Ξ
I want to donate my eggs
Donating your eggs
Can you help by donating eggs? There are all sorts of reasons why some women rely on donated eggs to stand a chance of realising their dream of becoming a mother. They may have suffered early menopause, undergone chemotherapy or radiotherapy, or have poor egg quality. Some women are born without ovaries.
Some of our egg donors donate their eggs via our very successful Egg Share Scheme; others are altruistically donated by women determined to help those less fortunate than themselves to become parents.
If you would like to become an egg donor, there are a number of issues to consider and we will take the time to make sure you fully understand what the procedure involves. If you wish to find out more, read our Donating Eggs page.
Become an Altruistic egg donor
Egg donation really is a life-changing gift for would-be parents facing a future without children. Some of our egg donors are making a selfless decision to help those less fortunate than themselves to become parents.
| Treatment | Cost* | |
|---|---|---|
| Egg donation | I want to donate my eggs | Cost(£) | |
| Compensation for altruistic egg donors | £985 |
Show more
Can anyone become an altruistic egg donor?
There are strict criteria in place to become an egg donor. We will need to assess your potential to produce enough eggs for the treatment, and your overall health and genetic makeup. This is so that we are not knowingly passing any inheritable illness on to any child born as a result of the donation.
The most important factor to consider when looking at egg quality is your age. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) stipulates that an egg donor:
- Needs to be between the ages of 18 and 36
- Is fit and healthy within normal limits of weight and height.
- Hasn’t got a family history of inherited diseases, genetic disorders or any serious mental health issues.
At Herts & Essex Fertility Centre we accept egg donors that satisfy all of the above criteria and have a BMI between 19 and 34.
What happens when I donate my eggs?
If you decide to go ahead, you will be giving another woman a life-changing gift. However, it is important to know that the process takes approximately a month to complete. During this time, you would be required to take hormone injections and then have your eggs collected by a minor operating procedure, which is done here at the clinic. You would also need to attend the clinic for approximately 3-4 scans during this period.
Find out more about becoming an egg donor
If you’re interested in becoming an egg donor, we would love to hear from you. We are always happy to have an informal chat in complete confidence and can explain in more detail what is involved.
Please call our Egg Donation team on 01992 78 50 65, or email enquiries@hertsandessexfertility.com to find out more.
Show less
Egg share and fund your IVF treatment
Many other women may be in need of fertility treatment themselves and understand all too well the heartbreak of failing to conceive. So, as a part of their own IVF treatment, women may choose to donate half of their collected eggs to help another woman. This is known as egg sharing.
What is egg sharing?
Egg sharing anonymously brings together two women needing IVF treatment but for very different reasons. Women who have the potential to produce plenty of eggs during their IVF treatment can donate half of the eggs collected from their cycle to another who cannot have treatment at all without the precious gift of donated eggs.
It gives women the opportunity to help other women and in return, it helps towards funding their own much-needed IVF treatment.
Show more
With our egg share programme, the donors’ standard IVF treatment will be fully funded and also includes saline infusion sonogram (SIS), endometrial scratch, male and female screening tests, and fertility drugs.
Can anyone become an egg share donor?
Egg sharers are donating eggs to another woman and there are strict criteria in place in order to become an egg share donor. We will need to assess your potential to produce enough eggs for two women’s treatment, and your overall health and genetic makeup. This is so that we are not knowingly passing any inheritable illness on to any child born as a result of the donation.
The most important factor to consider when looking at egg quality is your age. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) stipulates that an egg donor:
- Needs to be between the ages of 18 and 36
- Is fit and healthy within normal limits of weight and height.
- Hasn’t got a family history of inherited diseases, genetic disorders or any serious mental health issues.
At Herts & Essex Fertility Centre we accept egg donors that satisfy all of the above criteria and have a BMI between 19 and 34. Any potential egg-share donors who are within the correct age range and BMI criteria will initially be booked to come in for a blood test called an AMH to assess the reserve within their ovaries. At this appointment, we will also complete a medical questionnaire answering questions about their fertility and medical history.
The combination of the AMH blood result and the information that is provided on the questionnaire will allow us to assess who may be suitable to become an egg-share donor. Those who are suitable will then be booked to come for a full consultation with one of our doctors as a potential egg-share donor. At this appointment, blood tests (including genetic tests and screening for infectious diseases) will be taken before suitability is finally confirmed.
Your first step towards egg sharing?
If you have read this information and feel that you would like to help another woman by sharing your eggs and you are interested in finding out more, please contact our Egg Donation team on 01992 78 50 65 or email enquiries@hertsandessexfertility.com
More information about your decision to become an egg share donor is also available on the HFEA website.
Show less
Funded egg freezing as part of our Egg Sharing programme
We know that many young women today are interested in fertility preservation to enable them to choose to start their families later in life so, in the same way, that our Egg Sharing programme can help women to receive funded IVF treatment, it can also provide women with the opportunity to help another woman who desperately needs donated eggs to begin her treatment and to also meet the cost of her own egg freezing treatment, including the cost of storage for 3 months, by sharing half of her eggs. Further storage time will be charged at the usual egg-freezing rate.
Are you eligible for funded egg freezing?
Anyone interested in our funded egg freezing treatment must be fit and healthy have a BMI of between 19 and 34, have an AMH of 15 or over, be 18-36 years of age and meet the HFEA criteria required to become an egg donor.
We will ask that you undertake a comprehensive fertility assessment to confirm that you have the potential to produce enough eggs to freeze for yourself and for another woman’s treatment. We are also required to assess your health and your genetic makeup, so you will need to consent to undertake all of the regulatory screening tests. This is to ensure that we are not knowingly passing any inheritable illness on to any child born as a result of your donation.
I want to use donor eggs
Treatment using donor eggs
Many women who come to us for fertility treatment are unable to produce their own eggs. The cause may be anything from early menopause as a result of damage to the ovaries because of chemotherapy or radiotherapy, previous surgery on the ovaries or purely unexplained. Some women are simply born without ovaries. Others may still produce eggs but the quality is too poor to fertilise or implant.
You can find out more about how we carry out our fertility treatments for egg recipients in the Treatment Journey.
Show more
At the Herts & Essex Fertility Centre, we can offer treatment to those women who need donor eggs, and usually within 6 months plus of application.
The majority of our egg donors come to us via our egg sharing programme. This is where you would receive half of the eggs collected from a woman who is undergoing fertility treatment herself.
She will have met all the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) criteria and she will also have been assessed as having the potential to produce a good number of healthy eggs (see diagram below).
We are also happy to treat women who bring their own known donors to the clinic.
Donor Waiting Times
Donor waiting times are six months plus for all ethnicities.
Your next steps if you need donor eggs:
Please contact our Egg Donation team on 01992 78 50 65 or enquiries@hertsandessexfertility.com
Show less
