How you can choose your donor yourself
You can choose your egg donor
from the Donor Data Base
AVA-Peter has started anonymous individual egg donation Since 1998. The egg donor matching was performed by a doctor for a patient according to the patient’s looks and the doctor’s experience. The full amount of medical, social and psychological information about each donor including her photos of course was available to the AVA-Peter Clinic and its doctors. But the information disclose to the patient contained only the donor’s age, blood group, colours, height and weight.
I have joined AVA-Peter in 2004. During the last 10 years I have talked to hundreds of potential egg donor recipients. These conversations often took hours and have never been easy. The need for egg donation itself is a huge blow which strikes any woman who cannot conceive otherwise. My patients have shared with me their concerns and worries and one of the major issues seemed to be the donor herself. Who is she? How does she looks? What she is doing? Why has she become a donor? The uncertainty about an egg donor as a person leaves a lot of space for thinking out new concerns and new worries. So we have asked our donors to disclose more data to potential recipients: their family situation, children, education, occupation, interests, character traits. Still it was not enough.
Not only potential egg donation recipients were asking questions about their future egg donor trying to find out more atop of a short summary they were given within the Matched donor Programme (age, blood group, height, weight, colours, family situation, education, occupation, interests, character traits). Also happy parents of healthy children conceived via egg donation were highly interested in receiving “as much as possible information about their egg donor”. Some of them were preparing a special book to tell the child. Some of them did not plan to tell at all but wanted to have a suggestion in which direction to develop the child: music, arts, science. etc.
Finally in 2013 we have established a wonderful new information resource which we have called the Egg Donor Data Base from IDEAS. The IDEAS is an abbreviation for Internationa Egg Donor Agency St. Petersburg, which belongs to AVA network. At the same time IDEAS contains more than 120 ideas about each egg donor. It presents medical, genetic, social and psychological information about each egg donor as well as several photos in her age under 10. There are such big important aspects as description of the family tree and the motivation essay, but also many small and even “silly” questions, which all together create a very clear picture about the donor’s character, values, emotional and behavioral area. And of course the donor’s photos in the age under 10 complete the picture from both optical and emotional points of view. I am happy that within Russian legislation it is possible to present as much as possible information about an egg donor still leaving her identity untouched. You can see an example of such a donor profile here
To be able to maintain such a serious resource as an Egg Donor Data Base, to make it live and work it was very important to recruit very reliable and loyal egg donors, who would agree to disclose a good amount of information about themselves including photos and who would be ready to live in close contact to the Clinic so that they start with preparing for donation as soon as they are chosen. Hence only donors who have donated before and who are known as kind and reliable persons were invited to participate in the data base. To increase patients’ chances the IDEAS has invited the donors whose donation has resulted in ongoing pregnancy and delivery. We also paid special attention that the donors invited for participation in the Data Base are good looking and educated young women, who devote a lot of time not only to their personal development but also to bringing up and developing their own child/children. Potential Data base participants agree to disclose the requested multiple details and undergo a detailed 2 hour interview with our professional coordinator to present them. All this data still leaves the identity of an egg untouched but at the same time provides a very clear impression about each egg donor as a person. You can see an example of such a donor profile here
The donor profiles provide such a clear picture about each egg donor, that mostly my patients know exactly which egg donor they prefer. As soon they can recognize a donor resembling them in optical and/or social/psychological aspects, they can see a person behind this anonymous donation procedure and feel more reassured and confident to continue. Just fill in the form to receive your free access and make your search. As soon as you have found the donor you feel comfortable with, please e-mail us the specific ID and we agree with the donor the timing of donation and arrange the procedure.
If you would like to choose your donor yourself but also prefer to use my advice and expertize within this process, I recommend to choose several options and to send the IDs to me together with several photos of yours (current and in your 20-s- 30s) so that I can double-check the optical resemblance between two adults and also confirm a donation history.
If you would like to distance yourself from the process of the donor selection I am happy to match a donor to you the way I practice it since 2004. For our Matched Donor Programme we will use AVA-Peter’s Egg Donor Bank, which contains detailed optical, medical, social and psychological information about our egg donors, which remains medical secrecy. To the future recipient these egg donors, who have agreed to disclose only a limited amount of information: age, blood group, colours, height and weight, family situation, children, education, occupation, interests, character traits.
During the matching process we will use all this available information and our personal impression about each egg donor whom we have an opportunity to meet personally during our daily work: interviews, consultations, medical tests.
Whether you prefer to choose your egg donor yourself or to ask us to match the donor to you, please fill in the form. We will have a phone meeting at our convenience to discuss and agree the next steps. Please make sure you have read all the details about egg donation at www.avapeter.com and at www.dr-zaytseff.com before our phone meeting