Becoming an Egg Donor

Shady Grove Fertility has a dedicated team to support women interested in becoming an egg donor. Candice Brown, one of the donor egg liaisons, helps answer these women’s questions about donating eggs. One of the most common questions Candice is asked is, “Will donating eggs impact my future fertility?” The simple answer is no, and here is why:

As a woman, you are typically born with two ovaries, each containing resting eggs or follicles. At 20 weeks gestation, you have about 6 million eggs, which is the largest amount of eggs you will ever have in your lifetime. At birth, you will lose approximately half of your eggs and, by the time you reach puberty, you will only have about 200,000 eggs left. At the beginning of each cycle, several follicles containing an egg are present with only one egg that develops, matures, and is released through ovulation. The remaining eggs die off and are no longer available. Therefore, as you age, your body naturally discards the unused eggs each month.

During an egg donation cycle, we use hormone medications to safely stimulate the ovaries to produce multiple mature eggs from the existing cohort of follicles. There are no additional eggs taken from your egg supply with hormone medications-just maximizing the number of eggs that reach maturity and therefore could potentially result in a pregnancy. A month following the egg donation cycle, when you have your next period, your body will continue to produce eggs as usual.

Learn More About Donating Eggs
To apply to become an egg donor at Shady Grove Fertility, please complete this brief application. If you have any question about egg donor compensation, please reach out to Candice, our Egg Donor Liaison by email or call 1-888-529-6382. If you have already applied and wish to complete your donor profile, click here.

If you have questions regarding infertility treatment or would like to schedule a new patient appointment, please call our New Patient Center at 877-971-7755 or click to schedule an appointment.

In order to assure our patients—both egg donors and donor egg recipients—that they are receiving the absolute best care, becoming an egg donor at Shady Grove Fertility is a very lengthy and selective process. Due to this intensive process and the many unknowns, many of our applicants are unsure about making the decision to move forward with applying. Hopefully, these quick facts will help ease these concerns.

1. Is it common for women to donate their eggs? In 2014, over 18,500 women applied to become an egg donor at Shady Grove Fertility.
2. Who else is donating? The majority of egg donor applicants at Shady Grove Fertility has a college-level education or graduated from vocational school, with many having a secondary degree.
3. Will this impact my ability to have children of my own? By donating eggs, a woman does not deplete or impair her ability to have a child of her own. The eggs retrieved during the donation are eggs that would have otherwise been discarded naturally. During the menstrual cycle, one egg matures and is released, while the other immature eggs are discarded.
4. Is it a good idea? In 2015, over 50% of all egg donors were women who had previously donated their eggs and made the choice to do it again.
5. Do I have to have had a child to be considered for donation? A large majority of women interested in donation have children of their own and want to share the joy of motherhood with another woman. However, this is not a requirement to become an egg donor at Shady Grove Fertility.
6. Am I selling my eggs? When it comes to egg donation, compensation is based on the extensive time and efforts required of our egg donors. Time requirements include both the application process and the medical procedure.
7. Why Shady Grove Fertility? Shady Grove Fertility has one of the largest egg donor programs in the country and is one of the only fertility centers that has its own donation program.
8. What are the medications and will they hurt? Hormone injections are used to stimulate the ovaries prior to the egg retrieval. This stimulation is performed in order to have multiple mature eggs available for retrieval. These medications are similar to the hormones that your body produces daily. Because these hormones are similar to what you would produce naturally, the only side-effects are tenderness near the injection site and heightened symptoms similar to what is experienced during PMS.
9. How long is the medical process of the egg donation? There is a lot of time involved with donating and on average, the entire process takes about six months. However, the majority of the time requirement comes from filling out the Donor Profile (long application), Donor Day, and additional screening. The actual medical process during an egg donation cycle is just two weeks and only one day during this time frame requires missing school or work.

While there are many more questions regarding egg donation, these will hopefully put your mind at ease when considering donation. Click to read the basic qualification criteria.

Click here to apply to considered as a Shady Grove Fertility egg donor. Have you already applied? Contact your egg donor liaison to complete your egg Donor Profile.

Shady Grove Fertility held an informal session for women interested in becoming egg donors. This session gave us insight into what motivates and concerns potential egg donors, and gave attendees the opportunity to ask any and all questions they had about the donation process.  Additionally, these women had the opportunity to talk to each other, sharing their feelings about donation and learning from those who had previously donated and were considering it again. It was very beneficial for us to understand their perspective, so that we could give them enough information to make an informed decision about egg donation – and so that we could use it for the benefit of all potential egg donors. With that in mind, here are the most frequent subjects that came up throughout the session:

The Inspiration to Become an Egg Donor

Many women find inspiration to donate from personal experiences of family members or friends who had fertility issues. They feel egg donation is a way to give back and help women have a family, much like they wanted to help their friends and/or family who had fertility issues. The donors weren’t considering donation for their own personal glory or for the money; they just wanted to altruistically give this potential gift to someone that they would never even meet.

