[mom2bntexas]

Hi everyone.....after another failed IUI, my DH and I are considering using an egg donor. I was totally against this early on in our journey but after speaking with an infertility counselor last week, I was able to be a little more open minded about it, especially when compared to adoption. They are both wonderful options.

I'm really wondering how much the cost of IVF using DE vs. using my own eggs? I was able to produce 11 last cycle but only 7 fertilized so before we spend all of the money we've saved since last fall for another cycle, I want to weigh my options very carefully since this might be our last opportunity.

Also, those that have used DE - were you able to match with a donor that was close to your personality and physically wise?? I'm ashamed to admit this but part of me worries that I might be resentful if we went this route that our baby would be 50% my DH and none of me - despite that I would be carrying the baby...sad isn't it??

Thanks for any response or help, I really appreciate it and send many blessings to those trying to be a mommy and those that are giving us a chance to be mommies - you are wonderful!!!

Have a great day ladies!!

[bluebutterfly]

Dear mom2bentexas: Selecting a donor is one of the most wonderful experiences I ever had. However, you have to be ready to accept it, and find joy and hope on it. If you do decide to go this route, make sure to take your time, and don't go crazy looking for someone who looks exactly like you or DH. There is A LOT of information, and donor database outthere.
First, I selected to work with an agency in which the same person, the director, always called me back. Then I selected a young donor within her pool. You have to have a connection with the donor. You will know if you do. Jut listen to your gut, and take your time. There are about 20 women or so going through DE IVF right now. Some of them can tell your their experiences as well.

The process was about $35,000 for me. But, I live in the East Coast,. Everything is soo expensive. I hope this helps!

[mom2bntexas]

Thanks so much for responding, I really appreciate it and appreciate your input. You are right - I will have to be 100% committed to this before I go forward and will need to do research and talk with my RE about options. My counselor does screening for egg donors so I'm sure she could recommend an agency as well as my RE....I feel truly blessed to have them in my lives b/c I feel very comfortable with them.

WOW that is expensive....does that include your treatment as well? We're no where near saving up that much - we only saved up for one more round of IVF, that is if I respond. I had one cycle cancelled b/c I didn't respond to the meds so that was about $3,000 gone. I think we spent nearly $20,000 last year on 2 failed IVF's and IUI so it's definitely expensive but worth every penny for a successful pregnancy.

Thanks again and I hope to hear more from other courageous women who are going through this. Have a great day!

[tbonus]

I agree you have to be confident with the process to move forward. I look at it as this will be my child as I am growing him/her, this is what makes them a part of me and me a part of them. It does take some soul searching. You might consider reading the book Having a Baby Thru Egg Donation. It assists with the critical thinking and thoughts and decisions that go into the process.
AFM our cycle cost $28000
Good luck to you.

[mom2bntexas]

Originally Posted by tbonus

I agree you have to be confident with the process to move forward. I look at it as this will be my child as I am growing him/her, this is what makes them a part of me and me a part of them. It does take some soul searching. You might consider reading the book Having a Baby Thru Egg Donation. It assists with the critical thinking and thoughts and decisions that go into the process.
AFM our cycle cost $28000
Good luck to you.

Teresa - thanks so much for the book suggestion - I will definitely check it out. I'll probably get a better idea of things after my annual exam with my RE on the 16th but in the meantime I'm going to be researching and talking with my hubby. I'm one that likes to be prepared and have as much knowledge on it as I can so I can make the best decision for us and not go on emotions only. I really appreciate the feedback and will definitely be following up with you guys in this forum - it's so great.

Thanks again and good luck to you on your journey!!

Kim

[Ashagirl]

We are using DE here in Texas. This is even our first IVF. Our cost is $13,000 plus medication. That includes the general IVF procedure and the donor fee.

[kirstyloo]

My DH and I looked at agencies and at in-house donors. While we actually preferred the women through the agencies better as they had done it before and were able to find closer physical / educational matches, we waited until an in-house donor became available who was a pretty good fit. She had my coloring and build and good family health history. My DH was a bit disappointed because he likes my nose, hands and feet…and they weren’t a match. That being said, her features are more like my DH’s facial features so it is likely that our child would have inherited them from him anyway.

