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Becoming an Egg Donor

Egg Donation Summary

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Eggs naturally die every month

The number of eggs a woman
has decreases as she ages

Medications help develop more
mature eggs

Egg retrieval and the risks involved

What is done to further reduce the
risks?

Eggs naturally die every month.
Each month, women who have regular menstrual cycles will release a single egg at the time of ovulation. For each egg that is ovulated, about 1,000 eggs develop to various stages of maturity. Normally, one egg develops and the rest undergo cell death or atresia.

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The number of eggs a woman has decreases as she ages.
This natural process of recruiting about 1,000 eggs each month with almost all the recruited eggs undergoing atresia continues to happen month after month throughout a woman's entire reproductive life. It happens regardless of whether she is pregnant, taking birth control pills or not ovulating for any other reason. When virtually all the eggs are gone, menopause occurs.

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Medications help develop more mature eggs, eggs that would have died.
In an egg donation cycle, we attempt to recover several eggs from both ovaries by giving fertility medications to the egg donor. The medications overcome the body's natural tendency to completely mature only one egg and thus there are about 10-20 eggs that develop to a point where they can be retrieved from the ovaries. Of these 10-20 eggs, only one would have been the one chosen to ovulate and the remaining eggs would have died off if the donor had not taken the fertility medications. This is why egg donation does not use up future eggs. Egg donation results in the "rescue" of eggs that would otherwise have developed and then died. This is why egg donation will not result in a woman reaching menopause any sooner than she would have been expected to.

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Egg retrieval and the risks involved.
The doctors at Pacific Fertility Center have performed many egg retrievals and are extremely familiar with the process. As a result of our extensive experience, we believe there is not a serious risk of loss of egg donors' future fertility with egg donation. However, we want you to be informed of all the potential risks and consequences before you agree to undergo this process and we want to fully address all your concerns or questions.

When an egg retrieval is performed, a thin needle is inserted through the wall of the vagina (under anesthesia) and introduced into each ovary to recover eggs from the ovaries. Because everyone has naturally occurring bacteria in their vagina, it is impossible to sterilize it (remove all vaginal bacteria). Undoubtedly, some bacteria may be introduced into the abdomen. This bacteria may start to grow in the abdomen and cause an infection, which could result in blockage of the fallopian tubes or lead to an ovarian abscess which may require removal of an ovary to cure.

If this were to happen to an egg donor, her future fertility could be compromised and she might have to undergo in vitro fertilization herself when she wished to conceive in the future or she could be rendered completely infertile.

Fortunately, the chances of an infection occurring are extremely low.
Even without the administration of antibiotics, the risks of infection are very, very low.

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What is done to further reduce the risks?
To help to further reduce the risk of infection, we routinely administer an intravenous antibiotic at the time of the egg retrieval procedure. This is the same antibiotic in the same doses that are used routinely for vaginal surgeries such as vaginal hysterectomies. Nevertheless, if an infection were to occur following the egg retrieval procedure, we would immediately administer antibiotics to the patient to combat the infection and to help to reduce the chances that the infection might lead to tubal blockage or to an ovarian infection.

As with any medical procedure, there are risks that are assumed by the patient. We believe that the medical risks with egg donation are very low and that egg donation is a safe thing to do.

Please feel free to ask our staff and doctors if you have questions about any of these issues.

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