Moving on to donor eggs and have a few questions

[Anonymous]

I have DOR (36 but have been TTC since I was 32) and have had 10 IUI's and three rounds of IVF. I have gotten pregnant several times but it never lasted long. Diagnosis is poor egg quality. I think it is time to move on to donor eggs and my DH agrees. The reason we haven't already moved on is that we have very good insurance and so far everything has been covered. This leads me to my first question. If you use donor eggs, does insurance cover any of it or do you have to cover all the expenses (yours and the donors) out of pocket?

Also, what kind of information do you get on the donor? Age, medical history, some kind of physical description? Is there anything else that we should be looking for in a donor?

[Anonymous]

I have a beautiful daughter through donor egg. What an amazing option!!

It's rare for insurance to cover any part of Donor Egg, but some do. You'd have to check with yours. The good news is it's tax deductible, so try to have all the expenses in one year.

Depending on where you do DE, there is more or less information available on the donors. Some agencies will show photos and audio recordings and set up a meeting with the donor, some clinics will only give you very minimal information.

Here's a great board that discusses donor egg:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/57451/

Let me know if you want more info.

[Anonymous]

Op here, thanks for the info. We have been going to GW MFA up to this point and I know that they have an egg donor program. We also saw a specialist up in New York (Columbia Presbyterian) and my DH wants to go there because the egg donor program is bigger and more established. Any thoughts?

[Anonymous]

You don't have to travel out of the area for DE, we went to Dominion their egg donor Coordinator is really wonderful and provides a lot of info on the donor.

[Anonymous]

I think you really need to do a lot of research before choosing a clinic for Donor Egg. It's a really different ballgame than conventional IVF and a lot of clinics just don't do it very well. (Check out pved.org for lots of good information.) Here's the clinics I would consider (especially if cost is an issue):

Locally:

Shady Grove for their success guarantee shared donor cycles (you won't have as many choices with donors and success rates aren't ideal and it may take a few cycles, but the guarantee is really great)

GIVF, only if finding a very specific type of donor is really important to you (otherwise, they're pretty expensive with not stellar response rates)

Nationally:

ORM (Oregon Reproductive Medicine) -- VERY good success rates and evidently, nice doctors.

SDFC (SanDiego Fertility Center) --Again, VERY good success rates, guarantee option

RBA (Reproductive Biology Associates, in Atlanta) -- Known for the vitrified egg program. Very reasonably priced and good success rates. This is probably where I would go.

[Anonymous]

Hi there--

I have DOR, too and am 33 years old. I don't want to give you false hope, but I just got pregnant on my 4th fresh IVF cycle (5th if you include our 1 FET). I usually only made 6-7 eggs (on antagonist protocol and max stims (450-600iu)) and would only have 2 embryos to transfer. This last cycle, I had 6 eggs, 4 mature, 2 fertilized and am now 8 weeks 1 day pregnant. We have a long way to go, but there is some hope with DOR if you make some good quality embryos. You can got to SART and sort success rates by DOR to see which clinics are best at treating this diagnosis. Shady Grove has a 30% success rate with DOR (in my age bracket), which is where I ended up doing my last cycle and having success. I totally understand, though, if you are just sick of this process and want to move on to something that has a higher probability of success.

If you are considering donor egg, I would suggest seeing a donor egg counselor (I really liked Phyllis Martin) and going to Resolve's decision cross-roads support group. This last cycle was supposed to be our "hail mary" cycle and we even had a donor lined up for the following month if the cycle didn't work out. I personally chose GIVF because their success rates for donor egg were fairly good and I liked their selection of donors and all the information available to you.

Best of luck to you!!

[Anonymous]

I used GIVF and they were expensive. I really liked their online donor egg web site. You can go on and check it out now to see what information you get for the donors. That was what swayed me to them.

