[sunshine7482]

The clinic I'm going with offers egg donors. I just finished all the tests and I got access to the donor database.

My problem is that there's so much info - 14 pages per donor, and I'm guessing, most of it is probably irrelevant.

For example, donor's religion - I guess religion is a matter of environment, and not something hereditary, right?

So... those of you who are going thru this, which info do you consider important?

[Kathelen]

Hi Sunshine! Congrats on such an important decision. DE were perfect for us.

We also had pages and pages to look over for the profiles. We considered the traits such as eye, hair, height, etc. (but we were open in the sense that it could be either my husband's traits or mine). The other thing we focused on was the way the donor answered the questions. Our donor's personality came through in the answers and we both felt she was very much like us. To be honest, the actual answers to questions like "favoirte sport" didn't matter as much as how she explained her answers. I think that was the value of reading through the whole profile.

Good luck! Have you been to the DE thread yet? If not, come by and join in. We cheer everyone on and answer questions. It is a huge thread, so your best bet is to just post an intro and don't worry about reading back (unless you have tons of free time).

[megwalsh6]

I looked for pyshisical attributes first. About my same height and weight, same skin tone, etc. Then I looked at health, I wanted to make sure she appeared to be healthy and there wasn't any major concerns in her history. For example- one of the donors seemed perfect but her mother and grandmother had breast cancer at a young age so I skipped her. I printed out all the profiles and made a yes/no pile first, then let my husband go through them and make a yes/no pile. We got it narrowed down to two by that. Then I called the clinic who had seen the two as adults and they told me the one that resembled me the closest and she was a proven donor. Hopes this helps. What state are you in?

[hopein09]

Sunshine-First off, you should definitely come over and join us in the DE thread. You will get lots of great info and tons of support. I've only been over there a short time and really feel like the ladies and guys are my friends! It's awesome to have others who know exactly what you are going through.

OK, that being said. My husband and I first looked at donors with traits similar to mine (eye color, hair color, build), then once we narrowed them down we looked at genetics. My husband's aunt passed away from breast cancer, so I wanted to rule out anyone who might be a carrier for that gene. We did look at religion because there are some recessive genes that are more common in certain religions than others and we wanted to make sure we were clear there as well. Then we read the donor's answers to questions. The list may seem daunting at first, but once you start to narrow the donors down based on what's important to you you'll be surprised how small the list really is.
Good luck!!!

[chantalTTC]

First of all, congratulations on reaching this exciting step in your journey. The success rates are so high with DE that hopefully you'll get your BFP!

My dh and I narrowed down the donors by physical traits and ethnicity first. We were open to either my dh's or my traits. Our donor is very similar to my dh and so our daughter looks very much like him (though the donor's blue eyes came through, which we explain by thankfully the fact that my dh and I both have recessive blue eyes).

We made sure our donor didn't have any crazy medical issues, though if she'd had what I have in my family that would have been ok (just normal stuff, but since any of our offspring would have inherited that from me anyway we were ok with it). I think it's hard to find a donor whose family doesn't have any medical issues. Also, since most of the donors are still young, their parents and sometimes grandparents are still young, so they don't know yet what ailments will afflict them... It's a bit of a crapshoot there (but probably no worse statistically than if we'd used my eggs I reckon).

Next we wanted to make sure we selected a proven donor who helped other couples get pregnant and have a live birth. Ours had done 3 other cycles that all ended in live births. That was really important to us; I've seen too many stories of seemingly great donors who don't produce enough mature eggs, or have issues with meds, etc. You're spending so much time and money, it's best to go with the best bet, you know?

Good luck to you!

[hopein09]

Oh, I almost forgot...
After we made our choice I was able to speak with the donor coordinator and she had a picture of me and one of the donor and she could tell me what similarities we had, etc. and also if she was a proven donor.