# New girl thinking about egg donation



## little pumpkin (Jan 11, 2011)

Hi,

DH and I have been TTC for nearly 2 years. After a load of hassle trying to get an appointment with IVF Wales we ended up paying for a consultation at LWC in Cardiff. Have had all the tests and DH has low normal sperm morphology so we have been recomended ICSI. Have now written to health authorities to get NHS entitlement transferred from IVF Wales to LWC. Am thinking about egg donation. Am also really scared about the prospect of all the drugs and injections and egg retrieval etc.

Hoping that reading through the message boards on here will help.


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## Ceri. (Sep 6, 2004)

Hello little punpkin and welcome to FF 
I'll leave you some links shortly which should help to navigate you around the site 

Please have a good look around the site and feel free to post in any area, and make yourself at home. There are many who are on their TTC journey, and others who have been fortunate to have little ones with assistance. You will soon discover that our members are very encouraging of one another and offering advice or just simple hugs. There's a vast amount of information here for everyone, so start reading, posting and getting to know others. You will make some great friends too, lots of members often have meet ups locally too, for chats, coffee, shopping or even nights out! You can share conversations with one another freely, simply because we all understand each other. It's hard when family and friends don't fully comprehend what this journey entails and the emotions that go with it. That's where we come in!

Here are some links which you should find really useful at the moment&#8230;&#8230;

*What Every New Member Needs To Know (includes a list of common abbreviations) ~ *   CLICK HERE

*Complimentary, Holistic and Spiritual Approaches ~ *CLICK HERE 

*Male factors ~ *CLICK HERE

*ICSI ~ *CLICK HERE

While undergoing treatment, you might find it useful to join other ladies having treatment at the same time. The Cycle Buddies threads are just for that. Just pop along to the appropriate month and say "Hi" when you are ready to start treatment.

*Cycle buddies ~ *CLICK HERE

You can also chat live in our chat room. We have a newbie day in the chat room every Wednesday where you can meet one of our mods for support, meet other new members and get technical support with navigating the site and using all the functions available here.  CLICK HERE FOR INFO ON NEWBIE CHAT 

Wishing you lots of luck    and 
Keep in touch
Ceri xx

PS I have also sent you a pm (private message)


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## Niek (Jan 16, 2011)

Hi pumpkin,

We did many many times ICSI and now thinking of egg donation. How is your feeling about that? We find it difficult decision. And you?


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## little pumpkin (Jan 11, 2011)

Hi Niek,

I didn't find it that hard to decide to donate some of my eggs. DH and I would be devastated if we found out that we could never have children and for women who need donor eggs that is the situation they are in unless somone like us offers to help them. I know that it might reduce our chance of success and that someone else might get pregnant when we don't, but there's not point in two couples being miserable. 

Have you actually spoken to your clinic about donation? There are a lot of criteria that you have to meet so its probably worth finding all that out before you start to worry too much as many people are not actually eligible anyway. I am going through all the tests and seeing a councellor with DH at the moment and we probably won't know for at least another 3-4 weeks whether I will be accepted as an egg sharer or not. 

Somthing that helps me to know that I'm making the right decision is to think about how down I feel about needing IVF when I'm at my lowest and how much worse it must be for someone who knows not even IVF will work. If that person had a baby because of me it would totally change their life. 

Hope this helps. 

Good luck


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## coweyes (Sep 4, 2008)

Hi Little Pumpkin


Dont be afraid of the drugs or the medical procedures, because this is something that you will cope with.  I was totally petrified first of all but after two icsi cycles and one fet i am not longer afraid of the medical stuff as i just except it as part of the process.


I am also considering egg share and am due to go to an open evening next month.  What you said about how you know it was the right decision makes sense.  But after several negative cycles i am concerned how i would cope if my reciplicant became pg and i did not!  I think you only truly know how hard ivf is when you have had a negative result, let along several of them.  It takes a hell of a lot of mental strength to pick yourself up from that.  I am not trying to worry you but please consider how you would feel if you received a negative result and then you found out the other lady had a positive one.  Good luck xx


Niek  Hi, yes i find it a difficult decision.  I am pretty good at being detached from it all mentally when having treatment but as i have said above i dont know how i will feel if the other lady becomes pg and i dont?  Is it really a lot worse then someone you know telling you their pg?    The thing is i do in my heart believe its the right decision for us as i think the financial strain of paying for treatment could be greater than the emotional strain of the other person getting pg. But its just such a big decision that i am scared that i will get it wrong?  Also hard to get others opinion as it appears so "out there" for people who are not in this situation.  What do you think of it all? xx


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## little pumpkin (Jan 11, 2011)

Hi Coweyes,

I have thought about what I would do if I didn't get pg and the other person did. I think it would be devastating, but I hope that I would be able to get myself together and carry on with more treatment after a while. We are going for our councelling on 3rd Feb so I'm hoping that will really help us to feel sure that we're doing the right thing, and if not then we'll just wait a while longer to start tx. 

