Hey hun. We moved to DE on our third IVF as well. It seriously took me 6 months from our 2nd failed IVF until I was truly ready to pick a donor. I think the time depends on the route you go. If you go frozen eggs, it can be faster because you do not have to sync cycles. Once we picked our donor, I went on BCPs at the start of my next cycle, as did my donor. From that point until transfer I would say it was 2-2.5 months... can not completely remember when I started BCPs. It partially also depends on your donors schedule. Mine was a college student finishing up her senior year so she wanted to do it ASAP versus waiting. She wanted to be done well before finals etc.

I will send you a message with more info that may help that I sent someone else recently.

There is also a group on DS for IVF with donor eggs, we are not very active, but lots of the treads on there may help...
http://www.dailystrength.org/groups/eggdonorivf

i too went the donor route after a failed IVF with my own eggs. I am 42 and now 15 weeks pregnant. i am soooo glad we decided to go the donor route. your chances of getting pregnant are very high, at my RE office its 70%.
my proccess was as follow:
i had to do a full mock cycle of meds before i went active on wait list for donor.it takes about 6 weeks and i completed it in October. My RE matches me with a donor based on my looks,height,weight and once they found a match they gave me the medical history of her,age and medical history of her immediate family and you can see a baby pic of her. you have 48hour to accept or decline. my donor was 28yrs old and i also wanted someone who had was a proven donor. We got the call in Feb. and we accepted:) We did a single, meaning all the eggs retrieved we ours and we would not share with another couple. that was an option that as less expensive but my DH and decide that we only wanted to do this once and the more eggs the better chance we had to get pregnant
it took another 6-8 weeks of meds and syncing our cycles. this process was alot easier then doing IVF and retrieving my own eggs. the meds were less harsh on me and i found process not as stressful! My transfer was end of march. they retrieved 16 eggs form anonymous donor (i forgot to add) 8 matured, we transfered 2 embryos and i have 1 frozen embryo. And I am now joyfully pregnant with a little girl:) i hope this help you and gives you hope that the process can work!! if you have any questions, please feel free to message me!! wishing you the best of luck!! xo

Hi, All. I am new here and to this process. My DH and I have been TTc for 2 years and recently found out I have POF. Apparently, this means a very slim chance of conception naturally or IVF. Best options are DE or adoption. Conceptually, I think DE is a great option -- it will be my husband's genetic child and I could experience pregnancy (if its successful), but I just can't wrap my mind around it yet. Maybe its bc I just got the news a week ago and I first have to mourn the loss of the dream for things to be normal, I guess. I don't really understand this because I don't feel there are any great qualities of mine that should be reproduced, but I do watch my nieces and nephews and see qualities of my sisters or my parents or grandparents in them and it makes me smile. I couldn't do this with my own child with DE. but then again, does this even matter? Has anyone else had these struggles?

Sltoddy that is a very inspiring story! Dh and I realized we are rushing this decision and decided we need to finish mourning the loss of this baby, take a break from all things infertility/baby and then talk about our options. I'm still so broken, sad, angry, and depressed. I think we may seek a second opinion down the road and if that re decides that donor is our best option then that's what we will do. The whole " not my genes" part is sad, but I'm sure once you see that heartbeat that baby is yours feeling must come immediately. Thank you all for the comments and I'm sure we'll keep you posted on our plan.

My little girl turned 2 back in March and is from DE. She is a little doll and such a joy to be around. I cannot imagine her being anyone other than who she is. Rarely do I even think of how she came to be anymore. It was difficult wrapping my head around it at first. She was born the day before my 45th birthday, and if I could go back and change anything, it would be to have done it sooner. I wasted a tremendous amount of money and years trying with my own eggs.

Once we chose our donor, we cycled a few months later. It is so much easier on your body.

Take all the time you need to make your decision. It typically is not one that anyone makes without a lot of thought and emotion.

Good luck to you in whatever you decide!

Chadswife and Bec, it took me a good 6 months from finding out a donor was our best bet until I could actually look at donors. I too had to mourn the loss of my genetic child. Take the time you need!

One thing that helped was people pointing out to me that even though the baby would no be mine genetically, it would be mine biologically. Its my body and blood giving life to the babies. There is a whole study about it called epigenetics (I think). The easy version is that my biology is telling what genes to develop and what ones not to.

like mbkw, I do not think about where these babies came from except when I think of how amazing of a woman my donor is for giving me the cell I needed to get them going. Whenever I see them moving on an ultrasound, I just think of how amazing my babies are. Because they are my babies.