When You Might Want to Consider Using a Donor Egg

Every family takes its own path toward completion. At the New York Fertility Institute, our LGBTQ-friendly fertility specialists, led by Majid Fateh, MD and Khalid Sultan, MD, can help you realize your future family dreams, no matter the gender configuration or fertility status of you and your partner.

For some couples, the best path forward toward building a family is through using reproductive medicine techniques like egg donation. Here are the factors we want our new and existing patients to keep in mind when considering if using a donor egg could be the right choice for them.

What you should know about using a donor egg

From couples dealing with infertility to gay couples and other members of the LGBTQ community, expanding a family can pose unique and difficult challenges. Depending on your and your partner’s fertility needs, you might find that using a donor egg is the best way to meet your challenges and move forward with a healthy pregnancy.

Your donor gives one or more of her eggs to help you or your partner conceive and become pregnant. We can use donor eggs that have been previously frozen for successful fertilization and implantation, or we can use hormonal medications to synchronize your cycle with that of your donor. You can also use donor sperm to fertilize the egg. Once we implant the fertilized egg, you or your partner experience pregnancy and childbirth.

The benefits of using a donor egg

Using a donor egg lets you or your partner carry your child, so you can form close bonds right away. At New York Fertility Institute, we can help to match you with a donor within your own ethnicity. You may know your egg donor, who could be a friend or family, or the process can be kept completely anonymous if you prefer. We use blood tests and other medical testing to make sure that your donor is physically, mentally, and genetically a good match for your family.

Because your donor is likely to be young and healthy, you have a good chance of a successful pregnancy with a donor egg. Couples using egg donation have a success rate of about 50% per cycle, the highest success rate of any fertility procedure.

Reviewing your reproductive options

Using a donor egg often works out well for couples who have specific types of complications around fertility. Your family could be a good candidate for using a donor egg if:

• The carrying female partner is over 40 years of age, in premature menopause, or has nonfunctioning ovaries or a diminished ovarian reserve
• You have concerns about genetically transmitted diseases that you don’t want your child to inherit
• Your family has a history of recurrent pregnancy loss or failed in vitro fertilization

We use extensive counseling and testing to work with you and your partner, determining if egg donation could be your best path toward your desired future family.

To learn more about how you could expand your family through egg donation, get in touch with the same-sex friendly fertility doctors at the New York Fertility Institute today. You can book your appointment at our New York City office in Manhattan’s Upper East Side by calling us now, or schedule with the online tool.