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Miami University alumna seeks egg donor to help start family

Sarah Foster

A Miami University alumna has one more chance to make her dream of starting a family come true.

In order to conceive, she will be trying to get pregnant through in vitro fertilization from an egg donor.

For confidential reasons, the woman has asked not to be named, however, she is ideally looking for an egg donor from Miami. She said this was because she wants the donor to be close to the Bethesda Center for Reproductive Health and Fertility, the fertility clinic the woman is going through in Cincinnati. Also, since she is a Miami alumna, she has a strong sentiment for the school and wants the donor to be intellectual and on the college track.

The ideal age for egg donors are women in their late teens and early 20s, which is another reason why the recipient would like the donor to be a college student. However, the woman must be at least 21 due to the Bethesda Center's polices.

Phyllis Bryant, office manager at the Bethesda Center, said the clinic sees donors come in from all walks of life.

"We are always looking for donors who want to give the gift of motherhood to someone else," Bryant said.

Dr. Glen Hofmann, medical director for the Bethesda Center, said the ideal age of donors are typically between 23 and 28. This is because the donor must be mature and accommodating to the lengthy time requirement of the donor process and the checkup appointments.

The anonymous woman said that she has been trying to get pregnant for three years, and after visiting her gynecologist, was assured she would be able to conceive. However, after a brief test of egg count and quality, she learned it would be difficult for her to have a baby.

Although the woman is in her mid-30s, the thought never crossed her mind that she wouldn't be able to get pregnant.

"My husband and I thought about adopting, but I realized I really want to go through childbirth and have that special bonding experience," she said.

Interested donors will take part in a screening process that will be conducted by the nurses at the fertility clinic. The first step is a medical screening and testing at the clinic before setting up a one-on-one meeting with the donor head coordinator. The interested donor is evaluated on family health history on maternal and paternal sides, IQ level, and personality traits.

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Kip Alishio, director of student counseling at Miami, said that the egg donor process could potentially be a rich experience for a college-aged student. However, he recommends anyone making that decision to consult with those who know the potential donor well to get input and multiple perspectives.

"It is a very individualized decision to make," Alishio said. "It very much depends upon the physical condition of the donor as well as their psychological state, including their motivations and values."

After the results are reviewed with the recipient and the donor is chosen, the clinical part will begin.

The donor will be responsible for taking daily hormonal injections in order to align her menstrual cycle with the recipient. This process could take up to two months, Bryant said.

After both menstrual cycles are aligned, ovulation stimulation will be monitored via blood work and ultrasounds. The blood work is taken to measure estrogen and progesterone levels in the donor. Then the retrieval process begins, with as many as 15 eggs taken. Then, 2.1 embryos are transferred to the recipient in hopes of pregnancy.

Bryant said that it takes about two weeks after the retrieval to find out if the process was successful.

All medical costs will be covered for the donor, and she will also be compensated between $2-3,000 after the whole process is complete, Bryant said.

The woman's need is urgent because the longer she waits the harder it will be for her to become pregnant via in vitro fertilization.

She explained that she underwent the in vitro fertilization from another donor egg once this year at another clinic, but the attempt failed. She then switched to the Bethesda Center because they seemed more reputable.

She was reluctant to go through a fertilization clinic at first because she was concerned they would be too profit-centered and she felt Bethesda was the right match for her because of their high success rate in pregnancies.

In 2004, Bethesda was ranked number 18 out of 335 programs in the nation for live birth rates from donor eggs, Hofmann said.

"I am confident about Bethesda," the woman said. "They have more individualized care with a highly qualified medical staff."

She has undergone several different fertility treatments. Some of these include injections for follicle stimulation, hormones and artificial insemination. The injections are done to help improve conditions for pregnancy, she said.

When a woman is over age 35, it proves difficult to conceive. This is because as a woman ages the quantity of available eggs in her ovarian reserve drops significantly, according to Hofmann. The quality of the eggs also decreases.

"This whole process has been emotionally exhausting," the woman said. "On one hand I am excited and hopeful, but I'm also anxious and slightly overwhelmed because this is the last shot I have to find the right donor."

The process is very costly and she already went through the ordeal once but it didn't work.

Hofmann said that he sees about 40 interested donors come into the center each year. Only 15 to 20 are accepted.

Hofmann said that whether the donor is a college student or not doesn't

matter in regards to quality of the eggs, but it may be more desirable to the recipient, especially in the woman's case.

"We want to serve and help all of the people that come into our center," Hofmann said. "My job is to practice good medicine in an ethical way in order to make someone's life better."

NeeOo Chin, reproductive endocrinologist of the Fertility Wellness Institute of Ohio, said that the embryo transfer involved with in vitro has a 35 percent success rate.

He also said the pregnancy rate of in vitro fertilization with a donor egg is relatively high, at about 50 to 60 percent. The miscarriage rate is around 15 to 30 percent.

Chin said that as long as the eggs from the donor are of good quality, the age of the recipient does not affect the success rate of becoming pregnant.

Chin said the donor process is demanding but can be very rewarding.

"The toughest part is finding the appropriate donor for the recipient," Chin said. "It is a great deal of a time commitment. The whole process is not all a bed of roses, but when it works it works really well."

Although the recipient prefers that the donor be from Miami, she said she would open it up to University of Cincinnati if she doesn't get the response she needs.


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