The Process Seems Daunting…Especially Completing the Donor Profile

Potential donors were concerned about the length of the actual egg donation process and how it could affect their normal routine. It’s important to note that this process is not very long, and that in fact, the medical portion of egg donation is only about two weeks. The lengthiest portion of the process comes during the first few months when applying to become an egg donor. The application process has several tiers – the initial application, finalizing the Donor Profile, attending Donor Day, and completing social work. Once a woman is fully accepted as an egg donor, her Donor Profile is uploaded to a database and she must wait to be selected.

The Donor Profile, also known as the long application, is a 13 page in-depth application that serves as a look into an egg donor’s life. The Profile represents the only information that recipients will ever have about their egg donor – it displays your personal and family medical history and your donor essay. This essay is your opportunity to stand out from the crowd by sharing your goals, aspirations, hobbies, and dreams. The paperwork, though extensive, is beneficial to both the donor and the recipient – the donor improves her chances of being selected and the recipient can get a comprehensive view of the woman whose donated egg will help her grow her family.

An Appreciation of the Screening Process

The screening process helps women fully understand the meaning behind egg donation – helping another couple grow their family. At Shady Grove Fertility, both egg donors and donor egg recipients are treated as patients– it is our goal to fully take into account the needs of both egg donors and egg donor recipients. Egg donors devote time, energy, and patience to help someone else. They move forward through the donation process, knowing the entire time that they could be excluded from the program. Therefore, we compensate donors throughout the process, even if they are unable to make it to donation. We do this because their wish is to help others and their time and effort is highly valued.

Not every egg donor makes it to donation because we have an extensive screening process. When a couple logs on to the database and looks at a donor profile, they know that that donor is already pre-approved. Imagine if the testing came after the couple selected the donor and then a genetic abnormality was discovered? Testing in advance provides the best possible outcome for our recipients.  The time, emotional energy, and costs that a recipient undertakes to have a family can add a lot of strain on a couple. Therefore, we do our best to ensure that when they select an egg donor, we’re providing them with the best possible chance for success. For many, egg donation can feel like their last piece of hope to grow their family.

Waiting to Be Chosen

Once an egg donor completes the full application process and is approved to donate at Shady Grove Fertility, their Donor Profile – or long application – is uploaded onto the donor database. The donor database is comprised of approximately 80-100 Donor Profiles from women who are also approved to donate. In this database, egg donor recipients are able to select their egg donor. When egg donors complete the Donor Profile, they are encouraged to share information about their interests, hobbies, goals, and dreams. When donor egg recipients search for an egg donor, they look for similarities they can relate to, which could range from physical attributes to a shared interest or hobby. Read 6 Tips to Expedite the Egg Donation Process.

The Medical Procedure

The medical procedure is the shortest portion of the entire egg donation process. Once selected to donate, the egg donor begins birth control pills, followed by injectible medications used to stimulate her ovaries. During this time, women come in for 8-10 appointments for monitoring, cannot have sex, may experience emotions similar to PMS, and are advised to avoid strenuous activity. The egg retrieval comes after approximately 10 days of monitoring. The retrieval takes approximately 15 minutes and the donor is put under light sedation.

On the day of egg retrieval, the donor receives the last of her compensation and is encouraged to take a day off to rest.  The following day after the egg collection procedure, most women are able to resume normal activities.
Read more about the Egg Retrieval.

Potential Side Effects of Egg Donation

There is a 2% chance for complications such as Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS) when the ovaries are over-stimulated or Ovarian Torsion, when the ovary actually twists. These risks are rare, and if an egg donor does have symptoms following a donation, they are brought back to Shady Grove Fertility immediately for an evaluation to address and resolve the issue at hand.

Many women are also concerned that donating their eggs will affect their future fertility; but a woman’s natural ovarian cycle ensures that there will be no effect to the egg supply from donation. Women are born with their entire supply of eggs: generally between one and two million. When a woman reaches puberty and starts to menstruate, only about 400,000 eggs remain. At the start of each menstrual cycle, there are several hundred immature follicles in the ovaries, one of which will mature and then ovulate. The remaining undeveloped follicles degenerate and are lost. When a woman undergoes egg donation, the follicles that would have been lost are stimulated to become eggs and retrieved, leaving the remaining egg supply untouched. Therefore, egg donation does not impact your natural fertility potential.

The Outcome: Helping a Family 

While the process to become an egg donor at Shady Grove Fertility might seem long, for our egg donors, the ultimate outcome of helping a family is more than worth it. Egg donors at Shady Grove Fertility are our patients. It is our goal to provide the best care for them while they aim to help another family. If you would like to apply to become an egg donor, please fill out the initial application. Read a Donor Egg Recipient Story.

