Becoming an egg donor is one of the most selfless things a woman can do. As a donor, you’ll be an integral part of a couple’s journey to parenthood. However, we want all of our donors to be well-informed and realize that becoming an egg donor is a serious decision, and one that shouldn’t be made lightly.
Donating Your Eggs
Qualifying as a Donor
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) treats eggs just like any other body part, so donors are carefully screened before they’re allowed to donate. At Asian Egg Bank, we look for women who:
- Are in good overall physical and mental health
- Have a BMI between 19-29
- Don’t smoke
- Don’t have a history of drug or substance abuse
- Don’t have a family history of potentially inherited genetic disorders
- Get regular, healthy periods
- Are college-educated
Though being of Asian decent is not a requirement, we’ve found that it significantly increases a donor’s chances of being selected.
If you meet these requirements, you’re likely a good candidate for donation and should inquire about our 6 Step Donation Process.
Donate for the Right Reasons
A common misconception about egg donors is that they’re women looking for a quick paycheck. But in reality, we’ve found that, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Though women are compensated for their time and donation, most women know someone who has been affected by infertility or used an egg donor. The women who donate at Asian Egg Bank are kind, generous people who simply want to help others realize their dreams of becoming parents.
Is Donating My Eggs Safe?
Every aspect of the donation process — hormone therapy, egg retrieval surgery — is completely safe in the short and long-term. Studies observing more than 180,000 female egg donors discovered that there was no risk of ovarian cancer in women treated with ovarian stimulating drugs for fertility.
To ensure the health of our donors, we optimize medication dose so as not to have an extreme amount of eggs harvested per cycle. We only use Lupron trigger injection (as opposed to HCG injection) which virtually eliminates the risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS).
Donating your eggs also won’t have any effect on your egg count, meaning it won’t impact your chances of starting a family in the future.
Understand What You’re About to Do
We pride ourselves on caring for every party involved in the donation process. The decision to donate your eggs should only be made after giving it a lot of thought. It’s important that donors understand that they will have no legal claim to the child born from their eggs, despite being genetically related. And though each donation is different, most donors will never meet the child born from their egg or have a relationship with them.
Choosing to Be a Fresh or Frozen Egg Donor
Once you’ve been accepted as a donor, you’ll be able to choose whether you’d like to be a fresh or frozen egg donor. If you choose to be a frozen egg donor, you’ll be able to start hormone therapy as soon as possible, because your eggs will later be stored in a bank.
If you choose to be a fresh egg donor, you’ll be asked to start hormone therapy only once you’ve been chosen by the intended parents — this can take anywhere from weeks to several months.
How Donating May Affect Your Everyday Life
Once you’ve been approved and contracts have been drawn, hormone therapy lasts only a few days and doesn’t have a significant impact on a woman’s day — she’s still able to work, spend time with friends, and participate in most activities or hobbies.
Though everyone’s treatment differs slightly, most women are asked to inject themselves with hormones once a day for 10 days. During those 10 days, we ask that donors:
- Refrain from all sexual activity. Hormone therapy improves your chances of getting pregnant by stimulating your ovaries and causing them to release several eggs at once. If you’re sexually active during this time period, it’s very possible that you could get pregnant.
- Do not drink any alcohol. In general, alcohol is not good for a donor or her eggs, and it can negatively affect a person’s likelihood of getting pregnant.
- Check in with their doctor regularly. Your doctor will ask that you see them in person or talk to them over the phone fairly regularly. For the most part, they’ll want regular updates about how your hormone therapy is going, if you’ve missed any shots, and how you feel physically and emotionally.
After about a week and a half of hormone therapy, you’ll go in for the egg retrieval process — an outpatient procedure that takes roughly 20 minutes to perform. Once you return home, your fertility will stay elevated for another two months, making it important to either refrain from sexual activity or practice safe sex.
Even if you have questions after your donation process has been completed, don’t hesitate to contact our specialist.
Do you have a question we didn’t answer here? Give us a call at 858.381.3224 for more information!
Asian Egg Bank was established to satisfy the ever-rising demand for Asian egg donors. Thanks to rigorous quality and screening standards, we are able to offer the highest quality eggs and surrogacy services to improve the chances of a successful pregnancy.