of success will be high with egg donor IVF treatment, we will still need to make sure that you are fit for pregnancy and that there are no major problems that can interfere with a successful pregnancy. The initial testing and diagnoses will depend on your unique history of infertility as well as previous treatment history and/or previous testing. The first step is usually to provide as much information about your history of infertility as possible so that we can make an effective assessment and proceed accordingly.

14- Is it possible to send a sperm sample to you so that you can create embryos with the use of an egg donor and send them back to our country?

It will be possible to send us a frozen semen sample to be used for ICSI with the oocytes to be obtained from an egg donor. We have sent embryos/oocytes to many parts of Europe and to the United States as well as South Africa and Georgia. Unless there are specific laws in your country that prohibit transport of human gametes, then it will not be a difficult process to send embryos abroad. However, before we can begin organizing your treatment, a few important steps will be as follows:
– A semen analysis for the sperm provider (partner or donor) to measure the semen parameters. We need this in order to make sure that the semen sample satisfies minimum requirements for the freeze/thaw procedure.
– You will also need to check with your local clinic what their requirements are for processing and sending a frozen sample to another clinic. If required, I can also put you in touch with a cryo-shipping company which can hand deliver the sample, however, you will still need the help of an IVF unit to process and freeze the sample. Once we have this information, we will be able to proceed with organizing your request.

15- If I would like to use a known donor, such as a relative or a known donor from an agency, would that be an option?

If one of your relatives has offered to act as a potential egg donor or you would like to use an egg donor from an international agency where you can see the pictures of egg donors or even meet them, we will be happy to organize the details of your treatment to accommodate for this requirement. If you are not already in touch with an agency, we can also put you in touch with an international egg donor agency where you can choose your egg donor and organize for her to travel to Cyprus for donating her eggs. However, before we proceed with organizing this, it will be important for the egg donor to undergo hormone testing and ovarian assessment so that we can successfully identify a customized treatment protocol for her to optimize the outcome of her donation. These tests are the standard hormone testing including FSH, LH, Estradiol, Prolactin, TSH and AMH tests to be performed on day 2 or day 3 of the menstrual period along with a trans-vaginal ultrasound scan to observe the number of antral follicle count (AFC) in each ovary and to make sure there are no cysts or other problems in the ovaries that can interfere with a successful donation process.

If we have not answered all your questions, please feel free to contact us.

Additional Links:

Egg Donation – Cyprus IVF Center

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