# Lister Egg Share Recipients - WARNING!



## babynumbertwo (Dec 12, 2017)

Hello,

I'd like to share my egg sharing story at the Lister as a recipient which was a AWFUL. Really hoping my post may help others not make the same mistakes we did. I would warn anyone considering Egg donation to go elsewhere.

We had 3 unsuccessful IVF rounds at the Lister with my eggs, but felt that the level of care was fantastic, so we decided to stay with them when we embarked on the Donor Egg sharing route.

We waited a year on the waiting list trusting that the Lister were great and the wait would be worth it. Finally matched and got round to treatment a month ago. What the Lister does not tell you up front or on their website - is that if your donor produces 'a large number of eggs' - whatever that is? - they will get split three ways. Your donor keeps her half and your half get split. So if your donor produces 20 eggs - you only get 5. I think that is totally amoral as the only people that gain from this are the clinic. As we know every egg counts - the more eggs, the more chances, especially for those wanting siblings.

The donor was 34 with a history of infertility. We only got 4 eggs - 2 were immature - only one made it to a day 5 morula - not even a blastocyst and it has not worked. £8k and a year later we are back to square one. I am 45 and time and money are definitely running out. We have a daughter and the age gap between her and intended sibling is getting bigger and bigger ;(

The level of care by the nurses on the donor side was terrible. The OD nurses I saw in the clinic lacked compassion and sympathy. It was really depressing to experience. They did not reply to emails at times, and then said they had not received emails that I had definitely sent. On the Friday afternoon when I was supposed to have a phone call informing me of the donor VEC on Monday morning (a big day! and also where my partner would need to proved a sample), they just forgot to call us. I waited all afternoon for a call and got really stressed. We finally spoke to someone on Saturday, so I fretted all night. Not good when you are supposed to stay zen before ET. Terrible level of care from a clinic that prides itself on this and charges a fortune.

I would say to anyone considering using donor eggs to go elsewhere. CRGH do not even offer egg sharing and I wonder why...


----------



## Artypants (Jan 6, 2012)

That’s awful! They would be getting double the payment too if they are split three ways, I agree that is immoral if you are unaware before you embark on treatment, I would also be very annoyed at the age and fertility status of the donor. I think you have cause for an official complaint based on your experience. X


----------



## Bubbles12 (Aug 29, 2012)

Wow! Im sorry that this happened to you.

I egg shared at the Lister back in 2013. I was the donor and not at any point did they explain my eggs for the recipient would be split 2 ways. Thats disgusting, not only on the poor recipient, but on the donor too.

I will say, i wasnt too impressed with the Lister, they put me on a LP even though i have PCOS which inevitably, i didnt respond well and only got 12 eggs, not alot when your egg sharing.

Did you put a complaint in?


----------



## hannahdaisy (Oct 23, 2016)

I am sorry to hear that you had this experience. I would definitely look through all of the notes that you were given and complain if you cannot see anything about sharing the eggs between two recipients.

I just found this on their online PDF for recipients...

"If a donor has been recruited by the clinic and is not having treatment herself (altruistic donor), her eggs may  be  shared  between two recipient  couples. One  couple  will  be FIRST  IN  LINE and  they  will  receive  the first  quota  of  eggs  (at  least FOUR eggs).    The SECOND  IN LINE couple may  not  receive any eggs if the donor  only  produces  enough  eggs  for  the  first  couple,  luckily  this  does  not  happen  very  often.  
If  the  second  in  line  couple  are  cancelled,  then  the  Ovum Donation team will try and line  them up with another donor as 
soon as possible."

Myself and my partner both egg shared with the Lister. She did it in 2017 and I did it earlier this year. Both times we were told that our eggs may be split between two recipients and had to sign something to say that we understood. There was a space on one of our consent forms that asked how many families we potentially wanted to help and we put 2 to cover us in the case that we did get a large number of eggs. I got 19 eggs and they were only shared with one other recipient so I wonder if 20 is the point where they split?


----------

