Future Parents
Frequently Asked Questions

Egg Helpers eliminates women who have medical and social histories that make them unacceptable and seeks healthy women whose families do not have genetic problems that could be passed on to a child.

Women donate because they are motivated by a desire to help couples in their quest for parenthood.

Because ethnicity, body type and lifestyle play an important part in the donor selection process, Egg Helpers can find donors from various backgrounds who are willing to help Future Parents.

Donors are required to provide personal and family history by completing our questionnaire. This information, along with photographs of the donor, is provided to the Future Parents in making a donor selection.

Donors receive complete information about the egg retrieval process and any risks or complication that could occur. Each selected donor meets with a psychologist who provides a written report about her mental suitability for being a donor.

When you select your donor, a contract is written and signed by the donor and the future parents that delineates the donor’s responsibilities and clearly states that the Future Parents receive all the eggs produced by the donor in the specified treatment cycle.

The complete cost varies. For a complete breakdown of the fees, please see our Fee Schedule.

Egg Helpers acts for the Future Parents in establishing an account from which payments are made for psychological, genetic and legal services for the donor in executing the Donor Contract. We are available for support, supervision and communication throughout this process and assist the donor in necessary ways to fulfill all her responsibilities.

All of the donors on EH site have been preliminarily screened, which includes a psychosocial assessment, as well as blood work(including infectious disease screening/genetic testing). The donor will still require a new patient appt. with your physician to ensure that they are a good candidate for Egg Donation. It is at this appt. that some donors decide not to move forward based on an in depth explanation of the medical process, or your physician may suggest she not move forward based on the physical examination. We will work with you to find a new donor who fits your previous criteria, and your file will be escalated to Priority status- to ensure that this bump in the road won’t affect timing to greatly. There will of course be no cost to you if this occurs.

Your Egg Donor will likely have had this screening previous to your match, however if you have selected the donor as KNOWN, she will be required for another assessment to discuss the difference of known vs anonymous. We have had donors decide after this appt, that they aren’t comfortable, and so you will need to decide whether going known is worth selecting another donor.

If a Donor changes her mind, we will of course at no charge, rematch you with a donor that meets your criteria. We always do our best to keep the cycle moving quickly to ensure that the donors timeline is respected, however we do run in to timing issues, and in those cases we will suggest selecting another donor.

If your donor has previously donated at another clinic, we will have those records available to your doctor, and would have gone over them to have them approved, at time of selection. The only time this may not apply is if there is a genetic marker that may make you/your partner and the donor incompatible. If this happens, EH will of course rematch you free of charge.

Usually on Day 7/8 of stimulation medications the clinic will advise you if a cycle needs to be cancelled. A cancellation is usually made due to a donor not responding well to the medication, and fewer than 6 follicles being present.

EH will speak with your donor, and ask her if this is something she is comfortable with, and will advise you of the Donors comfort level, and you can then decide how to move forward. If you have already had an anon Donor agreement drawn up, it will need to be changed. We will also then facilitate whatever contact both you, and the donor decide on.

Although we complete an extensive screening process of our donors, there can arise later in life medical concerns that may need an exchange of information. We require the use of legal agreements to create a record for both the Egg Donor and the intended parents, if a medical situation was to formulate that would need some type of communication.

In approx 2-4% of Donor cycles, OHSS does occur. These symptoms can be very mild, requiring a donor to rest for a few days post retrieval, as well as take some medication to avoid the side effects, to a more moderate OHSS which can include drainage of the abdomen between 1-5 follow up appts, to hospitalization, and in the rarest of cases, death.

If your donor suffers from OHSS, we will advise you immediately, and have the physician contact you to discuss your donors health, and the treatment plan. EH staff will also ask you to cover her expenses, which we will not necessarily know the full extent of until treatment has been completed. Typically we will ask Intended parents for $2,000, and in our experience that has been enough to cover her out of pocket expenses. We will of course give you a full accounting of those expenses once treatment has been completed.