To become pregnant, a woman must first produce a healthy egg. But some women have poor quality eggs or no eggs at all. It’s difficult for these women to become pregnant or carry their pregnancies to term. While adoption is the viable option, some women consider other reproductive options, including the use of egg donor.

What is Egg Donation?

Egg donation is the process by which a woman provides one or several (usually 10-15) eggs (ova, oocytes) for purposes of assisted reproduction or biomedical research. For assisted reproduction purposes, egg donation typically involves the process of in vitro fertilization as the eggs are fertilized in the laboratory; more rarely, unfertilized eggs are frozen and stored for later use by the intended parents. Egg donation is part of the process of third party reproduction as part of ART (Assisted Reproductive Technology).

Therefore, although the egg donation consists of donating something from one person to another, it does not mean the definitive loss of something irreplaceable. It is also a way of taking advantage of some of those eggs which a woman will never use.

Bearing in mind those eggs cannot be preserved, the ovarian cycle of the recipient has to be synchronized with the donor’s so that they coincide in their ovulation. This is necessary both for the extraction of the eggs from the donor and for their implantation in the recipient. Therefore, the egg recipient undergoes pharmacological treatment which prepares her endometrium to receive and protect the embryo. The endometrium is epithelium which covers the inside of the uterus and allows the embryo to find suitable conditions for implantation. When the woman does not become pregnant, the endometrium degenerates and leaves the woman’s body together with menstrual blood.

 How are the donor eggs used?

The procedure used is called in vitro fertilisation (IVF). It is a commonly used technique which helps treat fertility problems in sterile couples and consists in fertilising the eggs obtained from the donor with the partner’s semen in a special medium in the laboratory. To increase the fertilisation rates, the Intracytoplasmic sperm injection is used (ICSI). This procedure is a very delicate microscopic manipulation, through which a sperm is manually introduced in the interior of the egg. This egg, once fertilised, is to be transferred to the recipient’s uterus.