When you have the support and knowledge of an egg donor agency, their insight can make your fertility journey smoother. You have both an advocate and an experienced advisor on what matters need to be handled - from medical to legal, plus, they can help with the legwork to get you the answers you need.

Family-building can be stressful enough. Below, we provide an overview of pursuing donor eggs to build your family and the benefits of working with an accomplished donor egg agency.

Whether this is your first time considering egg donation or you’ve always known you would need an egg donor to build your family, choosing an egg donor is not an easy process. I’ve personally been through the egg donation selection process multiple times now, with multiple different agencies and egg banks.

It can be exciting and equally overwhelming. I’m sharing some of the lessons I learned in hopes to make this process a bit easier for you. 

October recognizes Pregnancy and Infant Loss. If someone you know or yourself have experienced the loss of a child to stillbirth, miscarriage, SIDS, please join Donor Nexus in raising awareness around pregnancy loss. 

Below, we will explore pregnancy loss, potential causes for miscarriage, what Recurrent Pregnancy Loss is, and various options to explore.

In 1983, the first successful pregnancies using donated eggs were reported in Australia and the US. With the tremendous advances in science and public advocacy over the past 38 years, egg donation treatments are now more successful and accessible than ever before. 

Originally the only option available, using fresh donor eggs is still a popular option today. However, using frozen donor eggs has also been growing in popularity over the past decade due to advancements in egg freezing technology using the vitrification process. 

In this blog and video, mother via donor egg IVF Victoria Nino vulnerably shares her infertility grief process. As an advocate in the TTC, IVF, and infertility communities, Victoria shares her valuable knowledge on infertility coping strategies and emotions. We are so honored to partner with her and we hope you find hope in her story and comfort in the strategies she shares for coping with infertility.

I’ve said goodbye to multiple loved ones, lost a home to a tragic fire, buried animals I loved deeply, and let go of many other meaningful possessions. I know what it feels like to lose something you love and grieve it. 

Epigenetics has been a fascinating and growing field of study over recent years, especially because of the implications it has for patients using donor eggs or donor embryos. In this blog, we will give a quick explanation of what exactly epigenetics is, and the incredible connections it establishes between a donor egg or donor embryo recipient mother and her unborn child.

Essentially, scientific studies of epigenetics are revealing that the activity levels of some genes may be “dimmed” or turned up in response to other external cues from the environment - even in the womb! This means that as a donor egg or donor embryo recipient, your body still influences the gene development of your baby. 

So, you have leftover embryos after IVF and you’re now feeling the emotional burden of having to decide what to do. You’re not alone. According to a 2005 study, 71% of couples had not decided what they were going to do with their unused frozen embryos after storing them for an average of 4.2 years.

If you have decided that you have no use for the embryos, have you considered the option of donating embryos to other couples or individuals?

For many intended parents, choosing an egg donor is one of the hardest decisions they've ever had to make. There are many different factors to consider when trying to find an egg donor, and sometimes the entire process can become overwhelming. It is easy to get caught up in the specific characteristics of each egg donor such as her hair color, height, education, and special talents. However, there are a few other factors that are important to consider before you even begin searching for an egg donor.

The Donor Nexus online database features a wide variety of available egg donors and frozen donor eggs ready to be matched with recipients.

Of all the things to imagine when daydreaming about your future baby, eye color may be one of the most common things for parents to envision. For some intended parent(s), eye color may be a big deciding factor in which egg donor to choose, especially for IP’s who are hoping for a specific eye color in their child. 

Did you know that the inheritance of eye color is polygenic, meaning that eye color is determined by more than one gene? There are about 16 known genes responsible for eye color. So, in reality, predicting your child’s eye color is a little more complex than the simple inheritance pattern you may remember from high school!

Written by Guest Author, Victoria Nino

This blog post was written by Victoria Nino from @expectinganything. Victoria is a mother via donor eggs and a fierce voice in the donor egg community. She shares her journey authentically and helps women who are deciding to use donor eggs as they embark on their journeys. We are so excited to share her journey with you!

We are excited to announce that we have officially partnered with CryoStork®, the industry’s most trusted provider of temperature-controlled IVF shipping services. 

CryoStork® serves an integral role in our Frozen Donor Egg Program, allowing us to utilize their scientifically-enhanced technology and logistics expertise to ship our frozen donor egg lots domestically and internationally. We are proud to share that this superior shipping solution is included in our Frozen Donor Egg Cycles at no extra cost.

You’ve made the leap to using donor eggs and now you’re searching high and low for the perfect egg donor. As you’re browsing egg donor profiles, you’re discovering all the decisions that need to be made. Oftentimes, one of the first decisions for donor egg recipients (intended parents) is whether they will choose a first-time egg donor or a proven egg donor. In this blog, we discuss important factors that should be taken into consideration, such as success rates and what the reality of going through a cycle with both first-time and proven donors tends to look like from our experience. 

What is the Difference Between First-time vs. Proven Egg Donors?

In the spirit of innovation and continuous effort to better meet the needs of our patients, we are proud to announce our newest program offering: Independent Match Embryo Coordination

What Is Independent Match Embryo Coordination?

Due to the increasing accessibility of commercial genetic testing, such as 23andMe and Ancestry.com, Donor Nexus would like to acknowledge the uncertainty in maintaining permanent anonymity for individuals involved in an anonymous egg or embryo donation cycle. 

Although we give our best efforts in keeping the identity of each individual anonymous, there may be a connection established in the future if either party decides to independently pursue genetic testing.

In this blog, we cover everything egg donors need to know about AMH levels and the AMH blood test which is typically required for new donors.

What is AMH?

Mark your calendars! This year, National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW) is April 18-24th. Founded in 1989 by RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, NIAW is the largest public awareness campaign that addresses infertility. 

As a long-time supporter of RESOLVE, we at Donor Nexus are gearing up for another impactful NIAW!

For updated information regarding the COVID-19 vaccination and pregnancy/fertility, visit:https://www.asrm.org/covid-update-16

Original Post: February 10th, 2021

Donor Nexus has been welcoming and offering family-building solutions to LGBTQ+ community members since our establishment in 2012. Now, we are excited to announce our partnership with Family Equality, an organization that is fighting to protect and support LGBTQ+ families. As stated on their website, the mission of Family Equality is to “advance legal and lived equality for LGBTQ families, and for those who wish to form them, through building community, changing hearts and minds, and driving policy change.”

Our Commitment to the LGBTQ+ Community

As you browse through the Donor Nexus egg donor database, you’ve likely come across several profiles that indicate that the egg donor is a genetic carrier of a certain condition. This may sound alarming to intended parents at first, which is why we are here to explain what exactly it means and what you should do if your ideal donor is a carrier. The good news is that with proper screening of the male partner or sperm provider, your child will almost certainly not inherit the genetic disease. 

Before you decide not to choose a donor because she is a known carrier, it’s important to note that most of us are carriers of at least one genetic disease. We have over 20,000 genes and all it takes is a mutation in one copy of a particular gene to be a carrier of a genetic disorder. 

The grading of an embryo is determined by the embryologist at the time the embryo is frozen. It is a method used to evaluate the quality of the embryo.

For helpful information about embryo development and quality, we recommend this article by Remembryo: Complete Guide to Embryo Grading and Success Rates