How we select egg donors :
Donating is a woman’s free will – there is no binding contracts which oblige donors to donate – a woman donates only if she wants and likes to.
If she has a vacation or she has other plans or problems with health (for example her nose is running or she has a cold or she is stressed), we can’t use her and that is why we ask to choose more than one donor.
Also besides issues regarding donor’s plans and health, we have then a possibility to choose a donor who is best regarding cycle synchronization. Doctor will choose best of them for you. Of course is also possible to choose only one donor, but that means more stress and even maybe the result is better if last choice can be made by doctor.
Donor must be healthy mentally and physically, suggested to have a healthy child (so we have a proof that she herself is able to have children).
Donors donate for different reasons.
Process looks like that – donor gets an idea about becoming a donor (information in media (articles in printed media mainly, sometimes in web also), ads of hospitals, clinics are not very common and the field is regulated by law or information from our web page).
The fee (to compensate donor’s time and efforts) is not that big to live from that, so the money is not the main reason to donate.
These women are usually just wanting to help childless women (because only a woman with children knows how much it hurts if you can’t have children!).
Sometimes they want to be forgiven and do it for that (for example because of many abortions).
Sometimes they just want to feel good after helping someone. Of course sometimes money is also important (and the main reason for some donors) but that is not the main reason to donate for all the donors. That means – the donors are people like us, they are not people who can’t manage herself or earn with donating for their living.
There is another doctor who starts the work and after testing + conversation with doctor Svetlana Räim donors will be meeting doctor Andrei Sõritsa (the head of clinic and your future infertility treatment doctor also). So addicts or women with diseases etc, that means who seem not to be good for that kind of thing, are not chosen.
Egg Donation is anonymous in Estonia:
Elite Clinic is not allowed to provide information if/how many children have been born after successful donations with certain donor.
Please take into account that also other recipients may use same combinations of donors, this is allowed to all recipients and maximum amount of children from one donor is 6.
According to law Elite Clinic is not allowed to provide any information regarding your child`s siblings, not even when a child will be adult. This is regulated by law and does not depend on doctor`s wish. As Estonia is a small country this law protects rights of donors and families.
Donors are not allowed to be informed about results of their donations. Also recipients and children of recipients can not receive any information about other families, children born as a result of sperm or egg donation not about children that have been born as a result of same combination of donors.
According to law a recipient can use her frozen embryos for herself to have second child or can destroy her embryos or give the embryos to be used for scientific research or for treatment of other infertile couples. A recipient can not require any compensation if she decides to give embryos to other couples or for scientific investigations.
A recipient is not allowed to sell her embryos.
According to Elite Clinic`s price list cost of frozen embryo transfer using own embryos and frozen embryo adoption using donated embryos is exactly the same , it means Elite Clinic does not have the right to sell donated embryos to other couples. Patients pay only for thawing process, incubation and embryo transfer and the price does not depend on the fact if patients use their own embryos or donated embryos.
According to the law patients have rights to inform their child about their origin. Personnel of Elite Clinic does not have any rights to contact recipient`s child and disturb patients children`s privacy, even if other families would like to contact recipient or recipient`s child. This is not allowed in Estonia.
By signing consent forms of Elite Clinic recipient will confirm that she accepts anonymous donation according to Estonian law.
There are 7 main points in the process of egg donors selection :
- 2 gynaecologists meet an egg donor candidate and decide if she would be suitable to donate eggs – both mentally and physically.
- There are 2 nurses dealing with the donor candidate, both of them have a long term experience with working childless couples. They communicate with new donor candidate and give their comments to doctor.
- Trust. Both a donor and a recipient fill in questionnaires and give signatures to confirm that the data they have given is correct and true meaning that as far as they know in their family there is no genetical diseases (psychological, cancer etc). All rules valid for recipients, are valid also for donors. Elite Clinic does not ask a confirmation that a recipient does not have a schizophrenia etc, same rule for donor. If you ask if there is a possibility that a donor may lie or may have no information about the question that his grandfather died of cancer, the answer is yes, theoretically a donor may give us a false information. Similar situation could be in recipient’s husband’s family – husband of recipient may not know that his grandfather had a cancer, maybe he even does not know who is grandfather was.
- With the help of egg donor’s donated egg cells the first baby in Elite Clinic has been born in 1996 and since that we had no case where infections or mental diseases were transmitted via donor’s cells.
- In case a recipient wants to have donor tested additionally (for example to get an opinion of psychologist), that is possible for extra fee.
- In Estonia the question of IVF and donating is regulated by a law and all investigations of donors are performed according to that law. According to law our donors are not obliged to be tested by psychologists nor psychiatrists.
- While having regular visits to Elite Clinic, our donors are quite often seen with their own children.
- Main goal of egg donors is to help families who cannot have children in natural way. And our goal is not to use donors from different risk groups, not to use donors whose health is not very good, not to use donors whose reproductive system is not strong enough.