Northern California Fertility Medical Center, Inc.

Hello Ines and Christoph:

Yes, we do offer egg donation and have a very active program with our own donors (approximately 50) to choose from.

We are very happy to work with couples from outside the United States and have had the opportunity to do so with several couples already, including one couple from Germany.

When we work with couples from a long distance, we try to do as much as possible with their local physicians and thus limit the amount of time they need to spend here. Generally, I would plan on them being here for ten days to two weeks though that might be shortened somewhat depending on the capabilities of their own local physician(s) and their willingness to participate in the process.

Our preference is to culture embryos to the blastocyst stage (5 days after the egg retrieval). In that circumstance, we prefer to transfer two embryos. As you can see on our website, our success rate (clinical pregnancies per embryo transfer) is close to 60% for egg donation treatment cycles and our high multiple rate (rate of triplets or more) is acceptably low.

We do hatching in some circumstances (mostly in older patients doing IVF with their own eggs) but not with blastocyst transfers and very rarely in egg donation cycles.

Fortunately, we don't have a waiting list at this time because we have a very efficient staff and plenty of egg donors to choose from. On occasion, we reach the maximum number of IVF cycles we can accommodate in one week (or in one month) and thus need to shift some couples into the next month. That has happened to us only once or twice.

The cost of an egg donation cycle is just under  $20,000 US if a couple has a donor to themselves (and thus receives all of her eggs). If a couple shares a donor with another couple (and we make all of the arrangements for sharing), the cost is $10,750 US for each couple. We also have a refund program (approximately $23,000 per cycle) in which a portion of the monies (approximately $10,500) is refunded if no pregnancy is achieved. Some couples prefer this option as a hedge against failure.

We don't have anyone who speaks German but I'm sure that could be arranged if necessary. Certainly, everyone speaks English and we have several Spanish speakers as well.

Thank you for your interest in our program. If I can send you any additional information, please let me know.

Dr. Gilland

Website: www.ncfmc.com/eggdsu.htm