What does the treatment involve?

The treatment for an egg donor is the same as for a woman undergoing an IVF/ICSI treatment up to the point of the egg pick-up.

Sharing

If you undergo a fertility treatment involving an egg sharing scheme, the preliminary investigations, stimulation and egg pick-up form the main part of your IVF/ICSI. The donation does not alter or hinder you treatment in any way. The only possible complication is when the pick-up does not result in sufficient eggs to be able to share them with another woman. In this case, the donation does not take place and you keep all the eggs for your own treatment unless you specify otherwise.

Volunteer donation

Volunteer donors undergo an IVF/ICSI-treatment up to the point where ripe egg cells can be harvested. This consists of three phases:

• preliminary investigations;
• hormonal treatment intended to mature several eggs simultaneously;
• egg pick-up: as soon as the eggs are mature, the harvesting procedure takes place.

For the donor, this marks the end of the treatment. See also Main points.

Volunteer known donation

Known donation is still performed with fresh eggs, which means that the donor and recipient treatments have to be perfectly in tune or 'synchronised':

• The donor follows the IVF treatment course through to egg pick-up (see Main points). Naturally, the egg recipient follows the same procedures as for embryo transfer in the full IVF treatment. Her womb is prepared to receive the embryo after (medically) fooling the normal menstrual cycle into an artificially-induced cycle. For a detailed description, see www.brusselsivf.be/frozen_embryos
• Why an artificial cycle?
  Egg cells must be fertilized as quickly as possible after collection, with the recipient man's sperm. Then ideally, one or two of the resulting embryos are placed in the recipient woman's uterus three days or five days after conception. Thanks to the artificial cycle, the uterus of the acceptor can easily be kept receptive to the embryo for a few days. The hormones used to do this have no negative effects, even with prolonged use.
• In practice, the recipient's cycle is always synchronised to the donor's cycle. If the donor is ready for egg pick-up, the recipient's womb must be prepared for embryo transfer. Naturally, a delay of three or five days is also required between pick-up and transfer to allow for insemination and development of the fertilized eggs into embryos.