Whether someone is suffering from fertility problems like low ovarian reserves, PCOS, or unexplained fertility, there isn’t always a clear-cut answer regarding suitable treatment options.
Though IVF and IUI cycles might work for many, these aren’t always successful avenues for every person hoping to conceive. Often, a person is left searching for different solutions to combat their infertility issues – for example, donor eggs are commonly considered as an alternative.
However, many people wonder how complicated using an egg donor will be. They ask themselves questions like, “Is affordable donor egg treatment a possibility?” or “How thoroughly are potential donors screened?”
Thankfully, there are positive answers to quandaries like these.
When someone uses frozen donor eggs to conceive, they’ll receive many benefits which might not be possible with other fertility solutions.
Are You a Suitable Candidate for Frozen Donor Eggs?
Before leaping at the opportunity to use a frozen egg donor to start your family, it’s worth considering if you’d make an ideal candidate for the process.
Luckily, there aren’t many who wouldn’t benefit from this treatment!
Not only is egg donation an optimal solution for those who haven’t been successful during traditional IVF or IUI cycles, but it can also be a helpful alternative for people battling conditions and symptoms like:
One reason prospective parents may lean towards using a fresh egg donor instead of frozen is wanting a personal connection with their donor. They believe they’ll have more trust if they can meet their donor in person.
On the contrary, there’s nothing to fear when using quality donor eggs from a respected frozen egg bank.
Before a potential donor can begin their egg collection process, they’ll undergo a comprehensive screening examination. This includes various tests like background checks, psychological evaluations, drug screenings, and general health tests.
During this evaluation stage, clinics also collect information regarding the donor’s educational, family, and professional background.
Many of the results obtained during this process are made available to hopeful parents. In this way, they have an abundance of facts to help them make their decision and the peace of mind that comes from knowing their potential donor underwent detailed screenings before their eggs were collected.
The Benefits of a Frozen Donor Egg Cycle
Some individuals might ask – “Why would I choose a frozen egg donor if a fresh donation is possible?”
There are several reasons why selecting frozen donor eggs instead of fresh is an advantageous fertility treatment decision. Some of these include:
Low Costs
Unfortunately, overcoming infertility often comes with high costs which aren’t usually covered by insurance.
In the argument between fresh vs. frozen donor eggs, many people appreciate how much less they’ll spend on a frozen egg donation cycle than a fresh cycle. In fact, they often save thousands of dollars in comparison.
Further, reputable donor egg companies like Donor Egg Bank USA also provide various financial payment plans to suit the unique needs of all families, including LGBTQIA+.
High Success Rates
In decades past, fresh donor eggs were the optimal choice regarding egg donation success rates. Today, the success rates of fresh and frozen donor eggs nearly equal each other.
While labs previously froze collected eggs using slow-freeze technology which often led to ice crystal formation and cellular damage, vitrified eggs are exposed to advanced cryoprotectants before freezing to protect them during storage and thawing.
Flexible Start Times
During a fresh donor egg cycle, the donor and recipient’s reproductive cycles must be synchronized to ensure correct timing for collection and transfer. Unfortunately, this can be a challenge which sometimes leads to cycle cancellations.
Alternatively, since frozen donor eggs have already been collected, prospective parents have more flexibility when choosing a cycle start date.
Creating New Opportunities to Build a Family with Egg Donation
When you dream of having a baby, but your faced with one negative pregnancy test after another, don’t lose hope. Even if the situation seems impossible, other options – like frozen egg donation – are always available.
No matter how hard things might seem, remember your answer could be right around the corner.
Michelle Obama has released a memoir in which she reveals that she had a miscarriage and used in vitro fertilization to conceive both children, Malia and Sasha.
In the book, Becoming, the former first lady reveals difficulties about her marriage and pregnancy with her two daughters.
In an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America, Michelle Obama said that she felt “lost and alone” after her miscarriage 20 years ago.
The first African-American first lady also criticized President Donald Trump for putting her family’s safety at risk.
Michelle and Barack Obama sought couples therapy, she also revealed for the first time in her 426-page book, which will be released on November 13.
