I guess all the stars were aligned for us.. I got pregnant on the first round at the Shady Grove. My baby is now 10 years old.

I know you said local... after 3 failed rounds of OE at GW we went with frozen at RBA in Atlanta. I did all monitoring remote. DH flew down for an overnight and then I had to be there on day 2. I had a day 5 transfer so just worked remote for several days. We were allotted 5 eggs. Only 3 ended up making it to day 5.

We did DE at SGF, using a donor from an agency. Had a great experience -- much better than our pre-DE attempts, actually.

I recommend signing up with multiple donor egg agencies for the broadest possible pool of candidates. Our best experience was with A Perfect Match, and we ultimately chose a donor from their pool.

I’m going for a consultation at CCRM in Tyson’s. I have a few friends that went there and loved them. I’ll update once I’ve gone.

We did shared risk/shared donor at SGF. Even with splitting with 2 other couples, we got 15 mature embryos, 12 fertilized, 6 blasts and 5 were normal. So far, the experience has been very good.
We were previously at Dominion for 2 IVF with our own eggs and I was not impressed at all with the nursing staff, the lack of communication (both at and outside of appointments), the lack of processes, the confusion (i.e. not being told when to start important meds) and my doctor (Waud) who would literally wait a week to 10 days to follow up with me where very concerning results were to be discussed. I also found when requesting my records that they never shared with me that Labcorp had sent them updated results on some life changing bloodwork...I found out by reading my file. I cannot more strongly not recommend Dominion. No clinic is perfect, but my experience with them was actually scary unorganized.

Anonymous wrote:Practically any clinic. It is much more lucrative for them to push donor eggs than keep trying with Women’s own eggs.

I don't think that's true. Even though DE is more expensive per cycle, much of the additional expense doesn't go to the RE, it goes to donor fees, legal fees (for contracts and lawyers involved), travel expenses, etc. The RE I used got the same amount as they would have for any other cycle. I used an agency, so the RE didn't have any expense associated with vetting/coordination for the donor.

Anonymous wrote:We ended up going the donor egg route and used Dominion (started out at Shady Grove but they were AWFUL!). What a wonderful experience and we have a lovely child now, thankfully.
It was an uphill struggle and wish we would have moved to donor egg earlier. Good for you knowing that this is the best route for your family! I liked knowing that our coordinator, Natalie, had met our donors and could give me information that may not have been in their packets.
Best of luck.

Can you share more about the difference in your experience with Shady Grove and Dominion?

We ended up going the donor egg route and used Dominion (started out at Shady Grove but they were AWFUL!). What a wonderful experience and we have a lovely child now, thankfully.
It was an uphill struggle and wish we would have moved to donor egg earlier. Good for you knowing that this is the best route for your family! I liked knowing that our coordinator, Natalie, had met our donors and could give me information that may not have been in their packets.
Best of luck.

Practically any clinic. It is much more lucrative for them to push donor eggs than keep trying with Women’s own eggs.

We’ve done 2 frozen donor egg cycles at shady grove using donor egg bank USA. On both cycles we’ve had 2-3 of the eggs not survive the thaw. Then add in not fertilizing or making it to blast. I’d ask the dr about results using fresh/frozen which we did not do. We just jumped to frozen because more donor choices.

We did shared risk frozen egg at Shady Grove. You typically get 6-8 eggs. Our lot had seven eggs, one did not survive the thaw and we got 2 embryos out of the remaining 6. The pool of donors keeps changing so if you have time you can wait for a suitable match to come up. If you are looking for an uncommon ethnicity then act quickly because some of those donors go fast. We made a shortlist of donors we liked and then ran them by our RE. We went with a proven donor.
Be prepared that even donor egg might not work instantly. Our first embryo did not take but the second one worked.
If you would like to get more numbers of embryos for a sibling then fresh might be better.

Thank you both for the suggestions! Please keep them coming! We would love to have one child. We have one biological child already.

For me finding the right donor was most important. It took a while. My initial choice was willing to travel here, and I was planning to use SGF, but doc recommended against the donor due to her hormone levels(not terrible but not good for a donor). The second donor I chose had previously donated and was only comfortable going to the prior RE out of state. Since I only had to go for the transfer and DH only had to go at retrieval, we found it doable. All monitoring (blood tests etc) were done locally and results sent to the out of state RE. I talked to the RE and nurses by phone. They were great and used to working with people who weren’t local.

For certain reasons, it was recommended that we use fresh eggs and not a shared cycle. I do agree with PP that frozen eggs may have been an easier process. If u want more than one kid, you just need to be mindful of how many eggs you may need. A certain number of frozen eggs will generally result in fewer embryos than fresh eggs.

There are also counselors who can help with the process. They can help make sure you think about the issues that come up and provide info/help in how to deal with them.

Do frozen because you will not worry have to worry if you get eggs or synching up. So much simpler if you are already mentally worn out.

We are interested in moving directly to donor egg and would like to set up a consult. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed and intimidated by the process and would appreciate insights as to where to begin locally as well as any important factors to consider. Due to age and a history of miscarriages, we do not want to attempt with OE ivf. Thank you!!!