Carrying a child to term is a dream of every woman in this world, whether she is single or married everyone around her would support her with this dream. But not everything goes as per plan, with the increasing rates of infertility issues the rates of failed natural conception are rising too. While you might have discovered few fertility treatments but surrogacy can be your ideal family-planning method because of its high success rates and many other factors. But what about egg donation? Is it essential for a successful surrogacy pregnancy? We understand your concern, hence this blog entails everything about egg donation and surrogacy
Considering an egg donor might be one of your top concerns for a surrogacy program. We understand your situation, you might be discouraged by knowing that the egg donor would share her DNA with your child and a few other vague information over the internet. If IVF treatment hasn’t worked for you, you still can conceive a genetically linked child by using an egg donor and a surrogate mother altogether.
While there might be innumerable reasons why would an individual or couple choose an egg donor but one of the main reasons for egg donation and surrogacy is either woman have poor-quality eggs or cannot carry a child in her uterus to term. There might be more reason that influences intended parents to select a qualified donor, which we will be discussing in detail later.
Let us walk you through the different factors that the egg donation and surrogacy program includes for your better understanding.
- Egg donation and surrogacy
- Whose egg does a surrogate use
- How does surrogacy work with egg donation
- Why do intended parents need an egg donor?
- Egg donation and surrogacy for same-sex couples/ single men
- Success rates of donor eggs
- Perks of using an egg donor
- Are you looking for surrogacy?
Egg donation and surrogacy
Before we dive deeper into the process, benefits, and other factors of egg donation and surrogacy, let us first understand what is surrogacy and how egg donation aids in positive conception.
Gestational surrogacy uses third-party reproduction i.e a surrogate mother who consents to carry a child to term for someone else i.e. intended parents, and she does not have a biological link with the child. Since the gamete materials – sperm and eggs are collected from intended parents or qualified donors who are fertile, fit, and do not have any history of infection or other diseases.
Furthermore, the surrogacy journey provides legal protection to both parties, and hence forming a surrogacy contract before beginning the process is a must. This agreement involves essential surrogacy key points, legal parental rights, compensation for the surrogate, roles, and responsibilities of both parties during and after the surrogacy journey. Once both parties sign the contract, only then the further surrogacy process can begin.
Surrogacy would use the medical procedure of IVF but that does not mean surrogacy and IVF are the same. The major difference is – with IVF the embryo transfer procedure is conducted with the intended mother whereas, in surrogacy, the embryo transfer procedure would be performed with the surrogate’s uterus.
Talking about, egg donation and surrogacy How does it help intended parents achieve successful conception results? Well, qualitative eggs contain 50% of the DNA of the baby and 50% DNA from the sperm. Now, even if the sperm quality of the intended father is good but the egg quality isn’t to the mark then you are bound to face failures with other fertility treatments.
Using an egg donor allows you to get qualitative and fertile eggs to form embryos while the other partner still has a biological link with the child. You might be wondering if I can use a donor’s egg by using IVF then why should I go through the tedious process of surrogacy?
Your doubt is valid! Surrogacy allows one to begin a parenthood journey who does not have any other option to conceive a genetically linked child or who has faced multiple failed attempts with IVF or other treatments. In a few cases, a woman may be infertile and she may have either a genetic disease that might transmit to the child or she may have a weaker womb which makes pregnancy for her impossible and there are various other factors like this.
Whose egg does a surrogate use?
The intended parents who consider surrogacy, come to us with various doubts and confusion, and whose egg does a surrogate use is one of their major concerns. Talking about gestational surrogacy, the surrogate does not use her eggs. She has no genetic relationship with the baby so you don’t have to worry whether your baby would look like your surrogate or whether she shares DNA with an infant. In this process, a surrogate just carries your baby for 9 months and after delivery, she will hand over the baby to you and she does not have any parental rights with the baby.
On the contrary, in the olden times, surrogate mothers would use their eggs which is referred to as traditional surrogacy. In this kind of surrogacy, the surrogate shares the biological link with the child which created major issues for the intended parents to obtain the child’s legal custody. Over the years the history of surrogacy has evolved and hence traditional surrogacy is banned in most countries today and isn’t preferred by anyone.
To give a short answer to your doubt – whose egg does a surrogate use? The eggs are either collected from the intended mother or an egg donor. So the surrogate has no genetic relationship with your infant.
How does surrogacy work with egg donation?
The surrogacy process with egg donation is similar to any other program of surrogacy. The overall success rate of surrogacy highly depends on the quality of eggs, if a fertility expert gets qualitative eggs then they can create embryos quite efficiently. Since the success rates of donor eggs are quite high in surrogacy, most intended parents prefer using a qualified and experienced donor for their surrogacy program.
