IVF With Egg Donation in Cyprus

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Egg Donation in Cyprus: IVF with Donor Eggs

Donor Egg IVF, also referred to as IVF with Egg Donation, is an infertility treatment option for couples with female infertility factor. This treatment option is suitable for women who cannot achieve pregnancy using their own eggs for a variety of reasons. These reasons can include but are not limited to:

• – Premature ovarian failure,
• – Menopause,
• – Surgical removal of ovaries,
• – Absence of ovaries and
• – Certain Inherited genetic conditions.
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In some instances, ovulation may not be completely absent, or there might still be ovarian function but the oocytes (eggs) fail to produce a successful pregnancy. Egg donation will be an ideal solution in such instances unless there is a reason to suspect other issues of fertility. This is precisely why before proceeding with any treatment, North Cyprus IVF specialists will ask for a history of your infertility as well as certain test results in order to make an effective assessment of your condition and to identify the right course of treatment that will optimize your chances of success.

The main difference between IVF with own eggs and IVF with egg donation is the fact that the female patient (recipient) will not be subjected to IVF medication to stimulate her ovaries. Her egg donor will use these medication instead as she will be the one undergoing the ovarian stimulation protocol. The female patient (recipient) will undergo a very mild medication protocol in order to prepare her uterus for pregnancy.

At North Cyprus IVF Center, the “recommended” age limit for treatment in general is 45. With donor egg treatments, the age limit is kept flexible and treatment is offered to patients at any group as long as they pass an initial health screening as an assessment of “fitness” for pregnancy. This means that we do not have a legal age limit for donor egg IVF treatments as long as we believe that our patients are fit for pregnancy. For more information about IVF treatment and pregnancy over 50 years of age, please visit our “IVF over 50” section. In this section, we talk about our motives for helping women over 50 years of age get pregnant and what kinds of medical screening are essential in order for us to be able to decide whether a patient is fit for pregnancy or not.

Who are Egg Donors at North Cyprus IVF Center?

An egg donor is the person who donates her eggs to be received by another woman (recipient) who is not able to become pregnant with her own eggs. North Cyprus IVF Centre is one of the leading clinics in Europe with donor egg IVF treatments with over 17 years of experience in the field. Our clinic has been named the “Leading Egg donor clinic in Europe” by the Fertility Road magazine. At North Cyprus IVF Centre, we use strict admission criteria for egg donors. Each egg donor applicant should fulfill the following criteria before her application is accepted by our donor coordinator:

-An egg donor must be aged between 19-35 by law. However, this criteria has been adjusted to only include young women between the ages of 19-25 at our clinic in order to offer you higher quality oocytes, therefore, a higher chance of success.
-An egg donor must undergo Anti-HIV, Anti-HCV, HbsAg, VDRL, CMV IgG, Rubella IgG infectious disease screening.
-Egg donor candidates of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern descent must undergo Beta Thalassemia screening while candidates of African and Israeli origin need to undergo Sickle cell screening and cystic fibrosis testing respectively. Additional testing can be administered if the intended parents have a family history of an inherited disease.
-All egg donors must have a BMI between 18-25. Egg donors who are too short or too tall cannot be accepted into our program even if their BMI index indicates an acceptable level.
-Only egg donor applicants with an acceptable family medical history are admitted as egg donors at North Cyprus IVF Centre.
-All egg donors undergo a psychological evaluation at our clinic prior to their admission as an egg donor.

We welcome any additional testing and screening requests from our patients. Please keep in mind that certain tests can increase the length of time required for donor matching. While certain additional tests can be a good idea if there is a sound medical reason behind it, tests that are not a medical necessity will only increase your cost of treatment. Majority of the egg donors at North Cyprus IVF Centre are international university students studying at universities in Cyprus.

How are patients matched with their egg donors at North Cyprus IVF center?

For an accurate donor matching process, we ask that you provide us with the following information:

– Your physical features (skin, hair and eye color)
– Your menstrual period information if applicable
– You and your partner’s blood types (if partnered- Single IPs can also use our program)
– Your picture
– Any relevant medical information that maybe relevant (such as inherited genetic disorders).

