Egg donors provide healthy oocytes (or egg cells) to others that will be combined with sperm and become an embryo. Recipients of the donation may be a single parent who may or may not be working with a gestational carrier (carrying and delivering the baby for another person, without a biological link to the child), a heterosexual couple who may be dealing with infertility issues. did or an LGBTQ+ couple, explains Asima Ahmad, MD, a board-certified OB-GYN and reproductive endocrinologist and co-founder and chief medical officer of Root Fertility.
The process may involve the egg donor first synchronizing their menstrual cycle with the recipient’s cycle using birth control pills to ensure optimal fertility, according to the University of California San Francisco Health Department. Then the donor must receive hormone injections to stimulate ovulation, and undergo a uterine egg retrieval procedure under mild general anesthesia. However, in many cases, frozen eggs are used when donating eggs, allowing the donor to skip the step of synchronizing their cycle with the recipient.
“The eggs are fertilized with sperm in a laboratory to create embryos, and then the embryos are transferred to the recipient’s uterus,” explains Dr. Ahmad. That recipient can either be the parent, or perhaps a gestational carrier.
Prospective parents may choose to use a donor for a number of reasons, including being a same-sex male couple, having poor egg quality or an absence of eggs, or having experienced early menopause, adds Catha Fischer, MD, a advise. board certified OB-GYN, reproductive endocrinologist and director of fertility preservation at Spring Fertility New York. In addition, people who cannot use their own eggs or choose not to can also consider using an egg donor.
Meanwhile, people may choose to be egg donors for a number of reasons, including wanting to help families in need or for financial reasons.
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