Following publication, Michelle Obama will tour ten cities.
Michelle Obama, a former lawyer and hospital administrator, told ABC that after her miscarriage: “I felt like I failed because I didn’t know how common miscarriages were because we don’t talk about them.”
She added that “it’s important to talk to young mothers about the fact that miscarriages happen”.
The former first lady also said that when she was around 34 years old, she realized that “the biological clock is real” and that “egg production is limited”, which made her decide to seek in-vitro fertilization.
She told Robin Roberts: “I think it’s the worst thing that we do to each other as women, not share the truth about our bodies and how they work.”
Michelle Obama revealed that the couple’s relationship struggled at times, especially after her husband joined the state legislature, leaving her at home where she was forced to administer IVF shots herself.
“Marriage counseling for us was one of those ways where we learned how to talk out our differences,” she said.
“I know too many young couples who struggle and think that somehow there’s something wrong with them. And I want them to know that Michelle and Barack Obama, who have a phenomenal marriage and who love each other, we work on our marriage.
“And we get help with our marriage when we need it.”
Michelle Obama also describes falling in love with the former president one summer night in Chicago.
In Becoming, Michelle Obama says she would “never forgive” Donald Trump for championing the “birther” theory that her husband was not born in the US, according to excerpts obtained by media.
She wrote: “The whole [birther] thing was crazy and mean-spirited, of course, its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed.”
“What if someone with an unstable mind loaded a gun and drove to Washington? What if that person went looking for our girls? Donald Trump, with his loud and reckless innuendos, was putting my family’s safety at risk. And for this I’d never forgive him.”
Michelle Obama said she reacted in shock to Donald Trump’s presidential victory and “tried to block it all out”.
Before departing the White House for Paris on November 9, President Trump addressed some of the quotes from Michelle Obama’s book.
He said: “Michelle Obama got paid a lot of money to write a book and they always insist you come up with controversy. I’ll give you some back.”
Referring to his predecessor, Barack Obama, President Trump said: “I’ll never forgive him for what he did to our United States military by not funding it properly.”
Two approaches to boosting obese men’s fertility have been presented at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society.
The first suggested that obese men who lost weight were more likely get their partners pregnant.
The second found that letrozole, a cancer drug, helped some infertile men have children.
Experts said the approaches were interesting alternatives to IVF and were opening up “real possibilities” for men.
Weight loss is already widely advised for women struggling to conceive and obesity has long been suspected as a factor in male infertility.
A research team at the University of Sherbrooke in Canada conducted the first study to help men lose weight and see if it improved the chances of conception.
In 65 couples who had been referred to a fertility clinic, the men were sent to weekly group sessions on nutrition and physical activity for a year.
The study showed the men who conceived were those who had lost the most weight.
The research group said they were “thrilled” by the results.
One of the researchers, Dr. Jean-Patrice Baillargeon, said: “This is the first prospective study suggesting that male partners who improve their weight also increase the odds for the couple to conceive.”
The second study focused on the chemical letrozole, which has been used in breast cancer and as a fertility treatment in women.
Letrozole can stop testosterone being broken down into oestrogen.
Trials took place on 12 men who had developed hypogonadotrophic hypogonadism, a form of infertility, as a result of their obesity.
Two were able to have babies after being infertile for at least three years.
Dr. Lena Salgado, from the University of Montreal, said: “Letrozole is a very attractive fertility treatment with obesity-related hypogonadism.”
Prof. Sir Robert Edwards, the pioneer of IVF, has died in his sleep after a long illness at the age of 87.
Robert Edwards was knighted in 2011, five decades after he began experimenting with IVF.
IVF is used worldwide and has resulted in more than five million babies.
His work led to the birth of world’s first test-tube baby Louise Brown at Oldham General Hospital in 1978.
Robert Edwards was knighted in 2011, five decades after he began experimenting with IVF
Paying tribute to Prof. Robert Edwards, Louise Brown said he had brought “happiness and joy” to millions of people.
She said: “I have always regarded Robert Edwards as like a grandfather to me.
“His work, along with Patrick Steptoe, has brought happiness and joy to millions of people all over the world by enabling them to have children.