We ended up using an in-house donor because of the cost. DE IVF with an in-house donor wound up being about $8000-8500 more than traditional IVF. The extra costs included $5000 donor fee, $1500 monitoring for the recipient and coordinating the cycle, $1800 screening of the donor, $200 counseling fees, and $300 legal fees. If we had used an agency, it would have added on average $3000 to the donor fee (most were $8000-10,000/donor), a $5000 donor agency charge, $800 legal fees through the agency, and travel. Travel and donor monitoring were big questions marks. Travel would need to include airplane tickets for the initial consultation for 2 people plus 1-2 days hotels stay with $50/person per diem and then airplane tickets for the ER plus 7 days hotel stay with $50/person per diem for monitoring and retrieval. Because monitoring would likely occur at another site, we didn’t know how much it would be. We estimated that it would cost $14,000-18,000 (total $39,000 - 42,000) more to use an agency donor that needed to fly in.

We live in the NE where expenses run high. I did think about traveling to have the procedure done, but it would have been really hard with my teaching and my DH's work schedule.

DE IVF ended up costing us $22,000 plus $1500 for ISCI and $1800 for embryo freezing and storage. We also probably added in about $2000 for co-pays for my initial RE consultation, blood work for me and my DH, and co-pays for blood work and US after my BFP. Because we had most of our cost in 2008, we were able to deduct part of it from our income taxes. In retrospect, I wish that we didn’t do health care spending account for the year that we did DE IVF as it complicated our paperwork. I do wish that I had put more in for the year corresponding to my pregnancy. I never realized how many large and small expenses there would be during the pregnancy. I'm guessing that we'll keep getting costs once the baby is born.

[Godiva4me]

Mom2be- Prices vary depending on location and type of arrangement. Many people use a split cycle or shared risk program that makes the cost less expensive. A split cycle is where 2 people share the eggs of the same donor... therefore, you split the costs. The shared risk is where you pay a set price and get like 5 tries fresh/frozen. I know several people on the donor site did shared risk... I know that Shady Grove clinics offer that as well as Southeastern Fertility Clinic. Many RE offices offer the split cycle. I believe if your RE has a pool of donors, that is less expensive, plus they personally know of the donors success/failures, and the med. protocol to use on the donor. You may want to ask about this.... feel free to post any questions on the donor sperm/donor egg thread.... no doubt you will get even more specific info. I personally contacted like 6 different RE clinics and asked about prices, cycle options (split/shared risk), donor pools, timelines for getting started, etc. I then compiled the info. and made a decision on where to go based on price, location, and success rates!

There is another book that several people recommend (azoodude and Pack812) I can't remember the exact name, but it is titled something like Mommies, daddies, donors, surrogates. I am going to get it from my local library to read.

Anyway, good luck at the appt. on July16th and KUP!

[mom2bntexas]

Thanks so much ladies for your info and input - I REALLY appreciate it. There is alot of options it seems so I guess the best place to start will be when I meet with my RE on the 16th - I'm sure he can tell me more of what his practice has to offer regarding egg donors. Hopefully once we talk and I can get a better idea of what we are talking about and how much it will cost, I can really begin to jump into the DE program and then have heart to heart talks with my sweet hubby.

You guys are the best and I'll keep you posted on what my dr. says. I've had a couple of friends tell me they know people who have used the DE program so that's nice to know that I have local support as well. God is wonderful!!

Take care and blessings to you all - hope you're doing good!

Kim

[ivfgirl]

Hi, I'm in my first IVF cycle using Donor Eggs. I have premature ovarian failure, so this was my only option.
We opted to do a shared risk program with Shady Grove in Maryland. We went with the 1:3 program, where we shared our donor with two other couples. The cost for this is $29,000 plus medication & pretesting.

Other options for shared risk:
1:2: $37,000
1:1: $51,000

The best part of the shared risk program is if it doesn't work, we get the base money back. The program includes up to 6 fresh cycles and as many frozen ones as you have. We got lucky and it worked on our first try. We ended up paying a bit too much, but it was worth it to have the peace of mind.

