Why Egg Donation at Newlife?
We have been running a successful egg donation program, according to the National Legislation and the European Directives for many years and have the expertise, experience, knowledge and the passion to help each and every individual seeking such an emotionally difficult process.
What we do different
The whole process starts by us carefully selecting our egg donors. All our donors are younger than 30 years old and most are of proven fertility which means that they already have a pregnancy noted in their history (either their own or through a past donation cycle).
Apart from the investigations that are required legally to have we further investigate in detail that donors have a good ovarian reserve and have a clean gynaecological history from diseases that would affect their ovarian response (eg. Endometriosis or previous surgery to the ovaries). We take a detailed family, sexual and psychiatric history and perform a psychometric evaluation to confirm that they understand what they will be doing, and make sure that they will be able to cope with the process.
As a clinic, we always match the blood groups of the recipients to that of the egg donor. We only use fresh eggs and fertilise them on the day of the donor’s egg collection either with sperm from a fresh semen sample, cryopreserved semen sample or donor sperm sample of your choice. We perform ICSI on all egg donation treatment cycles and we always extend the culture to the blastocyst stage, without charging extra for this.
Many clinics guarantee a specific number of eggs. However, it is very crucial to understand that what is important is the number of good quality blastocysts and not the number of eggs, as you may get many eggs and no good quality blastocysts. We offer various packages guaranteeing different numbers of blastocysts. Do note, that when then sperm is considered normal, if these guarantees are not met, we will recruit and match a new egg donor at no extra cost to you.
Throughout this process and following it, we also look after our donors well, so they do not encounter any health issues and therefore they are happy to introduce this concept to other friends that may also be recruited as future egg donors.
As the chances of achieving a pregnancy depend on two main parameters: 80% contribution from the embryo quality (morphology and genetic integrity) and a 20% contribution from the endometrial receptivity, another part of your preliminary testing is a non-invasive 3-dimensional transvaginal ultrasound scan of your endometrial cavity.
According to the Greek Law, if a donor selects to remain anonymous, only non-identifying information can be given to a recipient. However, you can have access to her physical characteristics (hair colour, eye colour, height, weight, skin tone), ethnicity, blood group, past pregnancy history, hobbies, education, and occupation. In case the donor selects to be eponymous, no information concerning the recipient or the child is disclosed to the donor. In case the donor decides to be eponymous, the child can obtain information about the donor after the age of 18.
We have a large dedicated International Team that will be by your side to assist you before, throughout and post-treatment. The close contact and personalized care we offer is part of our philosophy and strong points according to past patients that have experienced having treatment with us.
Our egg donation process for our international patients is designed to ensure maximum success at a minimum cost.
Eponymous Donation
Patients who seek fertility treatment with the use of donor eggs which come from an eponymous donor, have the following options at Newlife:
- Purchase frozen donor eggs through our collaborating egg banks and transfer them to Newlife, for thawing, fertilization and embryo transfer. We offer a frozen donor egg package which is the only one that involves the use of frozen eggs.
- Select an egg donor who is a relative. Donation of reproductive material between relatives is permissible only between relatives in a “lateral line”. This applies to blood relatives of the same sex. A sister can take reproductive material from her sister, cousin etc.
For more information please contact us.
High egg donation success rates at Newlife IVF Greece
The high success rates that we have are the result of the careful selection and proper stimulation of the donors and the way we have selected to run our egg donation programme. More specifically we only use fresh eggs. The reason for this selection is that according to the American SART data the use of frozen eggs leads to lower success rates (in the range of 12%) and the use of egg sharing is not preferred as these women are infertile and are having treatment themselves and therefore have a lower potential. The high success rates are also because we only perform embryo transfers at the blastocyst stage and we are highly selective and use top quality embryos.
We use the most sophisticated equipment and keep up to date with any new developments in fertility so that we can provide the best service to our patients.
The egg donation process at Newlife IVF Greece
Step 1
The first step that we need you to take is to contact us and plan your first FREE one-hour medical consultation with the people that will oversee your treatment. We will need you to complete a medical questionnaire and send in your past medical records so we can prepare for your appointment. This consultation can be a live visit at our clinic, a video call or during one of our visits to London. During this consultation, we can explain the whole process but also have the time to go through your medical history and understand your needs and requests.
Step 2
If you decide to agree to egg donation treatment with us, the second step involves us organizing your preliminary testing either in Greece or in your home country. The below options all have the same success rates and just vary greatly in regards to the logistics.
Option 1: Preliminary visit for blood testing, mid-cycle ultrasound scan and sperm freeze in Greece (one night stay required in Thessaloniki). Another one-night stay is required for treatment (the embryo transfer). In this case, we can pre-run the donor treatment cycle and cryopreserve the embryos at the blastocyst stage.
Option 2: Preliminary blood testing and mid-cycle ultrasound scan in your own home country and then visit for your actual treatment. In this case, the length of stay is for about 10 days and there is not much flexibility as the two treatment cycles (egg donor and recipient) are synchronised.
