Wait Time for Shared Donor

[Anonymous]

I'm looking into the fresh cycle donor egg options at SGF and whether to use a 1:3 shared donor (i.e., 1 egg donor with eggs being shared by 3 recipients). So I'd have to wait for 2 other recipients to choose the same egg donor I choose. Does anyone have experience with how long that may take? Do you know before choosing an egg donor whether other recipients are lined up for that same donor? Success stories? Thanks!

[Anonymous]

i did 1:3. for the first round, i was the second to choose her, but the last to receive. (that round was not successful. she was also an unproven donor.) for the next round, i was the first to choose the donor. (also first to receive) I was worried it would take a while to get 2 others "on board", but it happened very quickly. i think because she was proven.

i think when you get access to the database, they only show you who is available. so if you like one, act on it. otherwise, she might be gone the next day. it's hard. i agonized over it, but at the second round, i was a bit more practical.

my advice -- first, choose young and proven. and then your requirements.

[Anonymous]

I did 1:3 at SGF and it took less than 2 weeks for other two to match.
You will see when you look at donor pool if other people have reserved donor. After you match, you can't see the system anymore and so you just wait for the coordinator to let you know.

[Anonymous]

We are currently doing 1:2 at SGF -- our donor's retrieval is next week! Tracking very well and I hope to get 9-12 mature eggs. First donor decided very late in the game that she did not want to donate her eggs -- it was very hard. It took me about 2 months to find another suitable donor I am equally as excited about -- I am the primary, and an egg bank is the other (second) recipient. It came together very quickly (same day) but I think the egg bank was the second match because the first try was such a shit show. Best of luck !!

[Anonymous]

the super desirable candidates can be off the page in hours to to a day. others may sit for weeks/months. i tended to only log in once a day in the evening, and after I had seen a couple desirable candidates evaporate before i could send a link to my spouse, i knew when i saw one that resonated that i needed to sit him down and decide right then before we went to dinner. donor was originally 1:3 but the first selector converted her to 1:2 (not a thing i knew you could do, but then it *is* my first rodeo.) she was on the site for less than a day. others that had one or no match made had been on the site the entire time.

selection made at the end of december, i think they expect stims to start the end of this month.

[Anonymous]

One thing to think about with shared donors is what if this works and I want a sibling from the same donor? This is what happened to me. Sp, even though you may be hyper-focused on just getting ONE baby right now, it's worth considering. I did shared 1:2 but now wish I had just done the super expensive 1:1 because more eggs, better chance for a sibling from the same donor later. Just a thought to put in the back of your mind. Your current chose donor may not still be around when you want to back later for more eggs.

[Anonymous]

I am in the Shady Grove shared risk egg donor program - we did 1:2, so split egg yield. We moved to donor eggs after two failed cycles with my own eggs, suspected egg quality factor. My husband is on the low end of normal in all sperm areas -- he is 43 and in good general health. We just completed the front end of the process -- we received 12 mature eggs, and of those 11 fertilized. We used a first time donor, and shockingly -- 10 of the 11 eggs made it to blast -- 8 on day 5, and 2 on day 6. All 10 are either 5AA or 5AB. Some are expanded and hatching. Now we wait on PGT-A. We look like we are in good shape. We decided we would do the 1:2 then if that didn't work, upgrade to the 1:1 on the next try.

[Anonymous]

We used a DE and tracked this timing issue for many months before choosing a 2:1 share. Many donors have some kind of genetic marker and, even though there may be zero chance of that marker being passed onto the recipients child (because genetically it’s an impossibility when combined with your husbands DNA), it seemed to take a lot longer to get a second or third person to choose that donor. Donors who test negative for all 100+ markers tend to get matches more quickly. We were the second couple on a 2:1 and selected our donor the day after the first couple selected her Because we didn’t want to lose her as an option. No regrets. We were successful in the first round. Our child is now 3.

[Anonymous]

We converted a 1:3 donor into a 1:2 to increase our odds of getting two genetic siblings. We did! We ended up with four embryos (I forget offhand how many eggs we got); the first two took on the first try. I think the other recipient signed on pretty quickly, but the transfer took a bit longer because we all had to have our cycles synched. I was already on BC's and ready to go, but I'm guessing the other recipient wasn't. The option to convert a donor wasn't really publicized when we did it. It just came up when we were talking to one of the SG coordinators. The donor was proven, and we pulled the trigger fairly quickly when her profile popped up.

[Anonymous]

Also went with the converted 1:3 to a 1:2. We were the second couple, and had ~5 weeks between the match and transfer. We were in second position and got 15 eggs, 12 mature, and 10 made it to day 5 blast. Good luck!