Donor Egg Program

One of the assisted reproductive technologies available at Houston IVF is in vitro fertilization with egg donation. This allows women who do not have viable eggs to become pregnant and give birth. For the patient, the experience of donor egg IVF is similar to a frozen embryo transfer cycle, in that the patient undergoes treatment with hormones to prepare the uterine lining, monitoring and embryo transfer, but not ovulation induction or egg retrieval.

Use of donated eggs can lead to successful pregnancies for:

women with premature ovarian failure,
women whose own eggs are of poor quality,
women in the older reproductive age group (under age 50), or
women with chromosomal translocations or genetic diseases that they wish to avoid passing on to their offspring.

Donors may be a family member or friend of the woman desiring a pregnancy or an anonymous volunteer screened by our staff. The egg donor must use fertility drugs to stimulate the development of multiple mature eggs, whereas the recipient woman takes estrogen and progesterone to prepare the uterus for embryos derived through egg donation. Ninety percent of our egg donor cycles include the use of an anonymous young woman donor. Our donor egg IVF pregnancy rate has consistently ranged between 60% - 70% per treatment cycle over the past few years. The sperm of the husband or partner is used to fertilize the eggs. All egg donors are carefully screened before they are accepted into the program. Anonymous egg donors are healthy women between the ages of 21-32 who go through the following testing procedures before being accepted:

Medical history and physical examination
Testing for infectious diseases
Chromosome Analysis
Screening for inheritable diseases through family health questionnaire
Psychological assessment through the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and interview with our staff psychologist.

Many recipient couples have a large number of embryos through egg donation, which allows the possibility of freezing some for future use.

As an egg donor you can help do something wonderful for others. If you would like to find out more about the egg donation process, please call Andrea DelGado at 713-465-1211, ext. 2621 or via email at andrea@houstonivf.net . If you fulfill the following requirements, download the screening application and mail to us at Houston IVF Attention: Andrea DelGado, 929 Gessner Road, Suite 2300 Houston, TX 77024.

There is also the following criteria:

You must be between the ages of 21 - 32.
Have you been a non-smoker for at least 6 months?
Do you know your birth-parents? (NO = You are adopted)
Is your height & weight proportionate?
Do you take or have you taken any of the following forms of Birth Control?
**Either answer may qualify**
- The Pill (Off for at least 1 month before initial testing)
- The Patch (Off for at least 3 months before initial testing)
- Ovaring (Off for at least 3 months before initial testing)
- Hormonal IUD (Off for at least 3 months before initial testing)
- Depo-Provera (Off for at least 1 year before initial testing)
Would you be comfortable stopping your Birth Control in order to be a Donor?
Have you stopped breast-feeding for at least 3 months?

If you have answered YES to all of the above questions, please download the forms on the right side of the page. Fill them out and mail or fax them back to:

Houston IVF
Egg Donor Program
929 Gessner Road, Suite 2300
Houston, TX 77024
(713) 550-1475 - fax

Thank you for your interest in becoming an Egg Donor!

Interested in Becoming an Egg Donor?

Recently, Dr. Hickman was interviewed by Jason Whitely of CBS 11 News about Egg Donation. Click to watch the video how Egg Donation is becoming more popular with college-aged women.

Egg Donor Forms

Egg Donor Letter

.pdf file (28.38 KB)

Introduction to Prospective Egg Donors

Download
Egg Donor Testing List

.pdf file (29.53 KB)

This is a list of the tests routinely done on donors in our program.

Download
Egg Donor Patient Info

.pdf file (27.57 KB)

Egg Donor Patient Information Form

Download
Risk Factor Questionnaire

.pdf file (201.16 KB)

These questions are to be answered by females donating eggs, sperm donors, or Recipients/husband, or significant other using a GC as well as the Gestational carrier.

Download
Egg Donor Packet

.pdf file (87.19 KB)

This document will be completed entirely by you and will provide a personal history of yourself that will be given to the ovum recipient.

Download