Donor eggs (oocytes) provide women who cannot use their own eggs, the opportunity to experience a pregnancy and raise a child.
Egg donation may be necessary if you:
- do not produce your own eggs
- have a known genetic disorder, which may be passed onto your own children
- if you have had several failed IVF cycles, when the problem can be attributed to their own eggs.
Known donation vs. anonymous donation
You can choose a relative or friend as a donor. This is called a known donor. The advantages of using a known donor mean you know the genetic origin and the waiting time for treatment can often be reduced.
Females can also voluntarily donate their eggs where they don't know the recipient. This is called anonymous or altruistic donation. Care Fertility recognises the right of the children to know their genetic origins and therefore only facilitates the use of donated sperm and eggs where the donors and recipients have exchanged identifying information about each other. This means that the parents of the child or children have the opportunity to communicate with the donor and give that information to the child or children at the appropriate time.
What does it mean to be a donor?
As a donor, you are entitled to know that your eggs have been successful in a pregnancy and live birth, and to know the gender of the child (as well as any birth abnormalities). Just because you’ve donated your eggs, does not mean it will result in a pregnancy, even if you have previously had children. The recipients become the legal parents of any children born and have financial and legal responsibility for those children.
Donor services
Care Fertility provides medical consultation, counselling and IVF services required to use donated eggs from known donors. These procedures are similar to IVF and ICSI procedures and the success rate per cycle depends on the age of the egg donor.
Next steps if you are thinking about becoming a donor
The first step to becoming an egg donor is to check whether you meet some strict eligibility criteria.
- you must be aged between 18 and 41 years
- be fit and healthy
- know your genetic family history
- have no family history of genetic disorders
- have a lifestyle which does not place you at high risk of HIV (AIDS virus) and hepatitis virus infection.
If you believe that you fulfil the criteria and are interested in finding out more about donation, the next step is to contact Care Fertility. You will meet with a specialist, a nurse and a counsellor, and undergo a range of blood tests. You will be required to complete a declaration of a healthy lifestyle, consent forms and meet your recipient family. If you, decide that becoming a donor is right for you, you may be well on the way to having a starring role in someone’s dream of pregnancy success.
It’s possible to donate your sperm for couples unable to achieve a pregnancy due to male or social infertility. In Queensland, single women and lesbian couples can also access donated semen.
Known donation vs. anonymous donation
Known donation is where a relative or friend donate their sperm to you. This form of donation is encouraged as the genetic origin of the sperm is known and the waiting time for treatment can often be reduced. Many known donors also restrict the number of families created from their donation which can be desirable for the children who are conceived as a result of the donation. There are no legal restrictions in Queensland on the number of families resulting from a donation but there are in other states in Australia.
Anonymous donation is when donation of sperm is to an unknown individual or couple. A donor may not agree to their information being released to any children (upon reaching adulthood) conceived as a result of their donating sperm. Care Fertility recognises the right of the children to know their genetic origins and therefore only facilitates the use of donated sperm where the donors and recipients have exchanged identifying information. This means that the parents of the child or children have the opportunity to communicate with the donor and provide information to the child or children about their genetic origins at the appropriate time.
What does it mean to be a donor?
As a donor, you are entitled to know that your sperm has achieved a pregnancy and live birth, and to know the gender of the child (as well as any birth abnormalities). The recipients become the legal parents of any children born and have financial and legal responsibility for those children.
Donor sperm treatments
We provide counselling, storage and quarantining of known donor sperm according to Australian legislation. The sperm can be used for intrauterine insemination (IUI) or in vitro fertilisation (IVF) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) according to the quality of the sperm and medical conditions of the woman.
Next steps if you are thinking about becoming a sperm donor
The first step to becoming a sperm donor is to check whether you meet some strict eligibility criteria.
- you must be between 18 and 55 years of age
- be fit and healthy
- know your genetic family history
- have no family history of serious genetic disorders
- have a lifestyle that does not place you at high risk for HIV (AIDS virus) and hepatitis virus infection.
If you believe that you fulfill the criteria and are interested in finding out more about donation, the next step is to contact Care Fertility. You will meet with a specialist, a nurse and a counsellor, undergo a range of blood tests and semen analysis. You will be required to complete a declaration of a healthy lifestyle, consent forms and meet your recipient couple or woman. If you decide that becoming a donor is a good decision for you, you may be well on the way to having a starring role in someone’s dream of having a family to love and care for.
