The compensation for an egg donation cycle is $10,000 for each cycle, regardless of how many eggs we retrieve. If you chose to stop mid-cycle for any reason, you will receive partial compensation for the days that you used medications.

The process begins with your egg donor application and is followed by an interview and preliminary screening (including blood work, ultrasound, and family history). After the screening has been completed and you have been chosen as an egg donor, you will begin taking oral contraceptive pills to prepare your body for an egg donation cycle.

An egg donation cycle takes around 2 weeks and involves self-administering hormonal injections to produce multiple eggs in 1 month. During the cycle, you can expect to visit the office 5-7 times within 2 weeks to monitor your progress.  If you do not live near NYC, some of these visits can be done closer to home at an outside monitoring facility.  Once our physicians decide that your eggs are ready, you will trigger ovulation with an injection and your egg retrieval will be performed 36 hours later.

On the day of the retrieval, an anesthesiologist will administer medication through an IV, which will put you to sleep but you will breathe on your own.  The procedure lasts around 10-15 minutes and we require you to stay in our recovery room for about 1 hour.  Following the procedure, we require you to be picked up by someone and rest for the remainder of the day.  You may feel sore for a couple days after the retrieval, but most patients return to regular daily activities the following day.   

According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) guidelines, you can donate up to 6 times in your life. At GNF Egg Donation, we require each donation to be at least 3 months apart.

Yes. If you elect to remain anonymous throughout the egg donation process, the recipient(s) as well as future offspring will not receive any identifying information about you. However, they will see your donor profile, which includes characteristics about you.

Each month, women have many eggs in their ovaries but generally, only one egg develops.

In an egg donation cycle, we aim to retrieve 15-20 eggs. These additional eggs are not taken from future cycles. Instead, we grow and retrieve the eggs that would not otherwise develop. Therefore, you will not go into premature menopause and it will not be harder for you to get pregnant. Egg donation has not been shown to have any long-term adverse effects on fertility.

During an egg donation cycle, you are more fertile. After the egg retrieval, your fertility status will begin to return to a normal state.

Leading up to the egg retrieval and shortly after, you may experience some discomfort, including: bloating, weight gain, moodiness, spotting, and/or abdominal cramping/pelvic discomfort. The discomfort level is like a menstrual cycle for some women. After the egg retrieval, we recommend resting for the rest of the day and returning to normal activity the following day. For our donors who travel to NYC for egg retrieval, we require a short stay in NYC, for which the costs will be covered. Within 10-14 days after retrieval, most donors get a menstrual period, which may be heavier than usual, and by the following menstrual cycle, your body should be back to normal.

Egg retrieval is performed under ultrasound guidance. However, there remains a small risk of injury, bleeding and/or infection to the surrounding tissue or organs. To minimize this risk, we give all patients and donors a course of antibiotics beginning the day before egg retrieval. Another risk associated with egg donation is ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS). When OHSS occurs the ovaries become enlarged and fluid may collect in the abdominal cavity. OHSS can cause bloating, weight gain, and severe pelvic pain. In the most severe cases, OHSS can require hospitalization. However, we monitor our donors very closely to ensure their safety. Finally, some studies have shown a link between some ovulation drugs and an increased risk of ovarian cancer. But, this area of research is ongoing, and more recent studies suggest that this is not a risk.

Once you begin your egg donation cycle, you need to abstain from sexual intercourse, strenuous activity (including exercise), and alcohol for that month. You will visit our office a total of 8-10 times, with most visits occurring in the mornings within the two weeks prior to egg retrieval.

The fertility medications are injectables, meaning that you will need to self-administer daily injections for around 2 weeks. We will provide you with all the medications that you need for the egg donation cycle. The injections are administered in the lower abdomen and are equated to a pinching feeling. Before beginning the process, the GNF Egg Donation team member will teach you how to self-inject safely and will be available to answer any questions that arise throughout the process.

If you are on oral contraceptive pills, we will need you to stop taking them in to complete the pre-screening process. However, we often use oral contraceptive pills in the time between the screening and the start of the stimulation medications. If you have a non-hormonal IUD, we can complete an egg donation cycle without removing the device.

Yes. The requirements to become an egg donor are:

• 21- 29 years old
• BMI of <30
• Non-nicotine user
• Have regular menstrual cycles
• Physically & emotionally healthy
• Not currently using injectable birth control
• No family history of inheritable genetic disorders
• Able to attend frequent office visits for 2 weeks

Yes, or a valid work permit. Donors are compensated in the form of income and must fill out a w9 form.