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Writer's pictureAnna Lisnichenko

How to choose an egg donor in Ukraine? Our approach

Updated: Jul 24, 2019



In today’s article, I want to put some light on the practical part of choosing an egg donor for your egg donation program. My intention is to give you tools that will lead you to the best result and to a simpler view on this complicated topic.

First of all, there are some things that you need to know about egg donors. You may know something already, but in order to understand the real picture of the ovum donation in details, you have to see it also from the perspective of the women who actually donate. This is a very powerful and useful knowledge.

“How can this help me in the selection of an egg donor?” you may ask. Being only on the side of the receiver of eggs, your perception of an egg donor can be neither whole nor unbiassed. And this, certainly, affects your approach to the process of selection itself, as you lack fragments to see and understand the whole picture.


surrogate baby

Who is an egg donor?

Egg donation is allowed in Ukraine by law. An egg donor is a young woman, who at some stage of her life and within certain circumstances has come to the decision to donate her eggs through an IVF procedure, to become a so-called IVF donor. Such woman usually has to meet specific and very strict egg donor criteria in order not only to give a healthy biological material and a sufficient number of IVF eggs but also to avoid egg donation risks for her own health. Donor eggs can have different fate – they can be stored in an egg donor bank or get fertilized right away with the sperm of the intended father or they may become frozen donor eggs and be stored until a couple chooses the profile of that egg donor. Though, frozen eggs are not as popular as fresh cycles with fertilization, because a frozen egg significantly loses the required quality.

Egg donor candidate medical tests

There is no exception, all egg donor candidates undergo a very thorough examination for all possible bacteria, viruses, TORCH infections, HIV, syphilis, Hepatitis, hormones, ultrasounds and much more. Only 4 candidates out of 10 pass such tests successfully. We do not perform any kind of treatments to egg donor candidates, even if any medical test will come out with bad results, though our doctors always give a recommendation for treatment for such women. Our intention is to engage only 100% healthy egg donors in order to ensure the highest possible success probability for our IVF programs, while protecting the health of the egg donors.

Why many egg donors donate only once?

An unhealthy egg donor can’t be accepted into a program first of all because of the risks and complications that may be life-threatening to her. Requirements to the donors are very high not only because intended parents need a good biomaterial, but also to protect the health of the egg donor. Even with a completely healthy candidate, many complications still may arise during stimulation and after the egg harvesting, like discomfort during stimulation, side effects from the medication, hyperstimulation syndrome during the protocol or after the eggs pick-up. Such egg donors usually inform their egg donor agency or reproductive center of their intention to donate only once as their egg donation experience was uncomfortable or had some complications and it is very easy to understand.

My point is that these egg donors do never reach a static database, because they donate once and have no intention to have a profile to be chosen in the future. If there can be a database, it can only be a database of egg donors that are willing to come back and donate again. Taking this fact into consideration, I want to drag your attention to the vast egg donor databases in Ukraine and in other countries that many agencies and fertility clinics have and to the age of the profiles that do not change over years and many of them are not available. The conclusions are obvious.

Proven egg donors, who are they?

Proven egg donors are candidates with successful egg donation experience. Basically, it means that this proven ovum donor has successfully participated in a program that has led to the pregnancy of an intended mother or a surrogate mother with live-birth after the egg retrieval and embryo transfer.

Such an egg donor database is very valuable, as choosing such egg donor can maximize the success rate of an embryo transfer significantly.

Also, intended parents may rest assured that such an egg donator will give a good response to hormonal stimulation and provide high quality eggs. Proven egg donors are in high demand and usually have additional compensation for donation.

In our ovum database in Ukraine, we have many good looking, healthy, proven egg donors and this is the only possible egg donor database that can be provided to our intended parents right away without waiting time. A new, never donated, first-time egg donor can be also presented to a couple after filling in the egg donor questionnaire. Our center always has many egg donors at different stages: first time requested, passed the initial appointment with the fertility doctor, undergoing medical tests and at the final stage - fully tested and ready to start the protocol.

How to ensure the egg donor profile is not fake?

Ukraine has no common (global, public, state) egg donor database so that every donor could register in it. Every clinic and agency have its own register list and usually, it’s not sharable. The quality of the examination and egg donor selection in Ukraine vary from clinic to clinic, from agency to agency. The pictures of egg donors, for the most part, are very beautiful and it is very difficult to understand whether these pictures are real or fake, whether real people stand behind these beautiful pictures.

How can a couple be confident with an agency regarding the choice of an egg donor? Egg donation in Ukraine is anonymous and, taking this into consideration, it’s not possible to track your egg donor during the stimulation till the egg retrieval and to prove that this is the same person that you have chosen by the profile. It is a matter of trust to a center, but we have our fully legal ways to make you more confident in your choice, it’s our know-how and “secret weapon” and we prefer to talk about it with our clients only and during first meetings.

Why are egg donors special?

In our center, we specialize in exclusive egg donors only, with perfect health, with higher education and of a model look by request. The medical check-up contains karyotyping and testing for certain genetic syndromes, alcohol, drugs and smoking tests. We have a guarantee for the number of eggs per stimulation cycle, the minimum number is 10 eggs from an egg donor, but usually, our egg donors give 15-25 eggs of high quality and this leads to good quality and number embryos on day 5. Having mostly caucasian egg donors, we have also have started a selection of Asian egg donors and successfully offer such profiles to intended parents. All our candidates are available at the moment of presentation to couples, because we have found a perfect approach to the egg donor selection process. After a client fills in the egg donor questionnaire, coordination manager looks at the parameters and matches them with only fresh tested and 100% available profiles to save time for the client and make everything easy and comfortable. Every couple will be satisfied with the matching and as soon as the egg donor is booked, he sometimes does not even reach the database because of such a quick booking. The process of new requests, physical examinations, matching, selection and booking of an egg donor is always an ongoing process and we basically have no egg donors in a waiting list. Though we have a static egg donor database with a password access, this is the best egg donor database in Ukraine, because it contains only proven egg donors that have successfully donated and candidates are willing to return for a stimulation. So, basically, we have always new arrivals of candidates and a wide database of available and proven egg donors. Such approach has significantly saves the time between signing of the contract and actual IVF procedure of fertilization and improved the IVF success rate of every program.

Super quick start

Our exclusive approach to the egg donation process in Ukraine allows us to present an egg donor to our clients even before the actual signing of the documents and the agreement and on the first visit, it is possible to have a booked egg donor and to meet a surrogate mother if you need one. This actually shortens the time between the first visit and the fertilization to the minimum. The cycles start right away and there are no analogs of such a fast egg donation process in Ukraine.

Please feel free to contact us by email, phone or any massager of you want to choose an egg donor, we will be glad to assist.

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