Once you are ready to begin treatment, our donor coordinator will ask that you fill out our “donor recipient form”. On this form, you will provide us with your own physical features as well as further donor specifications. Based on this information, we will be able to narrow down our donor pool to match your criteria and shortlist our egg donors who are best matches. You will be provided with this list of egg donors to choose from once the initial screening process is finalized.

Due to donor anonymity laws in Northern Cyprus, we cannot share pictures of our donors, we cannot provide their contact information or we cannot organize you to meet your egg donor. However, we are able to provide you with a detailed profile of your donor containing information such as age, her ethnic background, country of birth, blood type, educational level, occupation, physical features, family medical history, social behavior and a personal message.

It is also possible to bring your own egg donor with you. You can have a relative as an egg donor or you can use an intermediary egg donor agency to choose your own egg donor for your IVF treatment. We welcome patients who would like to use their own egg donors instead of one of our own donors. However, there are certain criteria that we ask for when you are bringing your own egg donor. Regardless of who your egg donor is, she needs to be very-well screened before she is allowed for donating her eggs. The criteria is not as strict as the ones that we use for recruiting our own donors since this will be an egg donor that you have chosen for yourself, so some of the criteria will be relaxed. Unfortunately this can come to mean that since your own egg donor will not be as tightly screened as our own standard egg donors, success with using your own egg donor can be lower than success we are able to offer you with one of our own egg donors.

Known versus Anonymous Egg Donor: Can you Pick a Known Egg Donor?

As mentioned above, a known egg donor can be a family member, a friend or a selected egg donor from an egg donor agency. We work with a number of egg donor agencies to cater to the needs of our patients who demand to see a picture of or meet their egg donor. If seeing a picture of your egg donor or meeting her is important to you, then using a known egg donor will be a more suitable option.

The cost of IVF treatment using a known agency donor varies between 10,000 – 14,000 Euros at North Cyprus IVF Center. This includes the agency costs, egg donor compensation, travel and accommodation arrangements as well as IVF treatment. While this is much higher than the cost of using an anonymous clinic donor, it is still much more affordable compared to other known donor programs.

Step By Step Overview Egg Donation in Cyprus

The first step in egg donation treatment at North Cyprus IVF is to see your local gynecologist for a trans-vaginal ultrasound scan (sonogram). This is to make sure that the female partner has no major problems in general that can potentially interfere with a successful pregnancy. These may include a polyps, fibroids, free fluids in the uterus or any other problem that might be visible during a trans-vaginal ultrasound scan. However, not every polyp or fibroid is detrimental to the pregnancy process. Therefore, an effective assessment is required before designing your treatment program. We will simply ask that you see your local gynecologist or monitoring center to have your scan and then we will kindly ask that either you or your consultant forward us the results of this scan for assessment.

Women older than 50 years of age should undergo additional assessment for “fitness for pregnancy”. These are a series of basic testing including blood glucose level, blood pressure level, complete blood count, kidney function tests and a cardio check up. If you have annual health screenings with your local doctor, this will also qualify for assessment. Also, if you have any history of IVF failures with donor eggs, or recurrent miscarriages, or any known problems, additional testing will be in place. The male patient will need to have his semen testing done before proceeding with treatment. More information on semen testing is available on our “Infertility Testing” section.

Once the initial testing process has been completed, we will be able to provide you with a chart of treatment so that you can prepare for your treatment locally. This chart of treatment will contain daily medication use, as well as a schedule for your local doctor appointments. Once the preliminary work is final, you will need to come to Cyprus for about 6 days. If you do not have a local gynecologist or a testing center, we may be able to recommend one based on your location. Please see our “Local Consultants” section.

In Egg donor IVF treatment, the steps involved are slightly different from standard IVF treatments as the female patient (recipient) will not be using medication for ovulation induction (ovarian stimulation). Instead, the egg donor chosen by the recipient will undergo the medication phase. The egg donor will be under our supervision during the process of her donation and will attend a number of appointments in order to optimize the outcome of her donation.

