I’ll be transferring my 4BA euploid boy (CHLOE score of 8.4) at the end of the month. I used my sister’s egg + husband’s sperm to make the embryo.

I’ve had one failed transfer with a BC embryo. I’m just nervous about all the things that can go wrong. Has anyone ever gotten anxious for no reason about something bad happening to the embryo/baby once born? Kind of like, since everything possibly wrong has happened on this journey for the past three years, something bad is just bound to happen (especially because no one you know has had anything wrong happen with their kid and so it’s just a matter of time before something happens and of course it’s going to happen to you)?

Secondary infertility. Had my son in 2020. 2 & half years trying. 2 miscarriages. 0
Insurance coverage, already spent about 15k with testing, meds, 4 iuis. I want to move onto IVf. My dr told me he has a program where I could do IVf, and be an egg donor and spilt my eggs with another woman, and she would pay for my IVF. Shared donor program he calls it. Does anyone have advice or experience on this? My AMH IS 2.83. I am 34.

Hi - can anyone share any clinics they utilized in the downstate NY area (westchester/NYC) that does not have a BMI limit and works with outside donor agencies. I'm currently with Cornell and they only have in house anonymous donors. Not being able to see adult pictures of the donor is something I struggle with so want to consider other clinics....but the few I called have a BMI limit (I'm 52). Thanks.

My wife is heading out of town to fly to our donor who moved to the east coast recently. He helped us with our first baby and it took 3 cycles. Just looking for positive thoughts for us as I’m hoping it only takes this one cycle to work! The idea of having to travel each time is very hard on us.

Anyone else here using donor eggs and finding your husband is completly checked out with regard to selecting donors?

We are in a program and are now working on selecting our second donor as the first batch failed and she is no longer available. My husband is so checked out and unhelpful. He only looks at the site and profiles basically when I beg him. He seems completly overwhelmed which I get, but at the same time seems so not genuine. Often he just repeats my own opinion or gives me a rote response like “ she seems good”.

I feel like I’m going crazy feeling so alone and so much pressure on me. Yet you know he’s happy to tell his friends “ we are in the process of picking a new donor”.

I love him so much but this is making me hate him.

Anyone else? Any advice ?

Whether you’ve used this site before, are using it, or just looking through it…. What are your thoughts? My wife and I saw one of the donors post on FB and we are considering using this if it’s legit.

I'm looking into donor eggs after years of IVF treatments and another failed frozen embryo transfer. I'm based in the United States, but would love to have an egg donor of Greek descent. Where can I start looking? I'm overwhelmed at this point.

Hello, does anyone here have a fully biological child and an egg donor conceived child that can share their experience? Thank you

Hello! I hope this is okay to post here, I am donor conceived myself. I’m a college student conducting a survey based research project on the experiences of, and impact on, adults conceived from donated eggs, sperm, or embryos. If you meet these qualifications, I would highly appreciate your participation! All data collected will be completely anonymous and any question may be skipped. Results may be used in classroom presentations, research reports, conferences, or scientific publications. The link to the survey is attached. Thank you for your time! 

I’m not endorsing this. But im just noting that with AI, social media, reverse image search it is very easy to find out the identity of an anonymous donor. I am just wondering if people do this? Not to contact them or anything, but more to verify they are real.

I have been looking at all the agencies for a while, and I note that some of the donors donate through multiple agencies (I recognise the photos). So is there just one bank of frozen eggs and all the agencies just take them and pay the donor when a family buys them?

Hi! So I am considering donating my eggs but was just curious if anyone is able to share their story with how the process works? Is a full body/physical inspection done? If so, what do they look for?

Hello! I'm an RP working on creating a Facebook group and a Discord server (to avoid giving Facebook any unnecessary access to personal info) to help my wife and I connect with other families that used the same donor. For those that have experiences with running or being in these groups, what advice do you have? I'm open to all suggestions and any insights you have to share. I'm especially wondering about membership questions for Facebook, verification for Discord, and rules/ guidelines for both. What works, what doesn't? Thanks for anything you're willing to share!

We will more than likely be moving towards the donor egg route. I’m honestly fine with it, our fertility group favors Fairfax, donor nexus, my egg bank and DEB (whom I’m not very interested in working with, we just don’t see any profiles that fit us). Any advice on any of these groups would be appreciated 😊.

I’ve joined multiple Facebook groups and I’ve looked on some dating sites and it seems to be so hard to find anyone legit. I’m in New Zealand and I am wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction to finding a private sperm donor that is serious, has anyone here been successful with this? Please let me know your experience. And I don’t want to hear about the clinics please, I already know all of this. Thank you!!

