What is IVF using a donor egg?
For women without ovaries or for women with poor ovarian reserve (usually related to age) an option for successful pregnancy would be in vitro fertilization with donor egg. Preferably, such an egg donor should be under the age of 35. During this process, the egg donor undergoes a cycle of in vitro fertilization. Her ovaries are stimulated in the usual fashion as described elsewhere in this website, and then the eggs are retrieved by transvaginal ultrasound. At the same time that this donor is going through an IVF cycle, the recipient is undergoing a different process. This process involves hormonal treatments to prepare the uterus to receive the embryo. After the eggs are retrieved from the donor, they are fertilized using the recipient’s partner’s sperm (or donor sperm, depending on the circumstances). The donor’s role is then over. The embryos are then cultured, and then either on Day 3 or Day 5, transferred into the uterus of the recipient. Canadian Law does not allow the purchase o
