Selecting an Egg Donor

Join CEO Leia Swanberg, experienced egg donor and surrogate, in this webinar as she explains important information and frequently asked questions on selecting an egg donor.

Key Takeaways

Selecting Egg Donation

At Egg Helpers we work with all types of clients. This includes hetero-couples where the woman has a medical condition that does not make an egg retrieval process safe for her, or she is at an age where the doctor thinks success would be greater with the use of an egg donor. It also includes same-sex male couples who are pursuing surrogacy and egg donation.

Prior to selecting a donor, it is really important to select a fertility clinic who works with egg donors – while there are fertility clinics in every major Canadian city as well as many great ones in the U.S, not all clinics are set up from an infrastructure perspective to work with egg donors. At Egg Helpers it is really important to us that they have the infrastructure in place, such as a nurse to meet with the egg donor who understands the process of egg donation and is experienced working with donors. It is also important that the clinic has an on-staff therapist to answer psychosocial questions on the process of the donation. A big part of our job is helping you select a fertility clinic (if you do not already have one) that supports our model of care for you, and as well for your egg donor.

Once you have your clinic in place, we then suggest that you talk to a lawyer. It is important that you are comfortable with the consent forms your fertility clinic is going to ask you to sign, and that you are comfortable with the type of donation you have selected – (anonymous, semi-known or known). We will refer you to a lawyer to have a free consultation to discuss these things.

Selecting a Donor

From there we will help you select an egg donor. For many people, they are not sure what they are looking for asides from finding someone that sort of looks like them. Other things to look for include health history – you will be able to view information about donors’ health history, to see if she has donated previously and what the results of that donation were. You will be able to see into her life such as photos of her as an adult, sometimes as a child. You will learn what her hobbies are, what her likes and dislikes are, and overall a full picture of who these women are. Is she a university student? Is she a mom? What brought them to egg donation? All of these things are really important questions. And with any donor that you select with our agency, and with most agencies, they will have already been screened by your fertility clinic. If you are working with a clinic who offers a guarantee package or programs associated with the donors’ past success or test results, you will be able to receive that information from our team – so it is important that you ask those questions, such as:

• I’ve viewed the donors’ health history – is there anything else I should know?
• The donor lives outside of the area in which my clinic is located – is she able to travel? If not, should I select a different clinic?
• I’ve had a look at her photos but it looks like her photos are heavily filtered like many young people do today – does she have any more natural photos?
• On her profile she says she would like to be anonymous – it is super important that we know our donor – is she willing to be known?

Be prepared for the answer, and be prepared to shift your perspective. Thinking things through is really important.

Know that the women who participate in our program are amazing, whether they are highly educated, or moms, or not, we suggest to every intended parent to make a checklist of what you are looking for.

If you are a couple, we suggest both of you logging on to our database and each selecting your top 5 donors, then compare notes. You may pick the same, you may pick differently, but it is important to talk through your choices.Please contact us with any questions you have on the topic of selecting an egg donor!