About egg donation, embryo donation and sperm donation

This page is about egg donation, embryo donation (adoption) and sperm donation in Elite Private Clinic. All these infertility treatment methods – egg donation, embryo donation and sperm donation  – are allowed in Estonia by law. In this page:

Look also: Results of Egg Donation Treatment  in 2008 – 2015 (24.11.2015)

Egg donation – for recipients:

Donated eggs are useful in cases when ovaries of recipient-woman are not producing eggs (ovaries pathological dysfunction, malfunction or increased age ) or if repeatedly were unsuccessful cycles of artificial reproduction – no good embryos developed (no high quality eggs to transfer into uterus) and no chance to become pregnant.

Donated eggs are also useful  if there is present higher risk for genetically transmitted diseases and defects in offspring to appear (You can read more about egg donation indications  in wikipedia). You can look  also the page with information about our different infertility treatment choices using egg or embryo donation: egg donation programs and prices.

Key points of using egg donors in Elite Clinic:

  1. No waiting list.
  2. Our egg donors are between the ages of 21-33 years old and:
    -they must have good family medical history. An egg donor who has a history of cancer, heart disease, Down syndrome in the family, alcoholism, drug abuse, psychological problems etc, will not be accepted into our egg donation program;
    – HIV, syphilis, hepatitis, chlamydiosis, trichomonosis negative.
  3. Our egg donation program is anonymous. The recipient is not allowed to see photographs of egg donors nor know their name, address etc. All data provided by us about donors is in the list of egg donors we send to You. According to law age limit for recipients in Estonia is 50 years old. Also – no identifying information regarding the recipient couple is provided to the egg donor.
  4. Our egg donors are covered by their own health insurance to cover any unforeseen medical problems that result from ovarian stimulation and/or egg retrieval.
  5. We have our own cryopreserved donor sperm of different sperm donors according to international standards.

Choosing from our Egg Donors:

Recipient may choose egg donors she likes the most.

We ask to choose 3 donors instead of 1, so we have more opportunities to choose the best of them (best meaning an egg donor whose cycle can be matched with recipient’s cycle, donor with whom we had best results previously, who has already donated etc). Then we will see which one of these 3 you chose is the best and we will use her egg cells. So please send us 3 codes of donors you like (you can see the codes in the egg donors table we will send). Information about the terms used in the selection table:

1. Donor’s education level:

Keyword “high” in the list of donors stands for university study (student at the moment) or university degree (3 or 4 years of study = bachelor degree). Keyword “school” stands for 12 years of basic and secondary education. Our donors must have at least 12 years of school background (graduated secondary school).

2. Viruses:

Keyword “negative” in the list of donors means donor does not have specified antibodies to that virus, positive means she does have.

In different countries there are different practices. For example in some countries (like Finland) people are not tested for all these viruses named in the list of donors of Clinic Elite because 50-85% of population has those viruses. We, as a responsible medical institution, just want to be honest and tell our patients all we know about our donors. About importance of having or not having these viruses, you should ask from your personal GP.

3. Egg Donor’s Blood Type:

You may choose a donor you like most, you do not have to consider blood type etc. unless you consider it important for yourself – from medical point of view that is not important for us. Blood group could be important for people who already have antibodies or had some kind of group/rhesus conflict previously.

About sperm donation

Use of donor sperm should be taken into consideration in cases when the husband’s sperm doesn’t contain spermatozoon at all or its concentration of them is low, motility reduced and number of normal forms of spermatozoa is too low or absent (ie defective forms too big) or husband have inherited diseases.

Our sperm donors are healthy, mostly married men in the age between 24-39 years. Most of them have higher education . The majority of donors have children.

According to the Estonian rules, all sperm donors have passed their compulsory analyses of sexually transmitted diseases. The security of inherited diseases has also been investigated.

Donor sperm is not used before 6 months after the delivering if all control analyses are normal.

According to standards of the European Tissue banks Association, donor sperm is being preserved only frozen. Sperm Donors are anonymous in Estonia.