While every egg donor match and egg donor cycle is unique, every match and cycle consists of the following basic steps:
- Egg Donor Applicaton
Women interested in helping a family through egg donation first contact our office and complete a short questionnaire. That questionnaire provides us with some basic information to determine whether the donor likely will be an acceptable candidate for egg donation by the fertility clinics our clients work with most often. The prospective donor is then sent a detailed questionnaire to complete. The prospective donor returns that completed questionnaire, along with several photographs of herself, to us for our review. If the prospective donor meets all of our pre-screening requirements, the donor is added to our donor gallery of available donors.
- Donor Gallery
Intended Parents are required to submit a short application in order to gain access to our donor gallery. You can do so by clicking here (Donor Gallery Access Form). You will receive an email by the end of the next business day with your user name and password that will allow you to access the donor gallery. If you do not receive a user name or password by the end of the next business day, please contact our office by emailing us at: info@csedinc.com or call us at (781) 551-0600 and we will get you immediate access.
Once you have gained access to the donor gallery, you will receive further instructions on how to locate a donor who will be a good match for you. Each donor will have a short profile giving you basic background information about the donor, e.g., hair color, eye color, height, weight, ethnic background, state of residence, prior donation history, etc. You will be able to view photographs of the potential donors as well as download a copy of the donor's complete profile. If you have any questions or problems with the donor gallery, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Our staff will be available to answer any questions that you may have about the process or about any particular donor throughout the matching process. We are happy to seek additional information from donors but reserve the right to refuse to request additional information if we determine that the particular request or the number of requests for additional information from one donor is unreasonable.
If you are not able to find a donor who is a good match for you, we very much want to know that as well. If there are any donors who are a close match for the donor you are looking for, that will allow us to get a better sense of the type of donor you are looking for. The more we know about the criteria you are trying to match in a donor, the more likely we will be able to match you with a new or prior donor as they become available.
- Donor Selection
Once you have identified a donor you think is a good match for you, you will need to complete an Intended Parents Questionnaire form. You will receive a copy of the Intended Parents Questionnaire when you are given access to the Donor Gallery. If you need another copy, we would be happy to email it to you.
Once we receive your Intended Parents Questionnaire form, we will send a copy to the donor you have selected. No identifying information will be provided to the donor. The purpose of sending the donor a copy of the Intended Parents Questionnaire is two-fold. First, we do not want a donor in the future to be able to claim that she was unaware about a particular aspect of the intended parents' background, e.g., ethnicity, marital status, sexual orientation, etc. Providing such information to the donor at the beginning of the matching process helps prevents a donor from later claiming that there was fraud involved in the matching process. Second, and more importantly, we strongly believe that donors who know some background information about the intended parents feel much more connected to the egg donation process and are therefore more likely to be committed to the process and to perform all things necessary to make it through the egg donor cycle. We encourage Intended Parents to view the Intended Parents Questionnaire as your opportunity to get the donor to care almost as much about a positive outcome as you.
After receiving your questionnaire, the donor will contact us to confirm that she is committed to moving forward with you. It is at this point that the donor match will become "official." You will be required to sign the Egg Donation Service Agreement that was sent to you when you received access to the Donor Gallery. Again, we can email you another copy of this document if you need another copy. You will have to print it out, sign it, and return it to our office. Our Agency Fee ($4,000), Legal Fees ($750 for intended parents' Attorney, $500 for donor's attorney, and $250 for escrow management) and an initial deposit to fund the escrow account are due at that time. Payment of the Agency Fee, the Intended Parents' attorney's fee, and escrow management fee can be made by credit card or by check. Payment of the donor's attorney's fee and the initial deposit to fund the escrow account must be made by check.
PLEASE NOTE: WE MUST RECEIVE PAYMENT OF THE AGENCY FEE, INTENDED PARENTS' ATTORNEYS FEE AND ESCROW MANAGEMENT FEE (A TOTAL OF $5,000) WITHIN 2 BUSINESS DAYS OF THE DONOR COMMITTING TO WORKING WITH YOU. IF YOU ARE PAYING BY CHECK, THE CHECK MUST BE RECEIVED BY OUR OFFICE WITHIN 2 BUSINESS DAYS. IF WE DO NOT RECEIVE YOUR PAYMENT WITHIN THAT TIME, THE DONOR MAY BE MATCHED WITH OTHER CLIENTS.
If you any questions about the Agency Fee or other financial aspects of the egg donation process, please see our Egg Donation Fee Schedule. (Click here to view Egg Donation Fee Schedule.)
- Screening Process
We will notify your clinic that you have been matched with your donor within a few business days of the match becoming official. Once the donor's information has been submitted to your clinic, we will do everything possible to assist your donor with the screening process. Fertility clinics vary significantly in how they screen donors. We will be available to assist the clinic with whatever they need to complete the donor's screening. While we encourage you to keep in contact with the egg donor coordinator at your clinic, we will get constant updates about your donor's screening from the donor and the egg donor coordinator.
- Egg Donor Agreement
Within approximately two to three weeks after you have been "officially" matched with a donor, one of the attorneys from Nichols & DeLisle, P.C. will email you the first draft of the Egg Donor Agreement. The attorney will schedule an appointment with you to review the agreement. This process usually takes approximately one hour and can be done via conference call. The purpose of this review is so that the attorney can answer any questions that you may have about legal issues surrounding egg donation and to make sure that you understand all of the provisions of the agreement. Egg Donor Agreements are personalized for each set of Intended Parents and the donor selected.
Once the agreement is acceptable to the Intended Parents, the agreement will be sent to the donor's attorney. While donors have the right to choose their own attorney, we require that they work with an attorney experienced in the area of reproductive law. This will ensure that the donor receives adequate legal advice and understands the legal issues involved with egg donation as well. If the donor has any requested changes to the agreement, the attorney will review those with you until such time as the agreement is acceptable to both sides.
The attorney will email you and the donor's attorney a final version of the agreement. The Intended Parents and the donor will sign separate copies, and each will return one fully signed original of the agreement to our office. You will be required to send a check to Nichols & DeLisle, P.C. to fully fund the escrow account. Those funds will be deposited in Nichols & DeLisle, P.C. Clients' Trust Fund Account and will be dispersed in accordance with the terms of the Egg Donor Agreement. Once Nichols & DeLisle, P.C. receives the signed agreement from both parties and the check from the Intended Parents, the attorney will send all parties a letter confirming that the agreement has been signed by both parties and is final and binding.
Donor Gallery Access Form
