embryo donation?

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know anything about embryo donation? My partner and I have been unsuccessful thus far with our own eggs, but can't afford donor eggs or adoption. We're totally willing to explore embryo donation but don't know where to start. Anyone have information to share?

[Anonymous]

I haven't used donor embyos but there are a few people on this site who have: www.forums.fertilitycommunty.com . The average cost is about 3-4K (much cheaper than traditional IVF or adoption) per transfer If you use a clinic. Most are done within the USA but there are a few couples/singles that travel abroad to places like the Czech Republic, Spain and India because its generally cheaper. Some places (usually adoption agencies) treat this process like traditional adoption and the adoptive parents can choose to maintain contact with the donor family. Clinics on the other hand usually believe in anynomous donations and you nor your children will ever have the opportunity to meet their biological parents. However, using an adoption agency can also have drawbacks. Most of the time its two or three times as expensive to go through an agency verses a clinic because agencies require that you complete a home study, pay adoption adoption "fees" and complete post-placement requirements - all which can meet or exceed 10K. Donating couples also pick the "adoptive parents" and therefore heterosexual, married couples with one or no children and documented infertility are often choose much quicker than others. Agencies also have stiff requirements and many of them (in my experience only) are not enthusiastic about working same-sex couples and single parents.

You never did mention your race but in generally its difficult to recieve embryos of color. The vast majority of them are Caucasian and a few are Hispanic/Latino and/or Asian/East Indian. African-American and anything mixed with African-American (including a child 1/4 African-American) are extremely rare and more times than not there are many families waiting to be matched with them then there are embryos available. If your African-American and you STRONGLY want an African-American child I would suggest that you network as much as possible with other clinics and/or consider tradition domestic adoption where your chances of recieving and African-American and/or African-American-mixed are much greater.

You can copy and paste the links for the following clinics and agencies to find out more:

1. http://www.nightlight.org/programs_SnowflakeEmbryoAdoption.html
2. http://www.ccivf.com/
3. http://www.reprot.com/
4. http://www.embryosalive.com/


If you have anymore questions e-mail me at [e-mail]

[Anonymous]

I just saw the post from the reader who gave her embryos up for adoption, and remembered reading this post awhile back.

Also, there is an article in March issue of Good HouseKeeping Magazine about a family that did two open adoptions with their embryos. In the article it talks about how they "advertised" on a certain message board and how they had to carefully word things. The article also mentioned the Resolve Website and how they have more information there.

Good Luck!

[Anonymous]

I think that locally Shady Grove has an embryo sharing program, if you want to use a clinic. I'm sure there's information on their website.

[Anonymous]

RESOLVE offers credible information about embryo donation on its Web site at http://www.resolve.org/site/PageServer?pagename=lrn_do_emb

This might be a good place to start research.