Success with donor egg vs mine?

[mature momma]

I'm the 45 yr old who just had a failed IVF with my own eggs. All went well but did not work. If you have two sets of eggs, the same quality, one from a 45yr old and the other from a 25 yr old. Why is the success rate so much higher with donor eggs? We are thinking about trying again in August with donor eggs. Due to cost we have to make the best choice to have a baby because we can't afford to do this a third time. Is this really our best chance of having a baby?  Thanks, Debra

[Forum-M.D.-SP]

I would recommend that you go to http://www.cdc.gov/ART/ART2004/ which is a CDC website that has data from IVF cycles in the USA. The most current data is for 2004. The website will tell you that the chances of a livebirth for a 45 year-old doing IVF with her own eggs is 1.2%, whereas the live birth rate of a 45 year-old doing IVF with a donor's eggs is 48%. The success rate is so much higher because the likelihood of pregnancy depends on the age of the eggs. Women start releasing an egg every month as teenagers. At that time, every woman has 300,000-400,000 eggs in her ovaries. By menopause, the number of eggs is 0. Of all the eggs available when young girls start to ovulate, most die off, and the healthiest eggs get released first. This is why younger women are so much more fertile than older women - the eggs they release are high quality. By the time someone is 45, unfortunately, most of the eggs have died off and the best ones have already been released. The eggs that are left are of exceedingly poor quality, so pregnancies are rare. Fortunately, the uterus seems to stay young for a much longer period of time, so that a 45 year old uterus does almost as good a job of carrying a pregnancy as a 20 year old uterus.

By far your best chance is with a donor.

[BG-MN]

You will probably remember me from our 6/18 conversation below (I'm also 45, and I just had a miscarriage at 9 and 1/2 weeks after getting pregnant without fertility treatments).  I'm now back from a great vacation with my husband, which really helped lift my spirits.  So what did the RE say about your failed IVF cycle?  Is he now encouraging you to use donor eggs?  You can either write back here or on the Maternal and Child Health forum.  (Great question to the doctor here, by the way; I'm eager to see what he says!)

[mature momma]

Glad to hear you had a great vacation. Again, I'm sorry about your miscarriage. Having had one myself, I know what you've been going through. Well we saw our RE on 6/25 and he said that my cycle was text book. Again he said he was surprised how well I responsed to the meds. He said could we do it again? yes. Should we do it again with my eggs? He thinks not. Says it all goes back to the age thing. He also talked alot about miscarriage rates and abnormality associated with pregnancy and older women. He advised us that our best chance to achieve a healthy pregnancy is to use donor eggs. He also explained that with a donor you almost always have eggs to freeze giving us several chances to try.So we discussed it later that week and decided we had better make the best choice this time because we can only afford this one more time. We picked a donor who is very similar to myself in appearance and we will be seeing a baby picture of her soon.The girls at our RE office says she and I look alot alike. My husband seems to have really accepted this is our best option. We are set to go again in August. How's things going with the adoption? I know things will work out for you guys as it will for us. Prayers and positive thinking. Nice to hear from you. Stay in touch. Debra----P.S. Glad you liked my question. Can't wait to hear response. Still so many unanswered questions. Bye again........                        

[BG-MN]

You have really moved forward in the past 2 weeks!  I think using donor eggs sounds like a good decision; as I said before, I would use donor eggs right now if we had the money.  (As I maybe mentioned, international adoption is very expensive--and very slow--but eventually most of the money will come back to us through a tax credit and employer reimubursements.)  We were told we have another 5 years to decide about donor eggs, so we can still do that later.  However, our RE clinic picks the donor for us (you can turn down up to 2 donors).  It sounds like you were able to choose your own donor--is that right?  How does that work--do you look through some kind of book of profiles?  Does your RE clinic use a donor agency, or do they have their own group of donors?  I would really, really prefer to pick our own donor, but maybe I just like to be in control, and there seems to be very little one can control in this whole fertility process!  Again, congratulations on the quick progress you've made....

