Finding an Egg Donor

All gay men wishing to start their family must also find an egg donor. The donor egg program at Advanced Fertility Care is one of the most successful donor egg programs in Arizona and the Southwest.

What is an Egg Donor?

Through egg donation, a fertile woman's mature eggs (donor eggs) are removed, fertilized with sperm (from the male intended father(s)), and implanted into the gestational carrier. Egg donation has very high success rates with achieving pregnancy.

Finding an Egg Donor …

There are 2 choices for finding an Egg Donor.

  • Unknown Donor: Most women opt to undergo the egg donation process as unknown donors. Their identity remains anonymous throughout the whole donor process. The majority of women who donate their eggs anonymously are "recruited" donors.
    • AFC Shared Unknown Donor: To help reduce costs for recipients, Advanced Fertility Care is willing on most donors to “Share” the donor with the recipient. The donor would undergo an egg retrieval, and half the eggs would be used to create embryos for you. The other half of the eggs would be frozen for other couples looking to do a frozen donor egg IVF cycle in the future. There are certain criteria that must be met in order for a cycle to be shared and this can be discussed with your physician here.
  • Known Donor: Some couples will elect to use a relative such as a sister, cousin, friend, or others close to a recipient to assist them with this process. In addition: Some recipients who are looking for a specific requirement that is not commonly found will sometimes opt to "self recruit" an egg donor by searching out prospective donors on their own. Regardless of the source, all donors are subject to the rigorous diagnostic testing required of our unknown donors.

Fresh vs Frozen Donor Eggs

In addition to known donors vs anonymous donors, you have the ability to chose between fresh donor IVF Cycles and frozen donor IVF cycles.

Fresh IVF Cycles:

At Advanced Fertility Care, we have a list of women that have been pre-screened and are ready to donate their eggs to our patients anonymously. In a fresh cycle, the egg donor will go through an IVF process using the sperm from the male intended father(s). The best one or two embryos will be transferred into the gestational carrier for pregnancy, and if there are remaining embryos, they will be frozen for future children. If you are unable to find a donor at Advanced Fertility Care, there are many donor agencies available for use.  We caution patients that agencies tend to be more expensive.

Frozen IVF Cycles:

A second choice for gay men wishing to use IVF to start their family is to use frozen eggs. At Advanced Fertility Care, we have a frozen egg bank from donors that are ready to be used at any time.  Instead of going through a fresh cycle and waiting for a donor to cycle, a set of frozen eggs can be thawed for use immediately. In this process, the egg is thawed, ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection) is used to create an embryo, and the embryo is then placed into the gestational carrier. This process is a bit more affordable and makes the process faster, but there is a smaller selection of frozen egg donors than fresh.