The female patient, who is undergoing egg donation IVF treatment, however, also needs to take certain medication prior to the embryo transfer stage to make sure that the uterus is fully prepared for pregnancy. This will be made clear on the “treatment calendar” which will be sent prior to the beginning of treatment. The purpose of the medication is to maximize your chances of pregnancy with IVF treatment and to minimize the risk of an implantation failure and/or an early miscarriage.

Cost of Egg Donation at North Cyprus IVF Center

So how much does IVF with donor eggs cost? The cost of IVF with egg donation is slightly higher than conventional IVF since it requires the use of an egg donor. IVF with egg donation costs 5,500 Euros at North Cyprus IVF Center. This amount includes your egg donor’s compensation, her medication and her initial testing and assessment. The cost also includes your IVF procedures and the consults in Cyprus.

What is not included in the cost of treatment are as follows:

– The initial tests that are required for you to have prior to your arrival in Cyprus. These are the tests that have been mentioned above (ultrasound scan, semen analysis, health screening if over the age of 50 and additional tests under certain circumstances). These tests are to be done before we can proceed with your treatment planning, therefore, are not covered in the cost of your treatment. The total cost of these initial tests can vary depending on your country, but overall, they should not be more than 300 Euros.
– The cost of your own medication. Given that you will not be using medication to stimulate your own ovaries, the cost of medication will be nowhere comparable to the cost of medication during standard IVF treatments. You will be looking at around 150-200 Euros for the initial medication you will need to use prior to your embryo transfer.
– The cost of your infectious disease testing. The infectious disease testing for both partners are required in donor egg IVF treatments. These are the standard HIV, hepatitis and VDRL testing. However, as a safety protocol, we cannot accept these tests from any other laboratories. Our lab takes pride in its superior technological and environmental conditions and we aim to keep it that way. Any contamination of our laboratory by pathogens can possibly put every single patient sample under severe risk, therefore, we ask that these important communicable disease testing is carried out by our own lab before any samples are handled. The cost of all these tests will be 200 Euros.
– The cost of accommodation in Cyprus. We do offer alternative accommodation options during your stay in Cyprus and we are always happy to do the booking for you. The accommodation options are listed on the “Accommodation” section.
– The cost of airfare is not included in the cost of your treatment and you will need to organize your own air travel as we cannot provide this service.

Success with Egg Donation in Cyprus

IVF using donor eggs is one of the most successful fertility treatment options at North Cyprus IVF Centre. Dr. Savas Ozyigit lists the main factors of success with donor eggs as follows:

• Egg donors at North Cyprus IVF can only be between the ages of 19-25, thus, making sure that all our egg donors are very young and healthy individuals.
• Egg donors who contribute to a successful pregnancy are re-called for another donation. Each egg donor is allowed a certain number of donations throughout her lifetime and only the donors with previous pregnancies are re-called for a new donation.
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• Egg donor screening is our top priority. We make sure that all of our potential egg donors go through a very careful screening process to make sure they are healthy and fit for donation. Only the egg donors in “optimal fertility range” are admitted into our program.
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• We have a single donor, single recipient policy. We stimulate our egg donors with milder stimulation protocols in order not to compromise quality of oocytes in the anticipation of obtaining “more”. The eggs obtained, therefore, are very high quality eggs with high fertilization and pregnancy potential.
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• At North Cyprus IVF, we are allowed to transfer up to 3 embryos, which is a factor that raises your chance of success.
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• Our clinic is equipped with high levels of technology which is not available to many other modern clinics in Europe or the United States due to our flexible laws in Northern Cyprus. For instance, we have been chosen as one of the very select clinics to offer microfluidic sperm selection, which is a technological breakthrough in sperm selection methods to aid with male sub-fertility. This method ensures selection of sperm cells that are genetically viable.
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You will find more information about IVF with egg donation treatment program in the form of questions and answers on FAQ page.

Additional Links:

Egg Donation – Cyprus IVF Center