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| Egg Donation Stages | Stage 1st: Ovarian stimulation, cycle monitoring and egg collection
The ovaries of a woman, who is going to become an egg donor, are stimulated with the help of fertility drugs. In the result of this stimulation several follicles are produced. During the growth of measuring hormone levels in the blood of a future egg donor. Although, it is rarely enough, that a woman may experience any serious side effects of the medication, sometimes it is possible that a woman experiences hot flushes, mood changes, headaches, discomfort and bruises at the injections areas, fluid retention, allergy and ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome.
There also exists about 5 – 10 percent risk of cancellation of the treatment cycle, the reason of which may either become poor response to the fertility drugs or high risk of some severe ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome.
Anyway, in case of a successful treatment after about two weeks the follicles of an egg donor become mature, and this woman is given hCG injection in order to let the doctors be sure that the eggs are mature enough. In about 36 hours later, the very procedure of egg collection is performed. As a rule it is carried out with the help of a trans vaginal ultrasound aspiration under mild sedation, however, it is also possible to have this procedure performed with the help of a laparoscope, though, it is rare enough, and is possible only in those cases, when a woman, who is donating her eggs, is going to undergo some other procedure, like sterilization. It is not uncommon for a woman, who is going to undergo sterilization to decide to donate her eggs before. Every egg donor produces about 8 – 10 eggs in the average.
It should also be noted, that not every follicle necessarily contain an egg, and not every egg, which is obtained, is necessarily mature. There have even been cases, though rare enough, when no eggs were these follicles, their development is closely monitored with the help of ultrasound scanning and collected.
The woman, who is going to become an egg donor, is advised not to have any unprotected sexual contact after the egg collection procedure was conducted up until the next period so that the risk of unplanned pregnancy would be avoided.
Stage 2nd: Insemination and fertilization
The future intended father is to produce his semen sample with the help of masturbation. In case, if there is no intended father, or if his semen is of a poor quality, or if there is any other kind of problem with it, the semen of the sperm donor may be used. And as soon as the eggs have been collected from the egg donor, they are to be inseminated with either the sperm of an intended father or with the donor’s sperm.
In case if the intended father’s sperm is of poor quality or count, Intra - Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection may possibly be performed.
However, there may arise some problems, which concern either insemination or fertilization:
No fertilization. This may occur even if either Intra – Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection or donor sperm is used;
Abnormal fertilization. The embryos, resulting from artificial insemination do nor develop normally, and hence, they can not be replaced;
Failure of the embryos to divide, even if the fertilization is apparently normal.
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