What does egg donation involve?
Once our donors have completed the screening process, counselling and all their medical tests have returned the donor is approved to commence her stimulation cycle to collect eggs to donate.
The donor and her family’s welfare is most important to Manor Baby, we ensure that our donors are completing an egg donation cycle at a time which fits in with her schedule. Some donors live far away from the clinics in Kyiv, Ukraine and Tbilisi in Georgia in those cases Manor Baby will provide the donor with an apartment for the period of her treatment. This way the donor can easily attend her clinic appointments for monitoring and to recover after her egg collection procedure.
The egg donation process for donors
Step 1
Candidate applies to join Manor Baby as a donor
Step 2
Donor attends the first visit and an AMH test is completed
Step 3
Medical consultation and assessment with Manor physicians, and screening bloods taken
Step 4
Psychological assessment and counselling
Step 5
Medical review of results and donor approval for donation
Step 6
IVF stimulation cycle is planned and monitored by our fertility specialists
Step 7
Egg Collection (OPU) for donation, and freezing or insemination of the eggs
Step 8
Repeat infection screening tests and preparation for shipping
The process in detail
What happens during stimulation and egg collection?
The protocol for each donor stimulation treatment is individually planned by a senior fertility consultant. They monitor all results for each donor, planning the most appropriate date for the egg collection.
The donation cycle begins
The donation cycle occurs over a month. The donor commences an oral contraceptive pill to regulate her cycle, then commences daily injections of follicle stimulating hormones (such as Gonal F, Menopur, Puregon) for approximately12-14 days. Once the follicles begin to grow another hormone (Cetrotide) is added to inhibit ovulation of the eggs until the follicles reach a size and stage when they are ready to plan the egg collection.
While the donor is taking these daily injections, she will be monitored by regular blood tests and ultrasounds to monitor the growth of the follicles and ensure she remains well through the process.
Once the follicles have reached their full size the egg collection will be planned, and the donor will take a trigger injection to complete the preparation for the eggs ready to be collected.
Time for egg collection
The eggs are collected in our state-of-the-art facility in Kiev or Georgia. Our donors travel to the procedure with their husband or friend who will be there to support her when she leaves the clinic.
The eggs are collected in a day procedure by the local Manor Baby Team. Each egg collected is individually assessed to ensure it is the best quality and then prepared and frozen (vitrified) by our experienced embryology team.
If the eggs are to be used to create embryos, the embryologists will prepare the eggs for fertilisation, either by IVF or by injecting (ICSI) each egg with the sperm provided by the intending parents. The embryos will be grown in the laboratory and frozen once they reach the stage of a blastocyst (day 5 or 6).
Additional testing
On the day of the egg collection we ask the donor to complete another infectious disease screen for Hepatitis B and C and HIV to ensure there is no risk of any transmission of these infections.
This means that as soon as the eggs are collected and frozen, if all other donor preparations are completed, the eggs are ready to be shipped!
