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“So, when are you two having kids?”
An irritating question in any circumstance, but especially when a couple is trying to conceive or has experienced a miscarriage. And the questions don’t stop there. Once that same couple is holding their infant, the next question pops up.
“So, are you thinking about another baby?”
It may surprise parents to know that having one baby successfully doesn’t mean it will be easy to have a second or more. If you’re facing secondary infertility, you may wonder about your options, including what options are right for your family, and how much these options may cost.
You’re not getting any younger.
Sorry to put it that way, but even if you have a beautiful child as proof of your fertility at one point, the months keep passing. As a woman ages, so do her eggs. The number and quality of a woman’s eggs drops precipitously after age 35, and her fertility continues to decline from there. Some women also have decreased ovarian function earlier in life.
Now what?
Even when facing a diagnosis of secondary infertility, you may still yearn to increase the size of your family. Of course you feel blessed to have the child or children you have – but that does not invalidate the ache of wanting to complete your family. If your doctor advises against in vitro fertilization using your own eggs based on the details of your situation, adoption may be an amazing way to bring a child into your loving family. However, if you still long to carry your child in your womb, using donated eggs may be a good option for you.
Fresh or Frozen?
If you are open to using an egg donor, you can choose between using a donor who provides fresh eggs or one who has already donated frozen eggs. With a fresh egg donor, you and she will need to synchronize your menstrual cycles so that when her eggs are retrieved, fertilized, and cultured, you will be at the right point in your own cycle to receive them. Many times women choose a local donor, which narrows the pool of available options. Alternately, women may choose a donor who does not live close by, but they then have to pay for the donor’s travel expenses.
On the flip side, if you choose frozen donor eggs, you can simply go online to a reputable company’s site to browse the available options. You can select a donor whose physical appearance or ethnicity is similar to yours, or whose education level meets (or exceeds!) your expectations. Whatever characteristics are most important to you, you will have a broader pool of donors to choose from.
Additionally, thanks to developments in technology, using frozen donor eggs produces more reliable results than in previous years. A process called vitrification immerses the eggs in liquid nitrogen, which cools them so quickly that ice crystals cannot form and damage them. This means that the chances of getting pregnant from fresh donor eggs and frozen donor eggs are nearly the same.
Timing is everything.
Another benefit to using frozen eggs from a donor is timing. Whether you have been trying to become pregnant for the first time, or you have unexpectedly discovered a fertility problem while trying to expand your family, then you have probably already spent many months consulting with your doctor and taking pregnancy test after pregnancy test. Using a fresh egg donor can take up to six months between prescreening tests, syncing your bodies and completing the procedure. A frozen egg donation cycle can take as little as four weeks. You can choose when to start your cycle as soon as you’ve chosen the eggs and the time is right for you.
What’s next for your body?
To give your fertilized eggs their best chance, your doctor will prescribe medications to prepare your uterus to accommodate the embryo. Once this process is complete, the doctor will thaw the eggs and fertilize them. A few days later, just as in traditional IVF, the doctor will insert the embryo, followed by the waiting period before you can take a pregnancy test to determine if the procedure was successful.
Cost
Because of the costs involved in acquiring another woman’s eggs, using donated eggs for IVF is more expensive than IVF using your own eggs. However, using frozen donor eggs to complete a cycle of IVF is about half as expensive as using fresh donor eggs. Some companies even guarantee a refund on the cost of frozen eggs if you do not deliver a baby after a number of tries.
To be sure, using donated eggs is an emotionally fraught decision. You will have to concede that this child may be genetically related only to your partner (if you use his sperm), and it is normal to grieve that loss. However, you will still be able to experience everything from nausea to baby acrobatics and tiny elbows to the ribs—things that are special and amazing during pregnancy—as well as the knowledge that you lovingly cared for this baby and brought him or her into your family.