Do you think donor conception is becoming more common nowadays? Especially egg donor conception. I hope that if I have a child conceived via egg donation, they may have classmates in school that are also from egg donation.

Since the BBC report on the misuse of donor gametes in a Northern Cyprus fertility clinic many people believe the EU provides safe guards. This is not necessarily true. Verbally a fertility clinic and/or their intermediary can make ANY claims. But the truth will be in the IVF consent form. It will state that you agree to let the clinic select the donor eggs or sperm.

You should NOT provide any money BEFORE confirming what the IVF consent form says.

The Gap Between SEC Traceability and Donor Selection

EU law generally requires the Single European Code (SEC) to be applied to or accompany tissues and cells distributed for human application, subject to limited exceptions.

But it does not expressly require:

1. the SEC to appear on the donor’s marketing profile;
2. the patient to be shown the SEC before fertilisation;
3. the donor-selection profile to be incorporated into the IVF consent form;
4. The patient to sign a document directly cross-referencing the profile code with the donor eggs and/or sperm with its full SEC.

That creates an opportunity for abuse. A clinic could show a patient a donor profile, while they use donor eggs and/or sperm from another traceable donation, and later place an internal UIN or SEC on a copy of the selected profile. Both the donor eggs or sperm and embryos might be coded internally, yet the documents given to the patient would not prove that the donor eggs or sperm used corresponded to the profile she selected. 

The fertility clinic could also provide an SEC for the embryos they have created which is sufficient for transportation however, that SEC does not give any information about the SEC used for the donor eggs or sperm. That must be secured separately from the embryo SEC.

The absence of an SEC on the donor profile does not necessarily violate EU law, but it leaves the patient dependent on the clinic’s records and the regulator’s willingness to inspect them. 

Operationally, a clinic could use donor eggs and/or sperm from a different donor while maintaining an internally valid SEC for those eggs and/or sperm. The SEC proves traceability, but it does not prove that the eggs and/or sperm match the donor profile shown to the patient.
However, that does not mean the clinic can lawfully use “any donor eggs or sperm.”

The donor eggs and/or sperm must still be:

1. lawfully procured, screened and traceable;

2.used within the scope of the patient’s informed consent;

3.consistent with the contractual donor-selection terms; and

4.connected to the correct patient and treatment cycle.

It should be noted that a clinic employee, doctor and/or intermediary can still verbally inform you that your selection will be used. However, you should NOT trust any verbal information provided. The regulatory or justice system will give deference to the doctor.

If the signed IVF consent authorizes the clinic to select any donor meeting general criteria, the clinic has considerable discretion. But if the patient selected a donor profile and did not authorise substitution, using another donor could constitute misrepresentation, breach of contract and treatment outside the scope of consent—even if the substituted eggs and/or sperm had a perfectly valid SEC. 

EU law requires establishments to maintain traceability and, where applicable, assign the SEC to reproductive material distributed for human application.

However, it does not establish a clear requirement that the recipient be shown the egg and/or sperm SEC and its connection to the selected donor profile before fertilisation or embryo transfer.

This patient-facing disclosure gap can be exploited because the recipient may not discover that the documentation fails to correspond with her donor selection until after embryos have been irreversibly created or transferred.  

Unscrupulous actors can exploit the gap between regulatory traceability and patient-facing donor selection. A patient may be shown one donor profile while the clinic uses eggs or sperm from a different, separately traceable donation. The substituted donor eggs or sperm could possess a valid SEC, allowing the clinic to appear compliant with traceability rules, even though the material does not correspond to the donor the patient selected and authorised.

The opportunity for abuse is greatest where:

1. the profile code is not linked to the SEC in the consent form;
2. the patient is not shown the allocation documentation before fertilisation;
3. the clinic reserves broad authority to select or substitute donors;
4. an intermediary controls communications and payment;

5.the embryos are created before the patient receives laboratory records; and
6.regulators verify only that some traceability exists, rather than whether the eggs and/or sperm correspondence to the authorized profile.

Once embryos are created or transferred, the biological consequences are irreversible and the patient’s practical bargaining position is severely reduced.

This is why a valid SEC alone is insufficient: regulators should be verifying both traceability of the material and correspondence between that material and the donor selection forming the basis of the patient’s consent. However, the regulator may simply verify the traceability and not be bothered with verifying that the link between the phenotype selection and what was used. For that they will rely upon the doctor and what he explained to the patient. Please do not forget she/he can simply opt to NOT tell you the donor profile was marketing ONLY and then rely upon the common practice of clinic-led selection. Inform the regulator you were fully aware when you were not.