How does surrogacy work with donor eggs? How does finding egg donors look like? Don’t worry, we have got you covered! Let us explore a detailed step-by-step process of surrogacy using egg donors.
Screening examination of intended parents
The moment you sign up for a surrogacy program with a surrogacy agency, the next step is a professional would conduct a few tests to check your fertility and medical condition and evaluate the results with your previous treatment’s details. Furthermore, psychological screening is performed with the intended parents to determine whether they are ready to cope with emotional uncertainties that occur throughout the process.
After evaluating all the tests, a suitable surrogacy program is then recommended to the intended parents.
Finding egg donors
This is one of the crucial steps in this surrogacy program. Often intended parents find it quite a task about finding egg donors – the right candidate. Don’t worry, Global Star Surrogacy assists you in finalizing the right candidate with our varied and strong network. However, to begin the process of finding egg donors an agency would perform physical and psychological screening tests with each prospective donor.
To begin with, a physical examination is conducted which looks like:
- A blood and drug test is conducted to check her overall health.
- Furthermore, to check her reproductive organs the fertility expert would perform an ultrasound test.
- The next step is quite crucial, a fertility doctor would check for the donor and her entire family’s medical history. After all, the infant will carry her DNA so it’s important to understand whether there is any chance of disease being transmitted to the infant.
- And finally, a test is conducted to determine the availability of infected diseases like HIV, and AIDS.
Furthermore, the prospective donor is sent for psychological evaluation. Donating eggs can be an overwhelming process. To check whether she is ready to commit to the process, a counselor would conduct a session with a few questions.
In addition, a few intended parents have criteria for finding egg donors like height, the colour of eyes, hair, ethnicity, religion, personality, and more. An agency makes sure to shortlist prospective candidates based on these factors and then sent the shortlisted portfolios to intended parents to finalize one. And, the same procedure is followed for finalizing the surrogate mother.
Surrogacy contract
As we discussed above, a surrogacy contract is an essential factor for a surrogacy program as it legally protects both parties. It can be a savior for intended parents post-surrogacy. In a few states, intended parents need to go through an extra-legal procedure pre or post-birth order i.e. a process to change the parent’s name on the child’s birth certificate.
As few countries would directly mention surrogates and their spouse’s (if applicable) name on birth certificates. In such a case, the attorney of the intended parents can submit the contract to the court as proof.
Medical process
The next step is initiating the medical process. A fertility expert would prescribe a few fertility medicines to the egg donor to start the process of stimulating multiple eggs. Then, after a few days with the help of an ultrasound doctor will check whether the eggs are ready to fertilize. Then, with the process of egg retrieval – eggs are collected. By the time, the donor is going through the fertility process, the surrogate is also prescribed a few medicines to make her uterine line prepared for the pregnancy process.
Meanwhile, the sperm sample of the intended father is collected, and then both the gamete materials are combined to form embryos. After a few days of observation, when embryos are ready for the transfer it is transferred into the surrogate’s womb. Later on, the surrogate is asked to perform a few tests to confirm pregnancy. Once she achieves positive conception results, she can continue with her pregnancy journey like any other pregnant woman.
Why do intended parents need an egg donor?
The reason for using an egg donor for a surrogacy journey varies for each individual or couple. Let us go through different reasons that influence intended parents to choose surrogacy with egg donation.
Infertility
Infertility is one of the common reasons for preferring egg donation and surrogacy. As the woman starts aging, her fertility begins to decline. Usually, the fertility age of a woman is only till she turns 35. When a woman crosses that age, conceiving naturally or through fertility treatments that use her eggs or make her body to be pregnant becomes difficult. While the reason for infertility differs it could be menopause, having one or no ovary from birth, poor quality eggs, or a disease, or treatment that affected your fertility.
Genetics
Some women may have a few genetic or infectious diseases that she do not want to transmit it further to the baby, hence the couple chooses a fit, fertile, and experienced egg donor. The disease includes
- Sickle cell disease
- Spinal muscular dystrophy
- Thalassemia
- AIDS
- And more
Same-sex couples
For gay couples, surrogacy is the only alternative to conceive a biologically linked child. While heterosexual couples still have an option of whether to use an egg donor or not – depending on their fertility condition. But, same-sex couples need an egg donor to form embryos and conceive a healthy child.
Egg donation and surrogacy for same-sex couples/ single men
The surrogacy process allows single men and gay couples to conceive a healthy and biologically linked child. The surrogacy process for single men is similar to that of heterosexual couples but in this case, he would mandatorily have to use the eggs of a donor Gay couples will have to use an egg donor as don’t have any other option. Seeing, the high success rates of donor eggs, gay couples are bound to have positive conception outcomes. However, the surrogacy process for a gay couple is similar to any other surrogacy program but the same-sex couple would have to make an intricate decision before beginning the surrogacy journey.
