Embryo Donation: A Third Party Reproduction

Third party reproduction is a kind of arrangement where eggs or sperm are provided by another woman or man or where another woman provides her uterus so that a woman can have a child. Embryo donation, egg donation, sperm donation, surrogacy or gestational carriers are some third party reproductions. In this article we will discuss about embryo donation which is one of the best way to build your family. 

What is Embryo Donation?

Embryo donation is a form of third party reproduction, defined as the giving of embryos remaining left after one couple’s IVF treatment to another couple followed by the placement of those embryos to facilitate the pregnancy in the recipient. Mostly the embryos are donated after the woman who actually created them has successfully carries one or more pregnancy. The child born with this method is considered as the child of the woman who gives birth, not the child of the donor. 

Embryo donation short cuts the infertility treatment process by beginning with an embryo instead of an unfertilized egg and sperm. However the method is recommended if:

• Woman have recurrent IVF failures
•   Both the partners are infertile
• Couples are at risk of passing genetic disorders to their children
• Couples can’t pursue adoption
• Couples can’t afford expensive fertility treatments

Women having poor quality eggs face difficult to become pregnant. Some women in this case consider other reproductive options such as donor eggs, where they think adoption is a viable option for them. In this procedure, eggs are surgically removed from a woman’s ovaries through ART (assisted reproductive technology) and combined with sperm in laboratory. Once eggs are completely fertilized or become embryos, these are then returned to the woman’s uterus or donated to another woman. 

The embryos are created in a lab petri dish and kept under observation. To avoid multi pregnancies, doctors will only put two or three embryos back into the woman’s uterus. In case she is not successful, she may again try with frozen embryos after a month. The overall chance of pregnancy by embryo donation is around 20%- 25% per cycle. However this success rate may fluctuate depending on the quality of embryos that is being used.

The intended parents can ask for embryo donation in any one of the following three ways:

• Some parents prefer doing embryo donation through an adoption agency which covers the intended parents and find matches for them. It is the most expensive process for intended parents that may cost around $8000 excluding fertility clinic fees and home study fees. Technically embryos cannot be adopted as this is legally considered as a property transfer and not an adoption.

• Some feel more comfortable this by clinic donation in which IVF clinic acts as an intermediary between donor and recipient. In this process, intended parents have choice to choose the donors based on the available list of characteristics, depending on what parties required.

• Another option is personal agreement in which couples make arrangements to donate their embryos personally. In this process they may look for intended parents on online forums.