Embryo donation is a beautiful family-building option that benefits everyone involved

As in vitro fertilization (IVF) success rates have increased, millions of babies have been born to loving parents around the world. In some cases, these parents still have extra healthy IVF embryos after they finish building their families. When this happens, an amazing opportunity opens up for these families and hopeful parents who are struggling to conceive. Embryo donation gives these extra embryos a chance at life and helps patients facing infertility become parents. It’s a winning arrangement for everyone.

At Texas Fertility Center, we help connect hopeful parents with donor embryos that some of our previous patients have donated. We realize that you likely have a lot of questions about this family-building option. As a result, our Austin fertility center team is here with answers.

How does embryo donation work?

Sometimes, individuals and couples who pursue IVF end up with more embryos than they need to build their families. When this happens, patients have several options, including indefinite storage, donation to science and embryo donation. Because embryos represent children, more patients are opting to give their embryos a chance at life by donating them to another family.

When someone wants to donate their embryos, our Austin fertility center team will help them complete the necessary legal paperwork. Once everything is finalized, we enter the donor embryos into our donor embryo database. Our team also takes over the cost and responsibility of keeping the embryos in frozen storage until other hopeful parents are ready to conceive using them.

What are the benefits of conceiving with donor embryos?

If you’re thinking about starting or growing your family using embryo donation, our Austin fertility center team can help you. We will start by giving you access to our donor embryo database. There, you can view the available embryos and learn general information about their background, including their ethnicity and whether they have had genetic testing.

Once you select your donor embryos, the steps will proceed like any frozen embryo transfer. You or your gestational surrogate will take medication to prepare the uterus for an embryo transfer. Then, embryologists will thaw one or more of the embryos before your doctor performs the embryo transfer procedure. You or your surrogate will have a pregnancy test at our clinic about two weeks later. Then, we will hopefully celebrate a positive pregnancy test together.

Patients who welcome a baby with donor embryos find there are several benefits.

• Embryo donation is much more affordable than many other family-building methods. You will only pay for the costs associated with the embryo thawing, transfer and monitoring during early pregnancy.
• This option typically has high success rates, especially when the embryos have undergone preimplantation genetic testing (PGT).
• You can give extra IVF embryos a chance at life and the ability to enjoy a loving home with you and your family.

If you’d like to learn more about conceiving with donor embryos, we invite you to contact us. We can give you the information you need to make this decision and provide you with access to our donor embryo database.