Donor Egg Program

Our donor egg program and our generous egg donors help patients become parents

Every patient who visits our Newport Beach fertility center will travel a unique path to create or expand their family. We want to partner with you on this exciting journey. Robert Anderson MD and Don Royster MD provide compassionate care and clinical expertise to make parenthood possible. Our clinic also offers advanced treatment options and an in-house donor egg program.

How we screen egg donors to help ensure success

At our Newport Beach fertility center, we carefully prescreen all potential egg donors before inviting them to participate in our donor egg program. This comprehensive screening involves several steps to ensure that being an egg donor will be safe and successful for each woman.

  • A complete medical history of the potential egg donor and her family
  • A physical examination with an ultrasound to assess the ovaries
  • Evaluation by a licensed therapist or psychologist specializing in third party reproduction

If everything looks good after the initial screening, we will then draw blood to screen for infectious diseases to comply with FDA regulations and ASRM guidelines. A urine drug screen and genetic testing will also occur at this time.

Finally, we ask that donors provide multiple photos of themselves from different ages and complete an extensive questionnaire for intended parents to review.

The logistics of using our donor egg program

Currently, most egg donor IVF cycles are anonymous, which means the egg donor and the intended parents do not meet. Because of the complexity of the donor egg process, we recommend execution of a binding legal agreement between the intended parents and their chosen donor. This document sets up parameters for the process and protects all parties.

Once the legal document is in place, the intended parents can move forward with IVF using donor eggs. To provide the eggs, the donor will take medications to produce multiple eggs at the same time. She will then have a short outpatient egg retrieval procedure.

From there, embryologists in the IVF lab will fertilize the donor eggs using sperm from the intended father. They will monitor the resulting embryos and help our doctors select the best one for transfer. On the day of the embryo transfer, the doctor will place a thin catheter containing the embryo through the vagina and cervix to reach the uterus. Once it is in place, the doctor will release the embryo into the uterus, where it will hopefully implant and develop into a pregnancy.

We also offer donor embryos in addition to donor eggs

While many patients decide to use our donor egg program, others turn to embryo donation to conceive. When parents have more IVF embryos than they can use to grow their family, they may donate these embryos to help someone else experience the joy of pregnancy and parenthood.

Those embryos are available free of charge, so the main expense is the cost of a frozen embryo treatment cycle. As a result, embryo donation is an effective family-building option that is typically more affordable than traditional adoption.

Our Newport Beach fertility center team wants to help you achieve your dream of parenthood. We offer options like our donor egg program and donor embryos to make it happen. Contact our office for more information or to schedule an appointment.