Egg Donation (Oocyte Donation) and Embryo Donation
Our Egg Donation Process
Collaborative reproduction takes a lot of moving parts, but our team is dedicated to finding the most reliable pre-screened donor candidates, while ensuring a high success rate for you and your growing family.
Women who are unable to produce healthy eggs, but have a healthy uterus are candidates for egg donation with in vitro fertilization (IVF). This procedure is the same as the former, except a donor’s egg is used to create the embryo. Caperton Fertility Institute has maintained some of the highest reported success rates in the nation for egg donation, which often allows us to offer these services at very reasonable prices. We also are passionate about protecting your privacy and helping to hand-select or recruit a donor that meets your needs as a couple. All donors are thoroughly screened for infectious diseases and meet all state and federal regulations. Donors are also screened for health risks including inherited disorders, illness, and other traits that would be undesirable to most parents.
Caperton Fertility Institute’s reputation and beautiful, private setting attracts donor patients nationally and from all over the world. Each reproductive tourism case is unique, where we’re happy to work with you to arrange travel and lodging accommodations or to discuss how your IVF process can be monitored in your own community prior to a visit.
Are You Interested in Becoming an Egg Donor?
Thank you for your interest in egg donation. Becoming an egg donor is a very generous act that can help families suffering from infertility realize their dream for becoming parents. Please click on the link below to learn more about the requirements for becoming an egg donor and how to complete your pre-screening application.
Egg Retrieval
After the woman’s eggs have reached an adequate level of maturity, they are retrieved from her ovaries using a hollow needle inserted into the ovary via the vaginal wall. The number of eggs retrieved can vary widely depending on a number of factors, but is typically between 8 and 15. Caperton Fertility Institute focuses on the quality of each individual egg and embryo, rather than strictly on the quantity. Without impeccable egg quality, the quantity of eggs retrieved means virtually nothing and doesn’t contribute to improved success rates. Our stimulation protocols and egg/embryo culture techniques are widely supported by scientific evidence and have dramatically improved pregnancy rates and outcomes for patients compared to traditional protocols.
Fertilization/Culture of the Egg/Embryo
Following egg retrieval, the eggs are processed by the embryology lab and fertilized using the partner’s or donor’s sperm. Fertilization may be performed naturally (eggs and sperm placed together in a petri dish) or via Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI). However, Drs. Lee and Kelly Caperton, and the advanced embryology team
Embryo Transfer
The woman’s uterus is prepared with hormone injections for her embryo(s) to be transferred. We do this in a very physiologic, natural technique that we believe is critical for attaining successful implantation. We also focus on custom-tailoring the preparation method for the particular patient that is being cared for. Once again, every couple is not the same, and a critical attention to these differences helps Caperton Fertility Institute maximize success rates for our patients.
Dr. Caperton transfers one (and occasionally more) embryos to her uterus under ultrasound guidance, and, if all goes well, implantation occurs in the uterus and the pregnancy begins. The vast majority of our transfers at Caperton Fertility are single embryo transfers, giving us one of the safest records in the industry of producing a healthy child for intended parents.
Genetic Testing
We believe that genetic screening and freezing of embryos is becoming the standard of care for our couples needing help with assisted reproduction. Commonly referred to as Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis/Screening – PGD/PGS, we can perform sophisticated tests on embryos that allow us to evaluate their chromosomal integrity. This can tell us, with a high degree of reliability, which embryos have the best chance of creating a viable pregnancy. They can also screen for gender and for chromosomal abnormalities that cause conditions like Down syndrome. By identifying the “best” embryos, we can increase implantation and pregnancy rates while reducing the number of embryos we transfer. This also reduces the rate of multiple gestations and the associated complications.
Because of the increased success rates and the valuable information and insights that genetic testing affords, we include this as a part of every patient’s IVF treatment. We complete all of the embryo biopsies in our on-site clean room embryology laboratory by our skilled lab technicians and embryologists.