Egg Donation - IVF with Donor Eggs
Successful egg donation and IVF clinic - with available Chicago egg donors

Advanced Fertility Center of Chicago
Specialists in donor egg IVF
Gurnee & Crystal Lake, Illinois

We are an infertility clinic specializing in donor egg IVF with blastocyst transfer. We have very high success rates with IVF using donor eggs.

See our database list of currently available egg donors

What is the history of IVF using donor eggs?

The process of human egg donation began in 1982 with the first live birth success. Currently, there are more than 15,000 embryo transfer procedures performed annually in the US using donor eggs, and many thousands more performed around the world. The national donor eggs success rate is currently over 50% per transfer procedure, with some egg donation clinics specializing in donor eggs (such as ours) reporting egg donation success rates that average over 60% per donor egg transfer procedure.

Who should be treated with egg donation?

Egg donation (also called oocyte donation or ovum donation) can be used as an effective treatment for infertility of all causes except for women with infertility caused by an anatomic problem with the uterus, such as severe intrauterine adhesions.

Pregnancy success rates with egg donation are high, particularly as compared to pregnancy rates in women with poor egg quality and quantity.

Donor egg IVF is generally used only in women with significantly diminished egg quantity and quality (poor ovarian reserve). This includes women with:

Premature ovarian failure (menopause)
Very poor egg quality
Poor response to ovarian stimulation
Significantly elevated day 3 follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) level
Advanced female age, such as over about 39-40

How are the egg donation procedures performed and how is the timing of IVF with donor eggs done?

1. An appropriate egg donor is chosen by the infertile couple and thoroughly screened for infectious diseases and genetically transmissible conditions. Donors are generally given some monetary compensation for going through the treatment. The egg donors can be known or anonymous to the recipient couple. Our donor egg clinic does the large majority of cases with anonymous donor eggs from one of our donors. See our egg donor list

2. Consents are signed by all parties.

3. The donor is stimulated with injected medications to develop multiple egg development. This allows us to perform in vitro fertilization with her eggs and the sperm of the infertile woman's male partner.

Details about the subcutaneous injectable medications that are used for IVF

Sample calendar of a "typical" egg donation cycle that shows the days of medications, procedures, etc.

4. The infertile woman (recipient) is placed on medications that suppress her own menstrual cycle and stimulate development of a receptive uterine lining. With egg donation, a lining thickness of 8mm or more is desired in order to maximize success rates. Usually it is not difficult to get a good lining thickness for egg donation, but sometimes we use a "trick" or 2 to get a sufficient thickness.

5. When the donor's follicles are mature, an egg aspiration procedure is performed to remove the eggs from her ovaries. The eggs are then fertilized in the laboratory with the sperm of the infertile woman's male partner. The eggs are used fresh and are not frozen for later use. In the future, frozen donor eggs might be used routinely for egg donation. However, current egg freezing technology is inadequate for providing a reasonable success rate after thawing the frozen eggs. Success rates are extremely low using frozen donor eggs (freezing of leftover fertilized embryos is routine, and success rates using frozen embryos are reasonable).

6. Getting the proper timing in IVF with donor eggs between the uterine lining in the recipient and the developing embryos is critical for success. This is accomplished by carefully controlling the start time of the drug (hormone) progesterone (P4) in the recipient female. Not all egg donation clinics start progesterone at exactly the same time - our protocol starts P4 on the evening before the donor's egg retrieval procedure.

7. The embryos develop in the laboratory for 3 to 5 days. Then, an embryo transfer procedure is done which places the embryos in the infertile woman's uterus where they will hopefully implant and develop to result in the successful birth of a healthy baby. We currently are doing almost all of our donor egg embryo transfers at the blastocyst stage, which we believe increases chances for a successful pregnancy outcome.

Being a recipient of donor eggs from out of town can be done with one trip to our clinic

More information about donor egg IVF