Donor Eggs - The Agency Route

[Anonymous]

We are moving on to donor egg, but we have not found anyone close to our perfect match at SG. Has anyone had experiences, good or bad, using an attorney or agency -- such as Creative Family Connections?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are moving on to donor egg, but we have not found anyone close to our perfect match at SG. Has anyone had experiences, good or bad, using an attorney or agency -- such as Creative Family Connections?

I had 3 children by donor egg and personally would never go through an agency or attorney. Why don't you try another clinic. GIVF has a huge pool and you can look online.

[Anonymous]

I also agree that it might be better to look at other clinics, rather than dealing with agencies. There are not many reputable, responsive agencies out there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are moving on to donor egg, but we have not found anyone close to our perfect match at SG. Has anyone had experiences, good or bad, using an attorney or agency -- such as Creative Family Connections?

I had 3 children by donor egg and personally would never go through an agency or attorney. Why don't you try another clinic. GIVF has a huge pool and you can look online.

What is the negative reputation of attornies/agencies? We have just begun our research, so any thoughts would be helpful. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

And thank you to both posters for posting responses.

[Anonymous]

I've been looking into donor egg for quite a while now. I have heard some really awful horror stories about agencies and atttorneys, who are just not professional and are not looking out for your best interests. I really felt like the clinics have a stake in making sure their donors are qualified, because their stats are effected by the outcome. Agencies and attorneys really have no incentive.

[Anonymous]

I'm not one of the PPs, but people I know through support groups who had planned on using donor egg agencies ended up using donors from their clinics because there were a lot of hidden fees when using an agency donors. Once they got close to finalizing things with an agency -- all of a sudden they found out about all sorts of fees that they were never told about. Also, when I read up on it (we were considering donor egg too) it sounded like you could end up paying a lot of nonrefundable money to the agency only to have the clinic reject the donor for health reasons.

Sorry to depress you... Also, the articles I read made it sound like there is very little regulation of these agencies, so you don't have much recourse if things don't go well.

If you are willing to travel, there is a big donor egg clinic in ORegon that seems to have a large pool of donoros (although the clinic is expensive). Lots of people on the IVF Connections boards seem to use them. Good luck!!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Are there any other local clinics that have a good size donor pool other than Shady Grove and GIVF? Do any of the local clinics have frozen donor egg programs? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

The only frozen donor egg programs I 've heard about are in New York (I think New Hope and maybe SIRM have 'em).

[Anonymous]

My wife and I never gave much thought to the ethnic backgrounds of the people in the DC area, but it seems there is a very high population of Irish/Scottish/English folk (like me) in this area. Unfortunately we are looking for a donor with a background similar to my wife's heritage, Norwegian, Swedish, German, Danish. Your basic Minnesota mix. We are beginning to consider expanding our search to Minnesota clinics.

[Anonymous]

Try Cornell in NYC. Everyone I know who did DE there raved about it.

[Anonymous]

There is often a wait for one of the donors at Cornell (unless you use your own donor).

[Anonymous]

GIVF is probably your best option for donor egg in the local area.