One other thing to consider, is that using donor eggs has a higher success rate. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

[mom2bntexas]

Originally Posted by ivfgirl

Hi, I'm in my first IVF cycle using Donor Eggs. I have premature ovarian failure, so this was my only option.
We opted to do a shared risk program with Shady Grove in Maryland. We went with the 1:3 program, where we shared our donor with two other couples. The cost for this is $29,000 plus medication & pretesting.

Other options for shared risk:
1:2: $37,000
1:1: $51,000

The best part of the shared risk program is if it doesn't work, we get the base money back. The program includes up to 6 fresh cycles and as many frozen ones as you have. We got lucky and it worked on our first try. We ended up paying a bit too much, but it was worth it to have the peace of mind.

One other thing to consider, is that using donor eggs has a higher success rate. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Thanks IVFgirl for replying - I really appreciate it and looks like you were successful in your 1st attemp with donor eggs....congratulations and good for you!! I just can't believe how high the prices are, definitely something my DH and I will need to discuss....but like my counselor said, it's almost like adoption where I'm adopting an egg but won't have the legal drama with it and adoptions run pretty high so alot to think about. I will keep praying and taking in what you guys are all saying and after talking with my RE next week be able to make a better decision. My only hurdle is my mother - she is totally against me using donor eggs b/c she is selfish and wants my biological child so I have to weigh all of that as well....this infertility stuff seems to never end.

Thanks again for writing and all the best on a healthy and happy pregnancy! Looks like you might be having more than one - how exciting! Good luck!!

Kim

[Ashagirl]

mom2bntexas, I certainly don't know the exact semantics here...but when you mentioned your mom wanted your "biological child"...when I recently met with the psychologist (required by our IVF team), the psychologist said that using donor eggs made the child...while not my genetic child...it was my biological child because I carried the child and provided nourishment and life. Anyway, I found her words very comforting and enlightening....just a thought....

[Frisarvz]

Originally Posted by Ashagirl

mom2bntexas, I certainly don't know the exact semantics here...but when you mentioned your mom wanted your "biological child"...when I recently met with the psychologist (required by our IVF team), the psychologist said that using donor eggs made the child...while not my genetic child...it was my biological child because I carried the child and provided nourishment and life. Anyway, I found her words very comforting and enlightening....just a thought....

Wait... How come it will become her biological child is she is seeking for an egg donor?

[tko6666]

Kim,
I am starting to look into DE as well, and I am suprised by how differently each clinic does things as well as how expensive it is! There are definately clinics that offer DE for less money, but they don't necessarily have the best success rates. I went to sart.org and looked at every clinic in the country that reported to sart. From there I collected data from clinics with at least a 65% live birth rate. I think the national average is around 55%. I also ruled out clinics that didn't do very many procedures per year (I wanted the clinic to do at least 25 per year).

For me, it is important to have a clinic that has a good success rate in order to ?hopefully? only have to go through this once. Sure a much less expensive place may sound good, but what if you have to do it 2 or 3 times.

We are narrowing down our choices, and including travel expensies in our final pricing. Good luck.

[Igloochic]

I went to an "expensive" clinic here in the pacific northwest and my costs, including a donor picked by me for me (from their pool) was $25,000. This pretty much includes everything (we actually didn't use a few things like ICSI so we'll get a refund). Records on women "of my age" aren't kept, but the clinic was refered to me by a close friend who is also my RE. Our donor information from the cycle is below in my sig, but you can see that she was a producer I had half a dozen to choose from initially and our top pick was available so we used her. We would have had several more if we didn't choose any of the first ones I received.

Given the diference in costs, you might consider using a clinic a bit further out of your range. The clinic I used works with RE's all over the country so we only had to do phone consults and fly in for the fert and transfer (one trip)/ We stayed in a very snazzy hotel and acted like crazy tourists for two weeks...and didn't come close to a total of over $30,000 for everything, including meds.

I worked with PNW fertility. You would want to use Dr. Marshall. I won't say anything else unles you want more info, but she's THE BEST and worth waiting for!