[mature momma]

Yes we have made great progress. Really feel this is our best chance. Probably should have used donor first time around but I think most people would have at least tried once with their own. About the donor. My RE has his own donor list. They just narrowed it down to the ones that had similar appearances to mine then I picked from that group. It was really easy. I'm very comfortable with our RE and his staff. They are all very compassionate people which is important when your dealing with high emotions. Really enjoy talking with you. Hope to hear from you soon.   Debra

[BG-MN]

Yes, I think you're right that most people would have tried with their own eggs at least once, especially if they had a strong desire for a biological child.  It's probably a good thing that our RE (plus the other REs in our area) will not do the IVF process on women who are 45, so I don't even have the option.  I really like that you were able to make the final decision on the donor yourselves; if we do use donor eggs, I think we'll find out from the other REs in our area what their process is (since at our current RE, we can only turn down donors, not choose them).  Not sure if I mentioned this, but I have a friend who started the donor process last week--I think she started Lupron shots?  She had several failed IVF cycles and miscarriages.  She's also in her mid-40s.  They are not even telling their families they are using a donor--not sure I coudl do that!  Anyway, it sounds like you and I are both waiting for August, which is when my husband and I see the RE again to start the fertility treatments, though as I said, I'm not sure what exactly those are!  Do you think you'll keep reading this forum and/or the Maternal and Child Health Forum in the coming weeks?  I would really like to hear how your donor egg process goes--I'm hoping for the best for you!

[mature momma]

You know, we have told our family and a few close friends our decision. We like having the support and prayers from those we love. I hope everything turns out well for your friend. Let me know what kind of fertility tx your RE has in mind. August can't come soon enough.:)  I seem to be on this forum most of the time but if you would rather be over on the maternal I can do that. just want to stay in touch.Hope you have a wonderful 4th!!!

[mstrex]

Hi Everyone,
Happy 4th. I am 44 and we did a donor ivf last Dec. resulted in preg. but MC at 4 weeks. It cost us 17000. We decided it was either adopt and put our money into a sure thing or take a risk.  We were two days from paying the fee and signing a contract with an agency when I just for some strange reason came across the web site miricleswaiting.org. It cost 100.00 to reg. I did that and did not really understand why I did it just felt right. This site is were people who have had successful IVF cycles had extra embryos frozen and donate them. The process does not cost anything and at our clinic the FET transfer is only 2000. We registered with this site in May and we already have two sets of embies donated and will do our transfer on 7/27. Just thought I would pass this info on as after the money you put out for donor eggs you could have done this procedure at least 7 times . Our clinic will transfer embies and that was 250.00 so in all we had to pay out 2250.00. It is worth looking into. We are so pleased with the results and the cost and we still are able to try for pregnacy. The genetics are not ours but we were going to adopt so it is the same thing except we get to carry the child ourselves and give birth. Any questions let me know. Best to all and lots of baby dust.

[BG-MN]

Embryo donation is an interesting idea.  Can you explain exactly how the process works?  Did you pick the donor couple or did they pick you?  Will you have the eggs shipped to you?  Do you need drugs in preparation for the transfer?  Thanks in advance!

[mstrex]

The web site is http://miracleswaiting.org. Donors post their information on this site and you choose the ones you wish to respond to. You can also post your info for them as well. I took birth control for two weeks will start estrogen once daily for a week then twice daily for a week then three times for a week. Our transfer will be on 7/23. The eggs were shipped from the donors clinic to ours in less than a week after they agreed to donate. As I mentioned before our cost was 250 for shipping and 2000 for the procedure. We will have our pg test on 8/2. It is worth a try and so much less than ivf. with donors. Check out the site it should answer any questions you have.

[mature momma]

Embryo donation. Interesting. I had heard of that but never gave it much thought. When you did your IVF with donor didn't you have enough eggs to freeze and try again? My RE has told us that the donor we have chosen has donated twice before and has produced plenty of eggs each time leaving extras to freeze and try again. He guessing from past times with her we should get at least 10 eggs to use. He'll only transfer 2 at a time to reduce the chance of multiplies therefore we should have 4 more tries.The only extra fee we have to pay each time is $3000.00 for thawing and transfer. To us this is well worth it to have at least one genetic link.Thanks for the info. I will check out the site. I wish you all the prayers to make your dream come true. Keep us informed:) Debra

[mstrex]

It is worth it to have that genitic link. Our donor only produced 6 eggs. 4 Fertilized and we used two. The other two did not make it to freeze. This is just better for us as we cannot afford to keep using donors at 17000 a shot. At least this way we will be able to try multiple times if they do not take the first time.  We were in the last phase of adoption anyhow and were two days away from signing the contract with an agency. This is the same as adoption you just have more control as the mother carring the child and you do not have to come up with birth mother expenses as most agencies ask you to do. You have alot more info on the donor eggs than most birth mothers and once the eggs are donated then they are yours you do not have to consent to open adoption which most agencies are going to ask you to do unless you want to wait up to three years for a child. Any how will keep you informed and god bless you and you DH and I will keep everyone in our prayers as we are all in this journey together.