Egg Donation (Ovum Donation) -
For Recipients

For egg donors: If you are interested in becoming an egg donor, please visit our egg donation website www.EggDonationNY.com

RMA of New York has a highly respected and experienced egg donation team, known for their focus and success in matching high quality donors with recipients, while providing stellar, compassionate care throughout the matching and treatment process. Thanks to RMA of New York's Egg Donation Program, hundreds of individuals and couples who have built their family using donor egg.

RMA of New York’s egg donation team is comprised of nurse practitioners, skilled nurses, and coordinators dedicated specifically to matching recipients to healthy and compatible egg donors. RMA of New York institutes an anonymous egg donation policy, which prohibits any identifying information of either the recipient or the donor to be revealed to one another. RMA of New York does allow for the recipient to use a known donor. This is a self-selected donor, can be found through a donor agency or direct connection, such as a friend or relative.

RMA of New York is committed to matching qualified donors to recipients as soon as possible; thus, the average wait time to find a match is significantly shorter than many other centers in the region and country.

Selecting a Donor

There are a couple key considerations for a recipient that impact the cost and timing associated with a donor egg cycle:

• Known donor versus Anonymous donor: A known donor can be a friend or relative who chooses to donate, or may be someone who was unknown prior to the donation process but chooses to participate as a known donor. Donors matched by RMA of New York will be treated as anonymous donors. When a recipient chooses to use a known donor, RMA of New York will continue to provide all medical care to both donor and recipient.

• Agency donor versus RMA of New York donor: A recipient can choose to find a donor through RMA's Egg Donation Program or through a donor agency. Some donor agencies offer identities and pictures of the donors, while RMA of New York institutes an anonymous egg donation policy that prohibits any identifying information from being shared to either the recipient or donor. The egg donation team at RMA of New York matches donors to recipients based on specific physical, ethnic, and personality traits requested by the recipient.

2.  Preparing for a cycle

• "Shared cycles" versus "Non-shared cycle": A recipient can choose a non-shared cycle, where all eggs retrieved from the donor will be given to a single recipient. An alternative option is a shared cycle, where eggs retrieved from a donor are shared between two recipients, which can lower the cost of both recipients' cycles. RMA of New York has specific shared cycle guidelines to help maximize the opportunity for success for both recipients, which can be discussed in further detail with the egg donation team.

Finding a donor and choosing a cycle type has process, emotional and financial implications for a recipient. RMA of New York's Egg Donation Program creates support for recipients and provides expert assistance throughout the selection and cycle process.

Preparing for the Donor and Recipient Cycles

• The Donor: The egg donation team rigorously screens egg donor candidates to make sure they are physically healthy and fully understand the donation process. The process begins with each donor applicant completing an extensive questionnaire, detailing individual and family health history, physical characteristics, as well as general interests. Upon review of the questionnaire, select donors are then called in for comprehensive medical testing and psychological evaluation. Those candidates deemed eligible to donate are then entered into RMA of New York's donor pool and will be contacted to commence a cycle upon match to a recipient. RMA of New York's medical team will ensure donor and recipient(s) menstrual cycles are timed to coincide. Upon start of the treatment cycle, the donor will take injectable fertility medications for about 8-10 days to increase egg production.



• The Recipient: During the time the donor is taking injectable medications, the recipient of the donated eggs will typically take hormones to synchronize her cycle with the donor's cycle and to prepare her uterus to receive the embryos and thus enhance the likelihood of implantation. These hormones include estrogen, which can be taken orally or administered in patches that attach to the skin, and progesterone administered by injections. Approximately 3-6 weeks after the recipient begins uterine preparation, the eggs will be retrieved from the donor and combined with the sperm from the partner or sperm donor in the embryology laboratory. 3-5 days after the egg retrieval, the resulting embryos are then transferred into the recipient's uterus using ultrasound guidance. The recipient will take a Beta blood test 10-14 days after the transfer to determine pregnancy.

About RMA of New York’s Anonymous Egg Donors

RMA of New York actively recruits healthy women between the ages 21 and 32 with no known genetic or sexually transmitted diseases. Our egg donor pool consists of a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds, including:

• American Indian / Alaskan Native egg donors
• Asian egg donors
• Bi-racial / multi-racial egg donors
• Black / African American egg donors
• Caucasian / White egg donors
• Hispanic / Latino egg donors
• Indian egg donors
• Jewish egg donors
• Native Hawaiian / Other Pacific Islander egg donors

Egg donors experience a sense of reward and satisfaction knowing that their contribution has a profound effect on the life of another woman or couple. Many of our donors relay to us that the experience of helping a woman to conceive gives them fulfillment and contentment that they have never felt before.

Success Rates of Egg Donation

While egg quality deteriorates with age, a woman’s uterus and her capability to carry a child to delivery stays relatively constant. Therefore, egg donation offers a substantially higher chance for the delivery of a healthy baby, even in women of advanced maternal age. To view the success rates for RMA of New York, the national average and individual centers in detail, visit the website for The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) www.sart.org. Please note that a comparison of clinical success rates may not be meaningful because patient medical characteristics, treatment approaches and entrance criteria for Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) may vary from clinic to clinic.

The Emotional Aspects of Using Donor Eggs

Experiencing infertility can be stressful; coming to grips with knowing conception may not be possible without the help of a donor can compound the anxiety. Many potential egg recipients have similar questions, such as: Should the parent(s) ever tell their child? And if so, at what point in the child’s life will it be appropriate to reveal how he or she was conceived? And should the parent(s) keep the egg donation process a secret from their friends and family? Recipients in the Egg Donation Program can discuss the emotional aspects of using donor eggs with RMA of New York's licensed psychologist Dr. Georgia Witkin. To further support potential recipients, RMA of New York also holds individual and group support programs with Lisa Schuman, LCSW where topics can be shared among those considering or pursuing egg donation. The type of programs and registration instructions can be found on our complementary care webpage.