The best advice I ever got on this site was to go with a proven donor. I did and got my DD the first try. She is the love of my life, & I only wish I went the donor route sooner. Good luck to you and so sorry about the long journey that has led you here.

There are many women who insist on a "proven" donor, and when I started looking, I expected to use a proven donor as well. However, I ended up using an unproven donor with no children, and she was a stellar producer. We have amazing boy/girl twins as a result, and 5 frozen embryos. She seemed like the perfect match for me (us) but I worried about that unproven thing. Then my coordinator reminded me that most women do not have fertility issues. If a woman is of the appropriate age, is healthy, passes all the preliminary tests, and is responsible enough to follow through, chances are good for a positive outcome. After all, she merely has to produce the eggs!

I have heard many stories of proven donors having bad cycles, so there is never any guarantee. On the other hand, I know some RE's (including my own) will generally use only proven donors for shared cycles because there is so much riding on that one cycle. We did not do a shared cycle. Does your RE advise one way or the other?

Oh, I forgot to add, my cycle wasn't a shared one. We had two embryos transferred and one made it to freeze. She did produce over 20 eggs though and we had 17 embryos to start with.

I haven't yet done my cycle yet, but I did want to get a proven donor. Of course that's not what happened though! My donor has done one previous cycle that resulted in a bfn, but the recipient had lining issues, so my RE feels that was the cause, not my donor's egg quality. I keep reminding myself that all proven donors were unproven at some point. Like two pups said, I know she is produces lots of eggs and is 26 years old and passed all of the tests, so the odds are that she is going to do great. If you had two donors you feel strongly about and one is proven but one isn't, maybe then I would go with proven. But I wouldn't automatically ignore unproven donors. It takes a lot for anyone to be approved, so the majority of donors will give you a successful pregnancy. Good luck!!!!

I used a 3:1 donor shared program in the DC/VA/MD area. We already had 3 failed IUIs with my own eggs and 2 failded IVFs with my own eggs and we wanted to do a cycle that would be guaranteed a success or money back. We had to pay for it all out of pocket, fortunately we were able to get a loan through fertility finance. Anyways, we used a unproven donor that had a daughter already. She was 21yrs old. She produced over 27 eggs in total. We got 9 eggs from the shared program. Which that meant all 3 of us recipients got 9 eggs. Of those 9 eggs 6 fertilized and 3 made it to day 5. We put 2 great quality embryo's in and froze the last 1. We were successful and had boy/girl twins that are now just about 21months old. So I hope this successful story was helpful. I will also tell you that is a good price, we paid a lot more for our 3:1 shared program but that could have been for a guaranteed baby born.

Thank you ladies. 2 pups to answer your question, I ran 3 donors passed my RE: one who was proven but she only yielded 18 eggs, 11 embryos and now she's 28 so on the older side of the curve, then an unproven 20 yr old and an unproven 25 yr old with 2 kids. He favored age over proven but now someone else filled the slot for the 20 yr old, so back to the drawing board. I'm now looking at a new candidate that is both young (21) and proven. I feel like I'm in a bad game show wondering if I should choose door #1, 2, or 3!
BTW, I am taking the def of the word proven to mean the end result is a live birth - correct?

I am not surprised your RE favors age over previous successful donor cycles. I am surprised that 28 is considered older. My donor was 28, and my RE accepts donors to 32. But I suppose the younger the donor, the better the chances of lots of healthy eggs, so long as she remains dedicated to the cause and abstains from all she needs to abstain from. Sounds like you ruled out the 25 year-old?

Regarding the definition of "proven donor," I may be incorrect, but I am under the impression that it means that the donor eggs resulted in a pregnancy. Not necessarily a live birth. This is because women miscarry for a lot of reasons. In my case, it was my crappy eggs resulting in trisomies, but other women have blood clotting factors, insulin problems, various systemic issues, etc. So a donor can offer "perfect" eggs, but if the recipient has problems with the pregnancy and miscarries, it wouldn't count against the donor.

Like kaph, hubs and I did a money-back guarantee program, but ours was not a shared cycle. It does cost more up front, but it is nice to know you get your money back if it doesn't work. That is the live birth guarantee.

My RE looks at "proven" in two ways
1) successful donor cycle (meaning pregnancy w/heartbeat not necessarily live birth)
2) if the donor has children
basically they are saying can the donors eggs make babies.

I also think 28 isn't too old....my clinic accepts donors up to 32

My donor was 28 and as I said, I got my BFP with my first cycle. She was proven according to my RE because she had a child of her own as well as had 5 successful donor cycles prior to mine where there was a BFP and heartbeat (I do know one of those cycles miscarried though), but still great stats.

My donor was considered unproven and she had her own child. So my definition would be that the donor is proven when her eggs resulted in a pregnancy. I'm glad I did a shared cycle but debated over it at first. I was afraid we wouldn't get enough eggs but with the money guaranteed back I was fine with it. My RE office took donors up to 31yrs old. I wanted a young donor thinking that they would produce more eggs. Didn't care if they were proven or not. I looked at other criteria in my decision.

Thanks again all for the feedback.
2 pups - I am still considering the 25 yr old (with 2 kids) as well as. 23 yr old who has had an abortion / I know she's gotten pregnant.

Kaph 2011 - I would love to be able to do the guaranteed cycle, but with the high expense of a surrogate we wouldn't be able to get there financially / already have borrowed from my in-laws who thank heavens are very supportive. I will just have to make the best move with the cards I'm dealt and since I'm not seeing a great egg production history for the 2 proven donors I've reviewed, I'm leaning towards younger like you did. Very happy for your success!

I cannot share my personal experiences, but know a few ladies who underwent IVF DE in Russia and Poland, cos of no waiting lists and very affordable costs of treatments. From what I know eggdonationfriends and whereivf were very helpful

Hello everyone! I'm 32 yo. I was diagnosed with PCOS when I was 19 yo. I've been in treatments for years. My husband and I have been together for almost 10 years. All this time we were ttc, but unfortunately treatments gave no results. Two years ago one of my doctors advised to try ivf with donor eggs. We were not 100% sure we want go this way. We've been thinking about this option for a year or even more. To be honest, it was me, who had lots of doubts and questions. Eventually I agreed to try and we went for ivf with donor eggs. I've got pregnant from the first attempt which was great surprise for us. After 10 years of infertility struggle we are finally pregnant! Now as I'm on maternity leave I decided to find a board where I could exchange thoughts and feelings with people, who were/are at the same boat with me!

Hi girls! Thanks for sharing your stories. I'm so glad I found someone who experienced ivf with donor eggs. Last year I had failed try of IVF with my own eggs. Now doctors say I need to use donor eggs. This is my only chance to become a mother. My husband and I discussed this option. We've been thinking about it for a couple of months now. But both of us feel like we are not mentally ready for this step. Reading this and other forums I almost stopped torment myself with thoughts about baby' and mine kinship. But now I really want to know the whole process. How to prepare for the transfer? Is this procedure same as usual ivf? I'll be grateful for any information. I wish everyone best of luck!

Welcome Shellhally. The process is easier than a usual IVF. You don't have to do nearly as many shots and obviously you don't have to have an egg retrieval. You just prepare your body for the embryo transfer. Good luck to you!