At Manchester Donors, we’ve been supporting donors through the steps of donating their eggs for more than 35 years. We're proud of our work and always grateful to those who want to help others create their families.
If you’re thinking about donating your eggs to help someone else start their family, you may be unsure how it all works. This guide to the egg donor journey provides all the information you will need to help you decide if you’re ready to become a donor.
We truly appreciate our egg donors and the invaluable gift they offer, this is part of why we go to such lengths to ensure our egg donors are fully supported throughout the egg donation journey. We prioritise your well-being and encourage you to ask lots of questions about any aspect of the donation journey.
If you’ve decided to become an egg donor, the good news is that the first step is designed to be very straightforward: complete a short application form on our website to ensure you meet our criteria and confirm your interest.
As you progress, you will be asked to arrange a convenient time to have a friendly implications call, with one of our dedicated Donor Programme Assistants, Steph, Olivia or Georgina.
During an implications call the team will discuss in more detail what’s involved, answer any questions and confirm if you’re happy to continue. If you’d like to know a little bit more about our donor programme assistants, you can find out all about their work in our Meet our donor programme assistants post on our blog.
After you’ve had your implications call your next steps are some initial tests to ensure you can donate, including a urine test, transvaginal ultrasound and an Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH) blood test.
The results of these tests will ensure that you have a good ovarian reserve and that you are a non-smoker, both of which are important to become an egg donors.
In addition, as part of the screening process you will also be asked questions about your family’s genetic medical history to confirm you are healthy and have no hereditary medical conditions. You can find out what information you’ll need in our guide to completing your family medical history.
For donors based outside the Greater Manchester area, we have recently opened several satellite clinics across, Lancashire, Yorkshire and the Midlands to ensure that attending your screening appointments can be as convenient as possible.
When you apply, you will be able to select your preferred clinic for all your initial screening appointments. However, for your egg collection treatment, you will be cared for at our state-of-the-art purpose built clinic in South Manchester. You can contact our team to discuss any questions you have about regional appointments.
Once we have all your test results, you’ll find out whether you can proceed with your egg donation journey. The good news is that if your results are satisfactory, you will be invited to meet with one of our counsellors to discuss the legal aspects and other important implications of becoming an egg donor.
A key aspect of the support you are offered as an egg donor is donation implications counselling, where one of our expert counsellors will walk you through the legal and emotional aspects of the egg donation process. Our donors use the counselling session as an opportunity to discuss and explore the donation process in more detail.
As all our counsellors have lots of experience working with egg donors, they will guide you through this stage and offer any advice. They have many years of experience and so will make you feel completely comfortable and able to ask any questions you have.
Your counselling sessions are held virtually, meaning you can attend from the comfort of your own home. If you have a partner who wants to attend your counselling session with you, they are welcome too.
Our team will also arrange for you to meet virtually with a specialist fertility consultant/fertility nurse, who will discuss your family medical history with you and ensure you can proceed with your egg donation. At this stage, you will have additional blood tests to support your family medical history and test for genetic conditions.
As part of your donation journey, you will be asked to produce a 'pen picture and goodwill message'. We ask that you consider it a portrait containing the basics of what makes you unique and your well-wishes for any child born from your donation. Writing your egg donor pen picture and goodwill message is often one of the most personal parts of the egg donation process, and our donors often like to invest time into ensuring they're perfect, as it's when you get to tell someone who needs an egg donor all about who you are, which is important to our recipient patients.
There are many things you can include in your pen picture – but there are also many things you can't. Maintaining anonymity is vital between the egg donor and egg recipient, so you can't include anything that could potentially make you identifiable, such as specific details about where you work or currently live. Our donor programme coordinators will help you refine your pen picture, making sure you highlight your characteristics without making yourself identifiable.
Our dedicated Nursing Team will then carefully plan your donation cycle and invite you to a virtual preparation appointment where you will learn to self-administer the required medication. You’ll need approximately 3 – 4 clinic appointments leading up to your egg collection to monitor your progress.
On the day of your egg collection, you will be invited to our state-of-the-art clinic in South Manchester, where our team will welcome you. Our nursing team will be on hand to help you prepare for your egg collection.
In preparation for your procedure, you’ll be given sedation to ensure you’re comfortable. The good news is, despite receiving sedation, you won’t have to stay at the clinic overnight.
Instead, you will be ready to go home after a short rest and a check-up with our clinical team. We do ask that you don’t drive yourself anywhere for at least 24 hours after your procedure, so please ensure you arrange for someone to collect you from the clinic.
After your donation, we will monitor your recovery, ensuring you have everything you need for the last stages of the journey. You will undergo some final screening tests approximately 3 months after donation.
By this stage of your journey, you will have received the compensation of £985 for your donation; this will cover your time and any expenses for attending each appointment visit.
Here in the UK, egg donors continue to be in high demand. Research from the HFEA indicates that children born in the UK with the help of donor eggs and sperm have risen by more than 64% since the 1990s.
We treat every egg donor applicant with care and consideration at every stage of the egg donor journey – if you’d like more information on the process or our egg donor criteria, please visit our website, or if you'd like to speak with a member of our dedicated donor team - contact Steph, Olivia, and Georgina at 0161 300 2734.
If you're ready to begin your egg donor journey, apply online today. We will be more than happy to consider your application and support you through your egg donation.
Donor Programme Assistant
Transform a life, by creating one. Become an egg donor today.
Manchester Fertility Services Ltd, trading as Egg Donors UK.
Egg Donors UK is the registered trademark of Manchester Fertility Services Ltd. Company #1902981
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