If you are considering egg donation but have questions about the process, please contact sgfdonorliaisons@sgfertility.com. If you would like to apply to become an egg donor, please complete the initial application. 

The decision to become an egg donor with Shady Grove Fertility is not one to be taken lightly. Guidelines are strict, and at Shady Grove Fertility, only 3 percent of women who apply to become an egg donor make it to the actual egg donation. Although the process at times may feel tedious and requires commitment of time and dedication, the reward of helping a family is immeasurable.

Some of the requirements for women applying to donate include: detailed family and personal health history, physical characteristics, education, dreams and aspirations, etc.; with each field eventually shared with the couple who is in need of donated eggs to conceive, who are also known as recipients. These requirements often lead women who are considering egg donation to question the motivations behind couples who are in need of donated eggs and how they make a selection.

Who needs an egg donor?

After the age of 35, a woman’s fertility begins declining more rapidly until reaching a fertility potential of nearly zero by the age of 45. Therefore, some couples are in need of donor egg to conceive due to diminished egg quality or quantity. For other couples, they have already been through several rounds of infertility treatment (IVF and/or IUI) and are emotionally exhausted from disappointment and loss, and donor egg treatment is their final option to conceive. Some women are as young as their late 20s and when they are ready to start a family, learn they have premature ovarian failure, and aren’t able to use their own eggs.

According to one of our New Patient Liaisons, Amanda Segal, “when couples find out they have to use donor egg treatment, they have to come to terms with the realization they may not be able to use their own genetics. With donor egg treatment comes some of the control they feel they have lost, providing a little piece of hope to hold on to. They want to feel like their child will be as much their own, they are looking for something to identify with.”

Is it a beauty contest?

Looks matter, but most likely not for the same reason you might assume. The Shady Grove Fertility patient population is very diverse, and therefore donor egg recipients look for an egg donor with whom they can identify with. For some, they want to find a donor who shares something in common with them. That could mean physical attributes such as hair color, eye color, ethnicity, height, etc. While someone might want to share a common interest (playing the piano, baking, athletics) or has achieved higher education (college or a secondary degree).

Each patient has his or her own reasoning to selecting a donor. If an athlete were using donor egg, they might connect with someone who plays/played a sport. If a 6’1 woman were using donor egg, she might want a donor who shares height. Some look for a genetic connection to nationality to connect with and carry on family culture and history.

Recently, a SGF donor recipient wrote a book, Dear Donor, and shared this:

“Dear Donor, We picked you! We loved what you wrote in your profile and we adored your baby pictures and the pictures of your children as well. We would be tickled pink to have healthy, beautiful children like your own. I am on top of the world knowing that we are yet one step closer to our dream of becoming parents. Thank you for making our dreams a possibility.” –Ellen Carpenter

So what do couples look for when choosing a donor? Here are what our Facebook community said:

• “We looked for similarities, eye color, height, and complexion. But also, which was big for us was allergies and family history.
• “Honestly, we looked for it all. Our priority was on aptitudes. But we still looked at physical features. Height was important to me because I’m tall for a female. I also liked that our donor had her own healthy children. Of course with all that in mind, our adorable son is daddy’s twin.”
• “We looked for similarities. Eye color, hair color, height, health and family history!!”
• “I thought we would choose a donor with similar features; however, we fell in love with her profile. Every word of her hand written profile reminded me of myself. As luck would have it, our son happens to be the spitting image of my husband mixed with many of my mannerisms.”
• “In my experience, it varies greatly: Some couples look for a donor who has similar physical features and could ‘fit in to the family.’ Some couples look for specific characteristics that are not physical but may be a match to themselves such as athleticism, musical talent, education, or interests. Some couples just want a donor who is healthy and will literally pick her because they liked something she said in her profile no matter how random it is.”
• “We sorted on highest level of education and blue eyes.”
• “Family history was important to us. It also helped that the donor has traits that are very similar to mine.”
• “I started with similarities, also that she had healthy children.”
• “The profile is all I will ever know of the donor – so the completeness of the medical and family histories was very important. We also looked at physical traits and education background (for a sense of intelligence and drive).”

 Our Advice for Egg Donors

When filling out your Donor Profile, also called the Long Application, be thorough, be honest, be you. Everyone is unique, everyone has a story, and everyone is special. Something you enjoy, or something that makes you unique, might be exactly what a recipient is looking for. So take time to complete the application in it’s entirety, and to focus on the essay questions; this is an area where you can tell recipients more about you. No matter what recipients are looking for, they all want a donor that has taken time to complete her application in full, provided good quality pictures, and took time to answer the essay questions.

Take the Next Step

• Apply Today to become an egg donor and help a couple become a family of their dreams.
• Already applied? Contact Shady Grove Fertility Egg Donor Liaisons, to complete your Donor Profile or answer any questions you might have about egg donation or call (888) 312-4499.