It’s normal for you and your recipient to be matched for ethnicity, and physical characteristics such as eye-colour, hair-colour, skin-colour, height and build. In the UK (in line with HFEA guidelines) we also make sure that you and your recipient’s cytomegalovirus virus (CMV) status is matched correctly. Although we aim to do this as quickly as possible and within three months, it can take longer in some cases.
Legal parenthood
As an egg share donor, you’ll have no legal claim to any child born as a result of your donation, nor will you have a right to any information about such children. The recipient couple are the legal parents of any children born as a result of your donation. This is stated again in our consent form for egg share donors. Please speak to a member of our clinical staff if you have any concerns or would like to know more.
Understanding Donor anonymity
All fertility treatment in the UK, including egg, embryo and sperm donation, is strictly regulated by the HFEA. The HFEA code of practice stipulates that all donors and recipients (excluding known donors) must remain anonymous to each other. We take a lot of care to make sure that strict confidentiality and anonymity is maintained.
However, all children born as a result of donation have the right, at the age of 18, to get information about their donor from the HFEA, including their full name, last known address and date of birth. The HFEA is required to make a reasonable attempt to contact the donor and forewarn them before disclosing their details to the donor conceived child. A person born from donation treatment can also access identifying information about donor conceived genetic siblings, with mutual consent, from the age of 18.
If you’re a same-sex couple both wishing to have treatment with the same donor, please discuss this with the Donor Bank before your order.
Please be aware that there is no refund or buy-back option available for unused samples.
Rights to your information
The HFEA keeps a register of information about donors, including egg sharers, and any children born as a result of their donation.
As a donor, you may request information from the clinic or the HFEA directly about whether a live birth resulted from your donation and, if so, the number of such births, the gender of the children born and the year of their birth. It’s important that you inform the clinic of the outcome of your treatment, i.e. whether you gave birth to a child(ren) and the details of the delivery. This is so the HFEA can monitor the number of families created by any one donor. When the number of children born from a single donor reaches 10, the donor will be advised not to create any additional families and only donate again to create siblings.
Counselling
All patients considering egg sharing will be required to see an experienced fertility counsellor. They’ll explore any anxieties you may have about egg sharing or the treatment process. They’ll also discuss the possible implications of sharing your egg within social, ethical, genetic and legal frameworks.
We work with two counsellors who are available to couples at any stage: before, during or after treatment. The counsellors are independent to the clinic’s medical and nursing teams, and are therefore able to offer a confidential on-going support service to all patients.
Granting consent
Informed consent is a critical part of fertility treatment and in particular egg donation. You’ll be given written and verbal information during your consultations and counselling session(s). It’s important that you consider this information carefully before completing the required consent forms. You’re free to withdraw or alter your consent at any time, up to the time the embryos created from your eggs are transferred (or used for research or training), including those which have been cryopreserved.
There are many issues to consider if you’re thinking about sharing your eggs and some of them are complicated. As well as discussing those issues with a counsellor at our clinic, you might also find the following organisations have information you might find useful:
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA)
The HFEA is the regulator of fertility treatment in the UK.
The Donor Conception Network is a supportive network of over 2,000 people who have been involved in donor conception, as donors, recipients or children conceived from donation.