[Anonymous]

I've was diagnosed with DOR at 37 (currently 39) and it took two years of trying everything under the sun before we finally decided on DE. I'm just waiting on my donor's cycle to start so we can go in and retrieve the eggs. I'm with DM and their donor pool was great for my needs. I'm of mixed descent, and they had the best variety of the mix I was looking for, plus I felt an immediate pull toward one of their candidates and through the grace of God, everything fell into place after that. The whole process is explained in depth at every stage, and their donor coordinator is great (Natalie). Good luck with your cycle!!

[Anonymous]

Sorry, this is pp 19:11, and that should read DF (Dominion Fertility).

[Anonymous]

OP here - PP 14:26, congratulations on your pregancy. I hope everything works out perfectly for you. I wondered about your last cycle when you said you were on max stims. Was the 400-650 per injection or per day? On my last cycle I was on 375 of gonal-f two times a day and I am wondering if it is possible to go higher. I have liked GW, but I feel like they are a little conservative and like to play it safe. I am at a place where I am prepared to push the envelop a little bit. There is literally no chance of overstimulation. We did three tries at IVF and the first two were canceled because I had no eggs and in the last one (on the 375 dose) I only got one egg, which fertilized and they put back at day 2 but I didn't get pregnant.

DE seems like a good option for me, but I have insurance $ left for one more try with my own eggs (and DH is switching jobs so we will lose it anyway) and I am wondering if it is time to move on from GW.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have any feedback on Columbia Fertility's donor egg program? I know they have a small pool, so we may end up with an agency. I see Dr. Sacks.

[Anonymous]

This is poster 14:26.

Here's what I will tell you about the max dose: one doctor I talked to described increasing the dose as such: there are a limited number of receptors for the hormones and increasing the dose doesn't necessarily mean that you will get a better response.

If you can handle the emotional and physical strain of another cycle, I would suggest doing so and I would try Shady Grove as they have the best statistics locally for diminished ovarian reserve (this is assuming that you only have local coverage; if not, consider Cornell in NYC).

My dosage for the last round was: 300 menupor and 300 follistim (in the beginning), this was later increased to 375 menupor and 400 follistim.

I will tell you that I had a better response than you did. I typically would grow 6-9 eggs and would have 2-3 embryos to transfer. With only one egg, you have lower chances.

In the end, you need to decide what you need to do to feel comfortable moving on to donor eggs. For me, I felt that I needed to go beyond what I felt was reasonable in order to feel that I was ready to move on. Additionally, all of my doctors encouraged me to try another round of IVF if we could afford it. If all of your doctors are telling you it's donor eggs, then maybe it is time to move on. I would DEFINITELY try another clinic if you have only been at one clinic. I did cycles at three different clinics before finding success.

Good luck!! I know how hard this is.

[Anonymous]

If you have insurance coverage left for one more try with your own eggs (and can handle the emotions of going through it again), I would definitely try somewhere else. In your situation, I'd be tempted to try Dominion Fertility's natural cycle IVF, since the most you've gotten is one egg anyway. If not, I would consider Columbia Fertility (Dr Sacks, because he's willing to work with difficult cases) and Shady Grove (search some other posts for recommendations of high fsh-friendly docs there).

To the poster who asked about Columbia's DE program. Their stats aren't particularly good, and they're quite expensive. So if you have to go to an agency as well, it will really add up. I would really suggest you consider some of the better clinics nationally, since their success rates are so much higher. For DE, the increase in stats is really worth the inconvenience of travel.

[Anonymous]

I am an ORM grad with 3 kids (a singleton and a set of twins). They have a 85% take home baby rate - amazing stats, great doctors (we saw Helsa) and donors (www.exceptionaldonors.com). They are very used to working with patients from all over the world. We used Shady Grove to do monitoring. We still have leftover embies on ice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used GIVF and they were expensive. I really liked their online donor egg web site. You can go on and check it out now to see what information you get for the donors. That was what swayed me to them.

I have twins via DE and used GIVF for this same reason - the donor pool. I did find GIVF expensive, but at the time I was there, it wasn't all that much more than Shady Grove and the donor pool was much better and the stats really were fairly comparable. I had heard that GIVF was offering discounts for attending their free seminars - I think they are more forgiving with their prices with the current state of the economy. Not sure if they are still doing this.