Some of CT Fertility's veteran egg donors at a recent "Egg Donor Gratitude Party"
We have such a close relationship with these women, it is only natural that we would consider their future well being to be just as important as that of our clients.
Bridgeport, CT (PRWEB) October 10, 2013
The leading fertility center CT Fertility is announcing that it will now give returning egg donors the option to keep a portion of their excess eggs for their own future use should they ever run into family-building challenges of their own. “Many of our successful egg donors are highly educated young women on career paths that usually call for delaying the start of their own families,” said Dr. Michael Doyle, the medical director of CT Fertility. “Storing some of the extra eggs that often arise as part of their donations can provide them with a nice safety net by giving them the peace of mind that they can safely wait to start their families until they feel they are ready.”
The new “Donate & Preserve” program is aimed at egg donors who have already donated more than once before with successful results and whose eggs have been found to be of excellent quality. But since egg quality declines with age, their own future fertility is certainly not guaranteed if they delay pregnancy for many years. This is why there is a growing practice of women who freeze their eggs for fertility preservation, especially since last year the ASRM concluded that rapid egg freezing (oocyte vitrification) should no longer be considered experimental. “We offer fertility preservation as a separate service, but often the women who come to freeze their eggs arrive at that decision a bit too late and their eggs may already be too old,” said Dr. Doyle. “Meanwhile our outstanding young egg donors, like most women in their 20’s, are not usually thinking as much about future fertility. Since they are already undergoing the egg retrieval procedure and often produce a large quantity of eggs, we feel that it makes sense to provide them with the option to put some aside and keep their own options open for at least three years, or until they are relatively confident that their own plans for family building have been achieved.”
CT Fertility will store the donors’ eggs without charge, and also allow them to return them to the clinic’s Frozen Egg Bank if they indeed get pregnant on their own during that time. In fact, women who do that will receive an additional stipend for re-donating these eggs at that point. “This is a win-win situation”, said Dr. Doyle, “since the high quality of the frozen eggs is such that we can always use them later as part of our large egg bank.” In fact, CT Fertility has one of the world’s largest donor egg banks from which eggs can be offered “off-the-shelf” at any quantity and at any time. With more than 60 babies already born and close to a thousand eggs in storage, the size and quality of CT Fertility’s donor egg bank help clients reduce costs, avoid cancellation of cycles due to problems with fresh egg donations, and ensure that all patients receive a guaranteed number of eggs even when choosing a fresh egg donation.
CT Fertility’s egg donation program is already unique in many other ways. Because all of their donors come from local towns and universities, they do every aspect of their screening, monitoring, counseling and medical procedures at CT Fertility, thereby establishing a deeply personal relationship with Dr. Doyle and his staff. CT Fertility also strongly encourages and facilitates known (non-anonymous) donations for their many parents and donors who seek them to meet a wide range of personal, medical, genetic and parenting priorities. Instead of an anonymous transaction, egg donation at CT Fertility is much more about generosity and mutual support. “We have such a close relationship with these women, it is only natural that we would consider their future well being to be just as important as that of our clients,” said Dr. Doyle.
Since this new program is only aimed at successful repeat donors, it does not extend to first time donors or those who donate their eggs for friends or family members. However the clinic’s “Freeze & Hold” option may allow for a similar voluntary arrangement. This option allows prospective parents to fertilize only some of the freshly retrieved eggs for immediate use and freeze the others to only be used if the initial set of embryos is not enough to achieve their goals. To many patients who do not feel morally comfortable with the idea of producing many (or in some instances any) extra embryos that may eventually be discarded, this option is indeed appreciated and welcomed. Recently some CT fertility gay clients who received eggs from a family relative decided to use the freezing option to potentially help their donor preserve her fertility. “We like the idea as it helps to resolve one of our donor’s concerns which is that she is getting older and if we retrieve her eggs, she will have less for her future family. By setting aside some frozen eggs, we are giving her a reserve bank,” said one of the guys.
•For more information about CT Fertility please visit http://www.CTFertility.com.
About CT Fertility
Founded by Dr. Michael Doyle, CT Fertility specializes in Reproductive Medicine, Egg Donation and Surrogacy. Since 1991 CT Fertility has created over 5,000 babies for a diverse group of parents from around the world - including clients from over 30 countries, couples and singles, straight and gay, and spanning a wide range of ages. Based in Bridgeport, CT, and with offices in New York City, the clinic achieves exceptional results by coordinating every aspect of the medical process, all under one roof, including the finding and pre-screening of highly qualified and immediately available local egg donors and surrogates.
