Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Alternative Fertility Options – A Look at Egg Donation

Egg donation is not the first fertility option most couples consider, mainly because it means that the mother's egg will not be a part of the actual child. Nevertheless, it could be a more viable option for you than you think. Egg donation is designed to help women who have problems with their own eggs and ovulation cycles. If you have tried fertility in the past and found it did not work due to a problem with your ovaries, egg donation may be the perfect solution for you. Here is a look at how this process works so you can determine if you want to consider egg donation in the future.

Success Rates for Egg Donation

There is a 60% chance of forming a baby through egg donation. Some women find more success with it than others, but as a whole, this has been a fantastic development since the mid-1980s. The sperm of the desired father can still be used in this fertility process, and the woman involved can still carry the egg as if it were her own. The child will still know the woman who carried him to be his mother, even though the egg technically came from a donor. This is much like standard in vitro fertilization, but the egg is not from the carrier's ovaries.

How Egg Donation Works

To get started with egg donation, you and your partner must go through a consultation process where a specialist will go over any questions you have about the program and whether it is right for you. You can go over the potential donors at that time and determine what kinds of eggs you may want to look into, similar to what a woman might do during sperm donation. You will get limited information about the donor's race and medical history, and then you can determine if you want to form a baby with that person's eggs.

Once you have selected a donor, you will go through treatments to get your ovulation cycle in line with hers. The donor will go through fertility treatments to increase the amount of eggs she produces, and eventually her eggs will be harvested for use in your body. Then the doctor will place some of the eggs in your uterus so you can form a baby on your own. If everything works out well, you will be pregnant in no time.

Who Are the Donors?

Women have to meet certain criteria before they can even be considered for a Kansas City egg donation program. They must be between the ages of 21 and 33, and they cannot have STDs or serious medical problems that could be passed on to a child. They must have regular periods and be of an average weight for their height. Other factors may be taken into consideration, like smoking or drinking habits, but all of that is done in a prescreening process.

Once a potential donor passes the initial tests for an egg donation program, she must fill out a lengthy application about her health, family history, academic background, citizenship, and the like. Only the most ideal women are actually admitted into the program, most of whom are college students or graduates. If you specifically want a donor with a forensic psychology degree, you can potentially find that in your donor list. As a recipient, you are given access to profiles of these women so you can see which ones you may want eggs from. You can view pictures and physical details about the women, as well as all the detailed academic and health information you could want. You get to pick the best eggs for you.

The donors in each egg donation program are all volunteers, but they are screened well to ensure that your future baby does not inherit significantly bad traits. You get to infer about the candidates as much as you want if there is a specific trait you want your baby to have. Some personal information, like names and social security numbers, will be kept private for confidentiality purposes, but you should be able to gather all the information you need to determine if you want to work with that woman or not. In the end, you hand pick the eggs you want in your body.

Conclusion

While it may not be ideal to go through egg donation, it might be the only option you have for creating a child. Sometimes your natural eggs simply are not capable of forming a baby, and this gives you a better opportunity to have a child of your own. The donor has no rights with the child whatsoever, so you will never have to worry about someone taking away your children. You will still be the mom you always wanted to be. It will just take a little assistance from modern day science to make that happen.

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