Hope things work out for you. This whole situation is just s&!t. I think people just assume that you go for IVF and out pops a baby 9 months later. Will post the outcome of the councelling and hopefully this will help shed a bit more light on things.

xxxx


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## coweyes (Sep 4, 2008)

Little Pumpkin


Yer it is shxx, two of my sils have announced their pg this week, thats 6 babies in our family since we started trying.  Gets me a bit down tbh but i try hard to just except it and move on.  Yes please tell me how the councilling goes i would be very interested to know.  Good luck xx


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## Eesha44 (Oct 22, 2010)

Hi ladies

Just reading your posts and wanted to let you know that my friend did egg donation, to reduce the cost of her icsi. She wasnt successful unfortunately, but never regretted the sharing. I dont think they tell you if the other lady gets pregnant or not, as they must realise that it would do peoples heads in, plus, patient confidentiality and all that 

Also, its true, you totally cope with all the inujections and procedures. The EC was fine too - they give you sedatives (and valium as well) so I had quite a lovely day! I was flying!! (my bf was the one doing all the stressing this time!!)

best of luck for you!!


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## coweyes (Sep 4, 2008)

Eesha


Hi, thanks for your reply, its something that i have found quite hard to get my head around.  You can find out if the other lady was successful but its completely up to you.


Did you get valium wow thats great, pretty sure i did not get it though   . xx


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## little pumpkin (Jan 11, 2011)

So,

we had our councelling session at LWC cardiff on Thursday. Nothing new. The councellor went over all the stuff that we had already been told about treatment and the implications of donating eggs like how would we feel if in 18 years time we had a call from a young person wanting to meet up etc. She didn't ask us anything that we hadn't already talked about ourselves and didn't really shed any more light on the situation. I am still sure that I want to go ahead with it, but just have to wait for the results of all the blood tests (about 10 of them) before we can get the final go ahead from the clinic. The councellor did confirm that you can decide before ET whether or not you want to know if the other lady gets PG, but I don't think that I would want to know. 

Sorry not to be able to add any more pearls of wisdom to the discussion 

xxxx


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## coweyes (Sep 4, 2008)

Little Pumpkin


Thank you for sharing your experience, just one question i thought the other ladies cycles at exactly the same time as you? there for have et the same time so how would you be able to find out if they were pg before you go for et?


Sorry i know very little about the procedure, going to The Lister on Monday for an open evening, so hopefully will find out more then. xxxx


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## marina1978 (Nov 11, 2005)

Hi, I think it's agreat idea donating your eggs, well done to you.  I was going to do this for my friend 4 years ago who was told she needed donor eggs.  Unfortunately my husband was very against the idea and the counsellor wouldn't proceed without my husband's consent so I had to decline which was very hard but I had to respect my husband's wishes too.  She went on to have a lovely son from donor eggs at CERAM in Spain.
Good luck on your journey.


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## little pumpkin (Jan 11, 2011)

Hi coweyes,

Sorry, not making myself clear. You have to fill out the form that says whether or not you want to be told before you go through the treatment. I don't know what happens if you change your mind and want to find out later. I didn't think to ask since DH definitely doesn't want us to find out and like marina1978 said they have to make sure that you and DH are both in agreement before they will do anything. 

xxx


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## Sunnypal (Feb 25, 2009)

Hi ladies,
I donated half of my eggs after our first failed ICSI to get cheaper treatment. I wanted to know whether the other lady got pregnant, even if I didn't. I think after a failed cycle, especially when there is no obvious reason for it to fail (I.e everything ran very smoothly) then it's nice to hear that my eggs actually do work and at least someone benefitted from my efforts. Luckily this cycle worked and I found out that my receipient also got pregnant! I didn't actually think I'd be as pleased and excited for her as I was, I wanted to send her a congradulations card!! 

good luck with you're treatments, don't worry too much about the drugs and procedures, unfortunately a necessary evil, and the injections are fine, it's just plucking up the courage to do the first one! Find out if you will be awake for EC, I was for my first and was asleep for the second. Much prefferred being asleep but only because the worry and stress goes away, it wasn't painful just a bit uncomfortable. 

XSunnyx


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## little pumpkin (Jan 11, 2011)

Hi Sunnypal,

Thanks for your advice. I feel like you about wanting to know. Even if I didn't get pg myself I think it would be good to know if the other woman got pg so that at least it would be some reassurance that my eggs did work.  Having been through a much more detailed medical history for the egg donor programme last week not sure no whether I will be able to donate or not. Waiting for the consultant to review my notes and make a decision. Have my fingers crossed. The more time I have to think about it the more I am convinced that egg donation is a really great thing to do if you are able to. 

Congrats on your little bean, must be amazing to think that the two of you got pregnant at the same time.

xxxx


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