Donor Egg Treatment Abroad: Where to go and what to expect cost wise?

[Lillilly]

I've seen chat about IVF abroad with OE, but not much on Donor Egg treatment abroad. I'd like to get an idea of best places to go and cost. I'm blonde and blue eyed, so I'm assuming Spain and Greece wouldn't have many donors to match with me. But is that a flawed assumption? I don't know. Also, what sort of info is available on donors? How closely do the clinics help you find a physical match? Would be great to hear people's experiences and ideas for helping me hatch my back-ups' Back-Up plan.

We actually still have one DE embryo remaining but our chances of success are low as there appear to be problems with our donor's health and she didn't respond well to the drugs. To save myself from going utterly bonkers, I need to work out what's next if this second embryo fails too. DH and I are also starting to have conversations about adoption (already been in touch with our local authority adoption services) and what life would look like without kids. It's all very difficult but I can't avoid thinking about it. I feel like my future is rapidly being taken away from me and I'm helpless to stop it.

[jengi]

Oh lovely I’m sad to read you are having a difficult time. I’m sorry to hear that your donor has health issues, I hope this hasn’t impacted on the embryos.

We went down the donor route but went abroad to Greece mainly because the wait list in the UK was so long. Not sure it was any shorter abroad to be honest! My husband and I have fair or freckle skin with brown hair, I have green eyes and my husband has blue. I wasn’t at all bothered about characteristics and even happy to go with a brown eyed donor. My donor was described to me as light brown hair, light eyes, slim build and average height. She was 23.

She donated 16 eggs which gave us 6 5-day blastocysts. The first we learned of our clinic actually having found us a donor was in an email to tell us we had 6 embryos. In the same email they provided the description of the donor. I was so excited about the embryos but once the excitement faded, I have to admit I was a bit miffed why they hadn’t asked for our agreement on the donor. I know other clinics definitely do ask for agreement before putting the donor on treatment. To be honest we had 6 embryos & that’s all that mattered to us. Our chance of success had just increased from less than 5% to over 60%.

Our first transfer with one embryo sadly failed. Our second with two embryos worked & im 16 weeks pregnant. We had to put so much trust in our clinic, the entire donor route is based on trust. I found this really hard at first but relaxed into it slowly.

I have a friend & a cousin who both have girls from donor eggs. One went to Greece like us & the other to Spain. Their experiences were very different & perhaps better than mine. Their characteristics are light brown/blonde hair & blue/ green eyes and both their girls have their characteristics. So don’t rule out countries like Greece due to your characteristics, though it is worth enquiring about the wait lists for such characteristics.

For us after our initial Skype call in Feb, we went out to the clinic in April for tests, leave sperm sample etc. Our embryos were created in June & first frozen transfer was in Sept. Our 2nd transfer was 10 months later in July (set back by me being unsure if I wanted to continue as I was distraught after the failure & then Covid put a stop to our Easter transfer).

I hope this info helps & I want to wish you the best of luck Xx

[Lillilly in reply to jengi]

Thanks lovely. This is really helpful. Though I am shocked the clinic chose the donor without your consent. Surely that's illegal? But I guess it doesn't matter now as you're pregnant. CONGRATS!!! So exciting.

I guess I am not too fussed about the hair and eye colour as its a lottery on which genes activate anyway. My partner has dark hair, freckles and hazel eyes so our genetic child would have had a broad spectrum of features to develop from. Guess one thing I would like is height as we're both tall. But really, what i want most is a healthy baby.

Thanks again and enjoy your pregnancy! xxx

[jengi in reply to Lillilly]

It very well could be illegal! We signed so many legal documents it’s possible we signed consent before they even found a donor. I constantly felt they were trying to pull the wool over our eyes. We had other issues with this clinic so this was the least of our worries. I certainly won’t be recommending it. I wrote numerous letters of complaint & even considered moving our embryos. Thankfully I had an amazing consultant here in the UK who I paid to see privately & she always had our backs. At the end of the day I just needed them to get me pregnant. And well here I am 16 weeks. I think the clinic is as relieved as I am that it worked! I was beginning to become a thorn in their side. The one thing about going abroad is don’t expect UK standards! Even though one of the reasons for choosing this clinic was the director/owner had previously worked in NHS fertility. Happy to pm you the clinic so you can make sure you avoid it! 🙈

Yes a healthy happy baby is the key outcome! No one knows what their baby is going to come out looking like as you said we don’t know which genes will be activated. My best friend’s little girl has the most beautiful red hair but neither my friend or her husband are red heads but there is red gene in both their families! It’s a surprise for every parent & it continues to be a surprise as they grow & develop into adults. Xx

[Lillilly in reply to jengi]

Yes please to sending me their details. Thanks!

[ChloeDE]

I am also fair so thought it would be hard finding a match in Spain, Greece or Cyprus. We went to Brno in Czech Republic and got a match pretty much straight away.

We had to have 2x donor rounds. We got 2x blastocyst from the first round. Transferred both and one stuck but miscarried. Got 3x blastocysts from second round. Currently pregnant with twins and one frozen.

The clinic guarantees 2x good quality blastocysts and they were also able to offer add-on treatment to help with sperm selection that we had never even heard of before.

[Lillilly in reply to ChloeDE]

Thanks Chloe, and congrats on being preggers! I think we messaged on another thread. I lose track!

That's interesting about the guarantee. I'd probably be looking for something similar. Especially as our previous attempts didn't yield much. (Isn't it horrible how it sounds like crop harvesting. Our wonderful lovely donors are certainly very important to me).

Could you email me the name of the clinic? x

[Charlie1399]

Hi, I’m sorry to hear you have been having such a difficult time on your journey. I went to Spain for donor egg treatment. I am blonde with green eyes, my partner dark with blue eyes. They assured me that they have a wide range of different donors. It is completely anonymous so I actually know nothing more about my donor than her age. However, we had to send in lots and lots of photos of us and they told us they put them through a computer programme to find the closest match. They said they then also have a matching panel that meets to ensure they have got the closest match. She described it to us they try and get it so close to you that if you were in the room with the natural mother no one would be able to tell it wasn’t yours. We were also able to number a list of factors as to how important they were to us. It probably sounds terrible but I put education first as I work in education and it’s important to me and my partner left school with no qualifications. Hair / eye colour was further down my list. I could not recommend my clinic enough, however, how accurate it is I can’t tell you as it hasn’t arrived yet. But if you have any questions I’m happy to answer more.

[Ginge002 in reply to Charlie1399]

Hi Charlie, hope all is well with you, I know this message was some months ago now, but wonder if you can message me the name of the Spanish clinic you recommended. Thank you

[Charlie1399 in reply to Ginge002]

Yes of course. It’s IVF Spain in Alicante. Good luck with it all.