“I am glad that he lived long enough to be recognized with a Nobel prize for his work, and his legacy will live on with all the IVF work being carried out throughout the world.”
The University of Cambridge, where Prof. Robert Edwards was a fellow, said his work “had an immense impact”.
Born in Yorkshire in 1925 into a working-class family, Robert Edwards served in the British army during World War II before returning home to study first agricultural sciences and then animal genetics.
Building on earlier research, which showed that egg cells from rabbits could be fertilized in test tubes when sperm was added, Robert Edwards developed the same technique for humans.
In a laboratory at Cambridge in 1968, Robert Edwards first saw life created outside the womb in the form of a human blastocyst, an embryo that has developed for five to six days after fertilization.
“I’ll never forget the day I looked down the microscope and saw something funny in the cultures,” he once recalled.
“I looked down the microscope and what I saw was a human blastocyst gazing up at me. I thought, <<We’ve done it>>.”
“Bob Edwards is one of our greatest scientists,” said Mike Macnamee, chief executive of Bourn Hall, the IVF clinic founded by Prof. Robert Edwards with his fellow IVF pioneer Patrick Steptoe, a gynaecological surgeon.
Robert Edwards was too frail to pick up his Nobel prize in Stockholm in 2010, leaving that job to his wife Ruth, with whom he had five daughters.
He remained a fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, until his death.
Robert Edwards’ work was motivated by his belief, as he once described it, that “the most important thing in life is having a child.”
Vitabiotics Pregnacare-Conception, a 60 cents multi-vitamin pill could more than double a woman’s chance of having a baby, according to a study carried out at University College London.
The study found that 60% of those taking the supplements while undergoing IVF became pregnant compared to just a quarter who did not take them.
Researchers say the pills contain nutrients that may boost fertility such as vitamins A, C and E, zinc and selenium, that are often absent from our diets.
The study involved 56 women aged 18 to 40, who had all tried unsuccessfully to fall pregnant using IVF for at least a year.
Half of the women were given a multi-nutrient pill to take every day and the other half given folic acid pills to take daily.
The micronutrient pill also contained folic acid which prevents birth defects and has also been shown to help boost fertility.
Vitabiotics Pregnacare-Conception, a 60 cents multi-vitamin pill could more than double a woman’s chance of having a baby, according to a study carried out at University College London
Researchers found that 60% of women taking the multi-nutrients fell pregnant, and did not miscarry in the first three months when it is most common.
This compared to 25% of women in the group taking folic acid who were still pregnant after three months.
The University College London study published in the journal Reproductive Biomedicine also found that women taking the micronutrients needed far fewer attempts to become pregnant.
Of those who fell pregnant, 75% conceived in the first course of IVF.
By comparison just 18% of those on folic acid who became pregnant did so after the first IVF course.
The particular pill, Vitabiotics Pregnacare-Conception, contains folic acid, vitamin B, vitamin E, vitamin A, vitamin C, zinc, selenium and some antioxidants.
Vitabiotics Pregnacare-Conception costs just over $15 over the counter for a month’s supply.
Lead researcher Dr. Rina Agrawal said: “The implications of this study are far reaching as they suggest that prenatal micronutrient supplementation in women undergoing ovulation induction improve pregnancy rates.
“There is a large body of evidence establishing the relationship between placental development, foetal growth, pregnancy outcomes and adequate nutrition, particularly vitamin intake.”
But other scientists pointed out that the study was very small so the results should not be taken too seriously.
Dr. Allan Pacey who specializes in fertility at the University of Sheffield said: “The influence of nutrition on our fertility is of general interest to the public and professionals, but there are relatively few studies which have examined this systematically and few which have shown direct benefits of taking supplements to enhance things.
“Therefore, on the face of it, this study is interesting but we should acknowledge that this is a relatively small number of patients and the study would need to be repeated in a larger trial before we could be certain of the results.”
A woman’s fertility is known to be affected by a number of factors including her age, weight, alcohol consumption, whether she smokes.
High levels of stress and even drinking too much coffee have also been shown to reduce the chances of falling pregnant.
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