With surrogacy for gay couples, one of the partners will have to sacrifice and only one partner can have a biological link with the child i.e. only one partner can provide their sperm sample. In a case, where both partners want to share an equal genetic relationship with their child then they can there are two options:
- Either choose to share one egg – in this process egg is collected from one donor and the sperm sample of both partners is collected and combined to form embryos with gamete materials of both partners.
- Or you can prefer using 2 surrogates to transfer embryos with the surrogate using your sperm sample each, though with this program you will have to be more careful as the evaluation surrogacy journey of both surrogates at a time may need more attention.
Success rates of donor eggs
The success rates of surrogacy highly depend on the donor’s healthy, qualitative eggs, and healthy sperm of the intended father which leads to a healthy embryo. Hence, qualitative gamete materials assure you of a successful surrogacy pregnancy with a healthy child.
Let’s understand the statistics of success rates of donor eggs in detail. As per the research, every year 19% of all babies born in the USA are conceived with one of the methods of assisted reproductive technology (ART). And the success rate of surrogacy is highly dependent on the age of the egg provider – either a donor or intended mother.
The success rates of donor eggs are around 65-70% live birth rate per embryo transfer procedure. Furthermore, the success rate may even increase to 75-80% if the PGT-A test is conducted with embryos. The live birth rates gradually decline when the gg provider is above 35 years and the chances of conceiving get slim when a woman is above 40 years of age.
While most intended parents think that to experience a successful surrogacy journey, it all depends on a surrogate – that’s completely untrue. A successful embryo transfer determines the conception results, though the surrogate must be fit and fertile moreover embryo must be healthy.
So, even if the surrogate’s age is above 40 she can still carry a baby to term. The only factor that matters is she must have previous experience with surrogacy and self-pregnancy, and her uterine line must be ready to prepare for embryo transfer. For surrogacy, the success rates of donor eggs are quite high as qualitative gamete material and the age of the egg provider determine the result of conception.
Perks of using an egg donor
Extracting eggs from a donor increases the overall success rates of the surrogacy journey and assures you to fulfill your long-drawn dream. Though, there are a few more perks that you must be aware of.
Surrogacy through egg donation allows genetic testing and sex selection of babies
Through egg donation, intended parents can enjoy the advantage of genetic testing that is for screening the availability of chromosomal abnormalities. All the intended parents want to make sure that their infants are born healthy hence PGT-A is a must in a surrogacy journey.
While not all potential parents would show a preference for the particular sex of the baby, others would have a preference or criteria for the same. PGD test can help you identify the sex of the baby and this is usually done before the implantation so that intended parents can select embryos accordingly.
Avoids un-ending loop of IVF failure attempts
As we discussed above, one of the major reasons for women facing failure with IVF is either infertility issues or may have crossed the age of fertility which makes her eggs lesser in amount and of poor quality.
By the time a couple decides to begin a surrogacy journey they have already faced multiple failed IVF cycles and they now don’t have the emotional capability to experience another miscarriage. The good news is, surrogacy using egg donation assures you qualitative eggs and a successful conception process with an egg donor and a surrogate.
Using an egg donor, you can still have a biological link with the baby
Often intended parents have a tough time accepting to use of an egg donor as her DNA may pass with the baby but still one of the partners i.e. intended father can share a biological relationship with the baby. Hence, your wish of conceiving a genetically linked baby is fulfilled with a successful procedure.
The moment when you see your baby that looks exactly like you is an indescribable feeling. After months and years of struggles when you listen to the first cry of your munchkin everything would feel worth waiting for!
You can conceive multiple babies at a time
By retrieving 8 qualitative eggs from the donor, you can get 3 embryos at least which gives the intended parents an opportunity of conceiving twins or more babies if all the embryos turn out to be successful in responding well to the surrogate’s uterine line.
If intended parents are willing to conceive multiple babies then transferring 2-3 embryos at a time can be an ideal decision. Few intended parents think that it is better to conceive more than one baby at a time seeing the cost, struggles, and effort with surrogacy – a one-time investment.
Are you looking for a surrogacy program?
Comparatively, surrogacy is a more successful program than other fertility treatments as it uses combined qualitative gamete materials of donor and or intended parents. And finally, a surrogate mother who is fit, fertile, and experienced with surrogacy pregnancy. In addition, surrogacy allows everyone to enjoy the perk of parenthood, it isn’t restricted to heterosexual couples alone.
Egg donation may feel like an overwhelming procedure for intended parents, but it is worth giving a shot to expand your beautiful family. If you have any more doubts about surrogacy and egg donation, you can directly book our free consultation call or visit our website.
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