Surrogacy (also called gestational carriage) is the process when a woman carries a baby from embryo stage to birth for another couple (who are often called the commissioning couple).
Surrogacy in Queensland
Legislation in Queensland stipulates requirements for counselling and formal legal arrangements. To adhere to the Queensland legislation, screening of the gestational carrier is essential to ensure that she is physically, medically and emotionally suitable to be a gestational carrier. It’s also important to engage the family of the gestational carrier to ensure that there is appropriate support for the gestational carrier during her pregnancy and at the time of the birth.
Transfer of parentage to the commissioning couple occurs after the birth and is legislated in Queensland.
What needs to be discussed when planning a surrogacy?
When planning a surrogate arrangement discussions about dealing with miscarriage, abnormality in the baby, termination of pregnancy and the birth need to occur between all the parties.
Does Care Fertility perform traditional surrogacy?
No, Care Fertility does not perform traditional surrogacy where the woman carrying the pregnancy is also the genetic mother of the baby (the woman carrying the pregnancy is also the oocyte (egg) donor).
Family formation through the use of donated embryos – a modern alternative to adoption.
What are donated embryos?
Donated embryos are embryos created by couples who, had difficulty conceiving an ongoing pregnancy and were successful in having a family through IVF. Some couples have unused embryos in storage and do not wish to destroy their embryos. These couples can decide to donate their embryos to other couples having difficulty conceiving a family.
It’s important to understand that the donated embryos are biological siblings of the donors children, also that any children from donated embryos will be raised in a different family environment ‐ by parents who have no genetic connection with the children. Embryo donation is similar to adoption.
Why do couples donate embryos?
One common reason why couples donate their embryos is because they want to help other couples who have experienced the stress and distress of infertility.
If you have a surplus embryos in storage you can either:
- donate embryos to other couples
- thaw the embryos and discard them
- donate embryos to approved research projects.
What is the chance that a donated embryo will become a child?
The chance of a donated embryo becoming a child is difficult to estimate and depends on a number of factors:
- The age of the woman at the time the embryo was created
- Genetic factors in the couple who created the embryo
- The preparation of the uterus of the women who receives the embryo.
Overall in Australia 18% of all frozen embryos, which are thawed and transferred to the woman’s uterus, result in the birth of a live baby; but there are no specific statistics available for donated embryos.
Are there any health risks?
All pregnancies carry a small risk to the mother carrying the pregnancy, but there is no evidence that the risk is increased from embryo donation.
To help reduce health risks, the donating couple must have had negative blood testing after the creation of the embryos for infectious diseases such as hepatitis, syphilis, and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
There is a slight increase in birth defects in children conceived via IVF (4% of live births from IVF have a birth defect compared to 3% of spontaneously conceived babies). Donated embryos are not usually screened for genetic disorders.
What are the costs of using donated embryos?
There is legislation Australia prohibiting payment for embryos directly to the donating couple or to the IVF unit. Care Fertility may charge for the services provided in facilitating the donation, but not for the embryos themselves.
Your Care Fertility specialist will provide information about the costs incurred. These may be partly subsidised by Medicare and private health insurance.
What is the legal situation?
There is no Queensland legislation on the use of donated embryos. There are Federal guidelines, which state that donating and receiving couples should undertake counselling to ensure that the implications of their decisions are fully understood and that the rights of the children are respected in the future.
One of these rights (not currently legislated, but generally accepted) is that children have an interest in obtaining identifying information about their genetic origins. This is something that needs to be considered by all parties prior to proceeding with donated embryos. Generally a written consent is used to the donor of the embryos, which allows the responsibility for the costs and upbringing the child remains with the recipient couple.
If you are interested in enquiring about donated embryos, what do you do?
You should contact Care Fertility, and arrange for a referral from your general practitioner to one of the doctors. Care Fertility maintains a waiting list for donated embryos and only performs known donation. This means that the donating couple and recipient couple must exchange identifying information prior to the donation.
Patient support groups are Access Australia and the Donor Conception Support Group of Australia.
