Shared Donor Egg

What to Expect

The coordination of a shared donor egg treatment cycle is nearly identical to that of a traditional, or non-shared, donor egg cycle.

Selecting a Donor

Once you (the recipient) decide if you will or will not share a donor, it is time to select a donor. Shady Grove Fertility patients have access to our center’s donor database comprised of egg donors who have already undergone medical, psychological, and genetic screening, As a result of the screening, each egg donor is identified as a candidate for our non-shared program (1:1) or as a shared donor (1:2 or 1:3). This is easily identifiable on the donor database.

Patients also have access to a bank of frozen egg donors through Donor Egg Bank USA. This frozen donor egg bank, offers a vast database of donors with the ability to ship eggs all over the country, without presenting any risk to the eggs themselves. This provides our patients with a multitude of options when making this important decision.

Once a patient has selected a donor, the patient must wait for other recipients to also choose their desired donor. If a donor is listed as a 1:3 cycle (meaning that there will be three recipients), the cycle will not move forward until at least two recipients have selected that donor. Once two recipients have selected the donor, there is a 30-day window for a third recipient to select that donor. After 30 days, the cycle moves forward and Shady Grove Fertility assumes the position of the third recipient in order to not delay the process. Once a match is completed, it usually takes about 8 weeks from that point to the embryo transfer.

There are occasions when an egg donor does not produce as many eggs as predicted and therefore only one or two of the recipients will receive eggs. In these cases, your care team will coordinate with you next steps.