Option 3: Preliminary blood testing and mid-cycle ultrasound scan in your own home country. A semen sample is cryopreserved in your own home country and can be shipped to Greece through a special courier company. In this case, we can again pre-run the donor treatment cycle and cryopreserve the embryos at the blastocyst stage.
Once we have all the necessary information we need, we will start the process of finding a suitable egg donor for you. This will be based on your characteristics, your requirements, and your blood groups. Once a donor is found and her testing is complete, we will then share with you her details and wait for your approval. If you agree we move to the next stage and if you do not, we continue to look for a new matching donor.
Once we finalise the choice of your egg donor, we can then see how we organize your donor’s treatment cycle and if you will run a synchronized cycle or if your donor will pre-run her treatment.
Step 3
The third step involves the egg donor stimulation. Once this commences you will always be updated regarding the start of her stimulation. In case of a synchronized cycle, when your donor is ready to start her ovarian stimulation you will also be instructed to start your endometrial preparation. This can be done in your own home country, as all that is required is estrogen tablet or patch supplementation and for the monitoring simple transvaginal ultrasound scans.
Step 4
Your Donor’s egg collection and the culture of your embryos is the fourth step. On the day of the donor’s egg collection a fresh sample from your partner/husband or his frozen semen sample or donor sperm will be used to fertilise the eggs collected. The embryos will then be cultured for 5 further days as our embryo transfers or cryopreservation are performed on day 5-6 at the blastocyst stage. On a daily basis you will be informed regarding the number of eggs collected and how things progress following fertilization and up until the blastocyst stage. We will discuss with you regarding how many embryos to transfer and how to freeze any surplus good quality embryos at this time.
Step 5
The embryo transfer is the fifth step of the egg donation procedure. This is a simple process performed under ultrasound guidance to ensure that the embryos are placed in the correct place in the womb without any trauma to the endometrial cavity. All good quality surplus blastocysts are cryopreserved for future use, either if treatment is not successful or for sibling offspring. The freezing process and the length of freezing do not affect the success rates, as our statistics show over the past 5 years.
Step 6
The sixth and final step is the pregnancy test that is performed 9 days following your day 5 embryo transfer. Following this we will hopefully guide you regarding medications and further investigations needed during pregnancy. We will of course always be just an email or phone call away to support you at any stage of your pregnancy.
We love to keep in touch with our patients and hope that they will be able to achieve their goal of having a family and be able to join the Newlife family.
If you would like more information about how this process works and would also like to have a free video call consultation, so that we can discuss your case in particular, please contact us directly through our site.
Newlife IVF Greece - Egg Donation Cost
The cost of egg donation varies greatly from country to country and between clinics. It is very hard to compare as each clinic offers different things and many times these are not clarified and therefore one should thoroughly investigate this.
The egg donation packages that we offer guarantee different number of top-quality blastocysts and consist of the following:
- Basic Egg Donation Package at the cost of 6900€ through which we guarantee at least two top-quality blastocysts.
- Guarantee Egg Donation Package at the cost of 9900€ through which we guarantee at least four top-quality blastocysts.
- Frozen eggs package (anonymous or eponymous): 2600€ through which we guarantee that, if all frozen donor eggs in your batch (minimum 6 eggs) are successfully thawed and fertilized, you will have an embryo available for transfer on either day 3 or day 5.
For more information please contact us.
Single Woman
Single women seeking IVF treatment either with the use of their own eggs or donor eggs will also need to use donor sperm. Our clinic collaborates with renowned international sperm banks and each sperm sample we utilise has a certificate to verify the good health of the donor and that it complies with the legislation. In any case of anonymous or eponymous sperm donation, access to the donor’s details such as physical characteristics, age ethnicity and blood group is feasible even in the basic profile donors. The recipient can select an eponymous donor. Nevertheless, no information concerning the recipient or the child is disclosed to the donor. In case the donor decides to be eponymous, the child can obtain information about the donor after the age of 18.
There are two types of non-contact sperm donors:
- Basic Profile and
- Extended Profile
Same sex couples
Embryo donation
Embryo donation refers to the treatment cycle when patients cannot use their own genetic material (eggs or sperm) to create embryos of their own.
This type of treatment is offered in different ways by different fertility clinics.
In many clinics, the below are offered:
- surplus donated embryos from infertile couples going through their own IVF treatment
- frozen embryos created from donor eggs and sperm (husband/partner or donor)
The above type of treatment should be referred to as ‘Embryo Adoption’ and does not carry the highest possible success rates, as the eggs may come from women not fully screened or from older age and are also leftover embryos.
At Newlife IVF Greece when we refer to embryo donation we mean the creation of embryos deriving from the use of fresh eggs from a selected egg donor and also donor sperm. Both of these donors are selected according to the characteristics and the requirements that you will provide to us. This practice offers the highest possible pregnancy rates.
