How to pay for IVF is one of the key considerations for most people. CREATE offers a number of different options to help make IVF more affordable. Egg sharing is one, and may be an option for you.
How to pay for IVF is one of the key considerations for most people. CREATE offers a number of different options to help make IVF more affordable. Egg sharing is one, and may be an option for you.
Sharing your eggs means donating half of the eggs collected in your IVF cycle to another woman who cannot conceive with her own eggs.
In return, you’ll receive your cycle of treatment for free, paying only £500 towards medication, saving you £1000’s on treatment.
Egg sharing offers you the chance to receive your own IVF treatment in the most cost-effective way possible, whilst helping another woman with the life-changing gift of donor eggs they need to achieve their dream of becoming a mother.
There is a huge shortage of donor eggs in the UK. For women who have a low egg reserve, those who have experienced an early menopause, or been made infertile after life-saving cancer treatment, donor eggs offer the only hope of conception.
In an egg sharing cycle, you donate half the eggs you produce in one treatment cycle to someone who needs them, and keep the other half for your own IVF treatment. The savings to the cost of treatment will apply to the cycle in which the eggs are collected.
Everyone benefits: as the donor, you can access the treatment you need to give you the best chance of a successful pregnancy, and recipients get a chance to be a mother by using donor eggs.
"Being able to access high quality IVF treatment at a fraction of the normal cost has given us hope… and I feel proud that I’m helping someone else in the process"
The package includes:
- pre treatment screening tests
- monitoring scans
- egg collection & embryology
- embryo transfer
- early pregnancy test & scan
- review consultation
- blood tests
- clinical advice
- sedation
- HFEA fees
You'll receive one IVF cycle, blood tests and screening free of charge, and only pay £500 towards medication saving you £1000s.
If you need ICSI because your partner has a sperm-related condition, there is a charge of £500 for this treatment (less than half the usual cost of up to £1,100).
Our egg sharing programme is open to all women, including heterosexual and lesbian couples, and single women. You need to meet the following criteria:
(**Clinical criteria applies and will be reviewed during your initial consultation)
Call or email us to talk us about egg sharing and what that means. You can ask our team any questions you have, and we will talk through your medical history, and then set up the next appointment to suit you.
You’ll have a 60-minute appointment with a specialist Consultant, who will assess your fertility health using an advanced ultrasound scan. They will take a blood sample to check your hormone levels and screen for any conditions that might prevent you from sharing your eggs. We’ll contact you within a few days with the results, and if you meet the criteria, you can start your treatment when you’re ready.
It’s important you are comfortable with every aspect of the sharing process, including the possibility that a recipient of your egg may get pregnant and your treatment might be unsuccessful, and that children born of your donation have the right to access identifying information about you once they turn the age of 18. Counselling is important, and our team will be with you every step of the way.
You will also be provided with a copy of the egg sharing consent form and agreement with us, setting out all the terms of the arrangement: this will need to be signed by you before treatment commences. We will go through the agreement with you to ensure you fully understand the details and can make an informed decision.
From here the treatment is very similar to a standard IVF cycle and our results show that egg sharing doesn’t affect your treatment success rates in any way. At the treatment consultation our Nurse Consultant will talk you through the medication you’ll need and show you how to use it.
During treatment, you will be closely monitored with scans and blood tests as appropriate, so we know the right time to collect your eggs. Each appointment takes around 20 minutes and you’ll have around two to three scans during your treatment cycle.
When our scans suggests that your egg sacks appear to be mature, you’ll take a trigger injection in preparation for the egg collection procedure. Our IVF Consultant will collect the eggs from your ovaries. The procedure takes around 45 minutes and takes place under sedation. After we collect your eggs, they’ll be divided equally, half for your treatment and half for donation. If we collect an odd number of eggs, the extra egg will go to you. We talk you through all of the details before you go ahead to be sure you are fully aware of the range of possible outcomes.
Your own IVF treatment continues in the normal way. The collected eggs and sperm are fertilised in the lab and fertilisation and embryo development will be carefully monitored by the embryology team.
Three or five days after egg collection, depending on each individual case, the embryo/s will be ready to be transferred into your womb. The Embryo Transfer procedure usually takes around 30 minutes, and does not require sedation.
Two weeks after your embryo transfer, you will have a blood test to check for pregnancy to determine whether your treatment has been successful.
After sharing, your eggs will be stored before they’re matched with a recipient. The women who receive your eggs won’t have any information that could identify you personally, but we do provide basic information about you to help recipients looking for a match. You can also write a pen picture of yourself, and a goodwill message for the recipient of the eggs you donated. If you want to, you’re entitled to know about any babies born as a result of your donation. You won’t be given any personal details, but you can be told whether the baby is a boy or a girl, and the year they were born.
No. The recipients of your eggs are the legal parents of any children born and you have no financial or legal responsibility.
By law in the UK, children born as a result of donation have the right to specific information about the donor involved. It is the choice of the child’s parents to tell them they were conceived with a donor egg. If they decide to pass on this information, the child will be able to know the following details:
The women who receive your eggs won’t have any information that could identify you personally. Many women waiting for donor eggs want to match with a donor who has similar physical characteristics to them, so we do provide basic information about you. This includes: your height; weight; eye and hair colour; your age and country of birth; your ethnicity; your medical history; and whether you’re married and have children. Many donors also write a pen picture, which is where you can give a little bit more detail about your personality and interests, as well as your reasons for donating and a goodwill message.
To proceed with an egg sharing cycle of treatment, a minimum of 8 eggs should be collected. If too few eggs are collected for use in an egg sharing agreement, you will be given the option of using or storing all the eggs for your own treatment, at the pre-agreed discount. You will be given the full information before your treatment starts to make an informed decision.
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