Egg donor vs. embryo donor $

[Petitechat]

Does anybody know if there is a significant difference in cost between choosing an egg donor vs using donated embryos?? Any ball park figures on these options??

Thanks,
Amy

[karenandeva]

We are in the process of a donor egg cycle. The total cost will be about $22,000. This includes: 5000 for donor, 2500 for donor agency, 7300 for donors monitoring and retrieval, 3500 for my monitoring and transfer, 2500 for meds for us (stims, lupron, etc.) We have no insurance coverage other than bloodwork. In addition, there will be charges for freezing any leftover embryos, any additional transfers, etc. We looked into donor embryo which is less expensive but seems to be a much longer process. There are a number of options. The fastest and least expensive would be to go through your IF clinic and use leftover embryos from one of their other patients. Not all clinics do this. The cost would be for your monitoring and transfer (about 1000-3000) depending on how much is covered on your insurance. The next option is to post an ad on a donor embryo website. Again, your cost would be the same, except you may have to pay for donors bloodwork screening, transport of embryos, etc. The other option is to go through Snowflake embryo adoption. They require an adoption home study, which is time consuming, and also charge an additional $5000 fee for their matching services. Also be aware that when people donate embryos, they may not be the "best" quality, since the best embryos were probably used during their treatment. They are also frozen so the thaw rate, and pregnancy rate of frozen embryos have to be considered. For these reasons, we decided to pay more for a fresh egg retrieval and transfer, and will hopefully have leftover embryos for additional attempts. Hope this helps and good luck with your decision!

[TRC]

Using an egg donor was out of the question due to the high cost (we were already having to use DS) so we went the donated frozen embryo route with our clinic's program. The first time around we were 4th on the list and waited about 8 months before some became available for us (we weren't trying to match any characteristics which helped). We received 8, thawed all with 4 surviving and tf'd a 3, 4, 7 cell and a blast, but got a BFN. We went back on the list and waited a couple months and were offered some other embryos, but on the RE's advice declined in hopes of better ones. About 4 months later we got offered 19 embryos, most 2pns and a few blasts. We accepted, thawed 8 of the 2pns, 6 survived and we tf'd two 8 and two 10 cell embies which resulted in our triplets (2 yrs on 4/30). We have since done a private donation to another couple of the remaining embroys and await the news of their success later this year.

We had insurance that covered 100% of my costs including the drugs, births, etc. so we had absolutely nothing out of our pocket. There was no cost for the embroys or the program, only the tf and blood work.

[50/50]

Yes there is a huge difference. We paid $30K+ for our cycle using ed/ds. If you can find donated embryos that are a "perfect" match in your eyes I would go for that. We wanted to cycle right away and didn't have time to wait for a donor embryo so we opted to go with ed.

[lleva99]

I'm sure that you've gotten a pretty good idea from the previous posts but I was going to suggest that you go to www.miracleswaiting.com. We started searching for donor embies in the beginning of February and were matched through miracles waiting once which fell through because of donors clinic and then again and both of those within one month. We are receiving 8 2PN embies-the donor has two children from this batch which were from the fresh cycle and then the first frozen cycle. Very good luck so we are hopeful! It seems like that might be a great place to try. You can post a profile for $25 or you can just keep checking the donor list to see if you are interested in any situations and then just e-mail them. There are two donors with caucasian embies and one couple with bi-racial embies so there are a good number to consider. Miracleswaiting could make your dreams come true-it did ours! Good luck!

Sarah

[asilomar]

You can do a shared IVF cycle as well...with this option, you get fresh embryo transfer for a lot less $ than traditional DE. You would share the eggs retrieved with the donor in return for paying for the donor's IVF. You both get a fresh transfer and hopefully babies. The cost is around $7-8k, depending on the clinic, if the donor has insurance for her meds to stim, etc. Feel free to PM me if you'd like to know more.

[Marci]

We have signed up and are waiting for a match for a donor embbie, praying that by winter. Who did you sign up with? And HOW in the world did you find someone with so many embbies???? We're using Miracles Waiting and most (about 90% have less than 5 embryos).

What I'm wondering is how i the world did your insurance pay for any of this - especially 100% of this??? I've never heard of insurance like that! You are extremely fortunate!

Wow - triplets! I'm so glad that I read your post about the donation. It makes me feel better that it truly DOES work (even tho you see it on 20/20 - it's nice to see it happens in real life!)

Do you mind if I ask how much the total cost was? I know you pay the cost of the donors freezings fees, the fee for sending them to you, and then what you have to pay to keep them frozen until needed. Now, my transfer at least is free - that's it. And the meds, they're free. At least I hope. Can you also share expactly what meds you needed to get your uterus ready for the transfer (I'm guessing progesterone, anything else??)

Again, congrats on the triplets! You must be busy!
Love,

Marci
marcifarris@hotmail.com

[TRC]

Marci,

I emailed you a response.