Donor Eggs for Canadians in New York City

Egg donor program in New York City offers a quick, anonymous alternative to donor IVF in Canada

A markedly increased number of Canadian patients have contacted the Center for Human Reproduction (CHR) in New York City in recent years, because of its unique egg donation program. CHR's program is a unique egg donor program in the US, offering, likely, the largest and most diverse egg donor pool anywhere in the world. The program is, however, especially relevant to Canadian patients because legal circumstances in the U.S. differ significantly from those in Canada, and, therefore, allow us to offer not only great choice of donor eggs for Canadians but also immediate access to an excellent donor. To summarize, here are the distinguishing features of our Standard Egg Donation Program:

  • Immediate matching: Our donors are immediately available. There is no waiting list.
  • Large, diverse egg donor pool: Our center's large egg donor database contains egg donors of most ethnicities/religions, so that you, undoubtedly, will find a donor who closely matches you.
  • Rigorous screening process: The center's donors are rigorously screened, going even beyond the strict screening requirements of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the supervising government body for egg donation in the U.S.
  • Extensive information: You will receive extensive information about your donor, including photographs and/or short videos.
  • The responsibility is yours! You will be the person ultimately in charge of selecting your donor, and you will be able to make your choice based on thorough knowledge of our egg donor candidates.
  • Complete anonymity: Our program guarantees anonymity to donor and recipient, though on rare occasions, if so desired by donor and recipient, we also perform so-called "open" or "directed" donations, where both parties void their anonymity voluntarily.
  • Convenience: Because a large proportion of CHR's patients are long-distance patients from outside the larger New York City area (both from within the United States, Canada and overseas), we know how to manage the logistics and stress of such long-distance relationships. Most of your preparatory steps will, under our supervision, be arranged at an IVF center near your home. You will have to come to New York City just once, and only for a few short days for the entire egg donor IVF cycle.
  • Selection: Recipients can view and preliminarily select their donors from our online egg donor database.

Two different donor egg options

CHR offers two distinctively different donor egg programs: (I) The Standard Donor Egg Program (SDEP), as already described above, and (II) the so-called Eco-Donor Egg Program (EcoDEP). In the standard donor egg program, recipients receive fresh donor eggs, while in the EcoDEP they receive donor eggs previously retrieved and frozen, which then are thawed and fertilized with sperm once selected by a recipient. In both programs, our center offers immediately available donor eggs.

These two options have advantages and disadvantages and, therefore, also carry very different costs. For more detail, please refer to our EcoDEP frozen donor egg page.

How the process works

Standard Donor Egg Program (SDEP)
To view egg donors in our SDEP, please register here. You can search our extensive egg donor database and submit your egg donor "wish list."

After identifying up to three egg donors of interest, our patients usually initiate the formal consultation process with a telephone consultation with one of our fertility specialist physicians. Matching generally happens within a few short days, as most of our donors are immediately available, though some may be in donation cycles, or in the waiting period after a donation cycle.

Once a "match" has been completed, all the pre-testing for the recipients can usually be done locally in Canada. We will set up a collaborating IVF center near where you live, and this center will coordinate the preparatory steps, under our supervision. The donor will be managed at our center. Her eggs are retrieved and fertilized with sperm, from partner or donor, depending on a patient's social circumstances. As a recipient, you have to come to New York City for only a few short days.

Eco-Donor Egg Program (EcoDEP)
This program offers a smaller range of donor choices. A list of a limited number of donor eggs available for the EcoDEP can be viewed here.

After choosing a donor, like in the standard donor egg program, most Canadian patients start the consultation process with a telephone consultation with one of our physicians. This is followed by pre-testing and cycle start at a local IVF center in Canada, again under our center's supervision. When the recipient's uterus is ready for embryo transfer, five (5) frozen donor eggs are thawed and fertilized with partner/donor sperm. Again, recipients need to be in New York City for just a few short days.

Conveniences of a comprehensive infertility center

Everything a patient may need from a fertility center is, at CHR, available under one roof. This is for many patients an additional reason to choose CHR. For example, patients undergoing egg donation cycles may also be eligible for elective gender selection through IVF and PGD. Others select CHR because of the center's expertise with most difficult and/or complicated cases of infertility. For example, women who suffer from inadequately thin endometrium will, even with use of donor eggs, have a problem conceiving, unless properly and successfully treated. Whatever the clinical needs, CHR, likely, can help.

CHR has been working with many patients from outside of our immediate New York tri-state area. In fact, nearly a half of the patients who come for fertility treatment in New York at CHR nowadays are "long-distance patients," looking to benefit from our special expertise in treating complex cases of infertility, as well as our large and diverse donor egg program. Through this experience, we have developed ways to minimize travel needs for long-distance patients. You can read about the basic treatment logistics for long-distance patients here.

For further information about our Canadian egg donation programs, or with further specific questions, please contact us.

Last Updated: September 28, 2012