As an End Note:
If the clinic you are doing fertility at ends the package or treatment at the embryo transfer and does not test your thyroid or it is not part of the fertility package it is NOT about fertility outcomes.

As somebody who regularly sees patients we do NOT want to see a patient who has undergone a fertility treatment in another country. Why? We do not want to take on the responsibility and liability for any stages that were not properly handled. Such as the failure to properly prepare the lining of the uterus or the thyroid was not properly treated prior to the transfer.

The pregnancy success rate of patients who fly in and fly out of a foreign country are more than likely NOT included in their overall success rates. That is a serious problem.

Which one is better from your experience? Evaluate things like sperm donor quality, honesty of service, communication, costs, etc

Hi! My wife and I are considering using a known donor. We are a lesbian couple and I am the one who will carry the baby.

We’ve considered many different options for a donor and see a lot of benefits to using a known donor, but have reservations of going this route. Some of our concerns are:

1. Will it change the relationship we have with the known donor? They are a married couple who we’ve known for 5 years. We don’t see them often but are still concerned of how it could change things. Would we feel weird? Would they feel weird?

2. I plan to carry the baby, and my wife has expressed concern over feeling jealous of the potential relationship that our child may have with the biological father in the future. I think it’s more of a grief, in that she won’t be biologically related.

3. If we have him donate in a cup and just simply hand it off to us, and we do at home insemination rather than using a clinic and IUI (exploring options, still not sure on this route yet), how did you go about ensuring that the intended parent who won’t be carrying the baby still get legal guardianship? If it makes any difference, we live in California.

4. If you used a known donor and went through a clinic to get IUI, what was the process? I’m looking for steps you took leading up to the first IUI, as well as how long it took from first talk with the clinic through first IUI attempt. I’m worried going through a clinic can take a year and we frankly just don’t want to wait that long. We are not worried about getting the donor tested. He has two healthy babies and we already know he’s not a carrier of anything. Also, what was the cost of going through a clinic? Did insurance help at all? We have Kaiser.

5. I’d love to hear about the dynamic between your family and the known donor now, how it’s changed your relationship, if there’s anything I should be concerned about before proceeding, if you have any regrets on this route, or if it was the best thing you ever could have done. Please share anything!

I’m looking for insight from people who have actually experienced this. If you haven’t gone through this, I honestly don’t wish to hear your opinion. Experience is different than opinions. I’d also love to hear from you if you are a DCP via this method, or are the known donor. How was your experience, and are you happy with how everything went?

Feel free to DM me if you’d prefer.

While this feels like such an exciting time, there are challenges and griefs that are weighing on my wife and I. Thank you to anyone who replies to this!

Nuestra historia

Hello everyone!

My name is Dr. Anna Bettini, and I am a researcher and anthropologist at the University of Calgary. I am part of an international research team conducting an ethnographic study on the experiences of families who have used assisted reproductive technologies with donors, including egg, sperm, and embryo donation, as well as surrogacy.

About the study:

Access to reproductive technologies varies widely from country to country. Differences in laws, costs, and social attitudes make these treatments difficult to obtain for some individuals and couples, and many hopeful parents travel abroad for care. These journeys are creating new forms of family and changing how we think about relationships and genetic ties.

In our study we examine how biological, social, legal, ethical, and political factors shape the experiences of families formed through these technologies, and what this means for the children born through them. In Canada, the project will end July 2028.

Who we'd like to hear from:

We welcome all forms of family: solo parents, heterosexual couples, and gay and lesbian couples. In Canada, we are focusing on families living in Alberta, British Columbia, or Ontario, or who accessed fertility services in these provinces. We are especially interested in hearing from families who already have children conceived through donor eggs, sperm, or embryos, or born through surrogacy.

What participation involves:

• One private interview about your journey with reproductive technologies, lasting about 60 to 90 minutes
• Interviews take place online or by phone at a time that suits you
• Participation is voluntary, and you may skip any question or withdraw at any time
• Confidentiality and anonymity are guaranteed; your name and identifying details will not appear in any publication
• There is no financial compensation for taking part, but we deeply value the time and insight you share with us

By sharing your story, you can help shape future discussions about family life, fertility care, and reproductive technologies in Canada and beyond.

If you're interested or have questions, please email me at [anna.bettini@ucalgary.ca](mailto:anna.bettini@ucalgary.ca) or comment below. Thank you for considering being part of this project!

This study has been approved by the University of Calgary Conjoint Faculties Research Ethics Board (REB25-0611)