I donated three of my remaining embryos in 2022 after a very complicated and dangerous pregnancy with my daughter. We selected to have a semi-open option because I wanted them to have a chance to know about us and vice versa. I am coming upon the two year anniversary of their adoption and so many questions are lingering in my brain. I’m wondering if it is likely that the embryos never made it or that the recipient(s) may have decided they were not comfortable with the arrangement? I will always wonder about how they are doing or if they ever made it even and part of me regrets not selecting a fully open process just so that I could stop my brain from going down the what-if rabbit hole. Is this something anyone here has experienced ever? I need perspective.

TW: Success

This is my first Reddit post. Been a lurker for years, simply because someone always seems to have asked the question I want an answer to.

My husband (M55) and I (F45) are white. We were donated embryos from a couple in Mexico, where the eggs were donated anonymously and the sperm was from the husband, who is of African descent. We went to Mexico to do the transfer and ended up living there for almost (6) months. The transfer didn’t work and there were no more embryos from that couple, as we transferred all (3). Immediately, we knew we wanted to try again.

Fast forward another month and we transferred (2) 3bb embryos from another anonymous couple, donated through the clinic. No legal paperwork, no hassle, just “here you go, these are yours now!”. It worked! We are cautiously excited and haven’t told family and friends yet, obviously.

Anyway, anyone here in a similar situation? Mid forties? Transracial embryos? Anonymous donors? FET abroad? Success?

Hello folks, tl;dr We're done creating our family and thinking of donating remaining tested embryos, about 11 that are currently at RMA. Can people share their experience with the process?

Orgs: It seems that NEDC, Embryo Connections, Embryo Solutions, Snowflakes/Nightlight and Moxi accept embryos or do matching, while RSC, California Conceptions and Donor Nexus talk about using donating embryos but don't have a portal for someone who wants to donate. Any that are more/less trustworthy and easy to deal with? NEDC seems most thorough at website glance. I have read every post here as well, but not fully sure which agency is the best to work with. Editing to add NRFA as a consideration since many posts have that. Pros and cons of private match via FB group vs agency?

Time/commitment: It seems that one can't be compensated for donating, and we're not looking for compensation. We're assuming it wouldn't cost us much monetarily, is that correct to assume (saw a post about optional lawyer fees)? We're happy to put in time for paperwork and providing info, but it would be great to have an estimate of how long the process will be if anyone knows. It seems that the process itself may be as quick as a month, to upto 4 months if we have our documents in order? And active time is a few hours (10-15 max) filling out forms?

Splitting: Would it make sense to share these with say two families, instead of one? Do clinics/agencies allow this? For folks who donated to two or more families (I read 5 in one post), do you do this one after the other or concurrently, and how many do you offer to each recipient?

Misc: In case more context is useful, we're an Indian origin couple, 29f and 32m at the time of embryo creation, both with higher ed from coveted institutes (for lack of better words, since some people care about this when accepting), and mostly great health. We're open to anonymous as well as non-anon donation. Any advice is useful, even if we haven't asked that question here. Thank you! 

Husband and I have one embryo in cryofreeze that we wish to donate, preferably to an individual or couple in the southern CA area. We prefer an open or semi-open adoption. I am a white/causasian female with light brown hair and blue eyes, 5 ft 8 tall, 135-140 lbs weight with English/Irish/German/French/Norwegian ancestry. My husband was born in Ecuador and is 50/50 Ecuadorian/Chilean. He is 5'11 and about 180-90 lbs. Once we have connected, I am happy to share photos. Embryo has not been tested. We began our IVF journey in our early 40's, then I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's, so I have opted not to attempt pregnancy because I am unable to carry. We have chosen another path. Only serious inquires please. Looking to come to an agreement/arrangement by the end of the year (Dec. 2024). Thank you & best of luck to all!

Just curious as to why we would need or want a lawyer for embryo donation. We found a recipient for our embryos and decided we would transfer embryos to her. We are filling out the paperwork with CNY to transfer but notices they stated in their message that we may want to get a lawyer and they had some they could recommend on their website if needed. I don't have a lot of expectations- I just want to know if any babies are born but don't require any updates... but would welcome them if the intended parent was comfortable giving them. I know a lot of people feel one way then change their minds or life gets in the way of doing things. I'm wondering if anyone has experience and what exactly the lawyer does in this situation. I'm not asking for any reimbursement for storage fees- we paid and kept the embryos until we decided we were done expanding our family. Depending on the cost- the only thing we may ask for reimbursement for is the cost of the fda blood testing.

We are on our THIRD donor, since the first 2 donors yielded no embryos. At ALL! We got 7 high quality blasts out of 9 eggs we bought (8 fertilized), and ALL are high quality day 5 AB, and proven donors, but we already failed w/ the first one. Untested because the donors are 29/30 and have 7 pregnancies attached to them. Between their own and donating.

Anyway, I cannot imagine going through 6 MORE FETs, I have already failed several times with my own eggs which were tested. So please, no more testing talk. They still fail 40% of the time. Anyway, so next FET is #4 total. Transferring a Day 5 3AB (we have several of this grade).

I am starting to think I might be the problem. Been tested 8 ways from Sunday, tried Lupron depot, got a Lap. Nothing works. Cannot afford a surrogate and not allowed to transfer 2.

Hello! We have just had our first FET with embryo donation and I have my pregnancy test on Friday. I tried to hold back, but of course I gave in and took 2 pregnancy tests, both completely negative.

I’m curious about the experience of others who have done multiple tries at this. We are on Shady Grove’s shared risk program, which includes up to 6 tries (that sounds like a lot now just having gone through one, yikes). I’m wondering…can I just keep up the med routine and try to reserve another embryo right away? Or does my body need to reset like it did when we tried more traditional IVF/egg retrievals?

Thank you!

I've made the decision to try to get pregnant by embryo donation, early next year. I've picked my clinic and have all of the information I need. The only issue concerning me is the chance of giving birth to twins, or even triplets.

The clinic recommend implanting two embryos for a better chance at conceiving and due to my age (45) it might be better, too. I'm alone, I have only myself and I wouldn't be able to handle more than one. Anyone have thoughts on this? I don't know what I'm hoping for with this post, but any thoughts welcome, thanks 🙂

If anyone did semi-open or open donation and used lawyers to write and review a contract, how long did that part of the process take for you?

I have a long list of questions for our consultation scheduled in two weeks. One question I wanted to ask here :

Does transracial embryo adoption occur? If so, is it rare? Seems people have an issue with transracial embryo adoption. (Not sure if that is a general consensus in the embryo adoption realm.) I have already seen two posts where people said "Transracial embryo adoption is unethical" and "Make sure you get matched with a donor who shares your race." My husband is white and I am black. We are very open to adopting a white embryo. (Even if one of us isn't white...)

Hi all—

My husband and I are embarking on embryo adoption. I know that this forum is for donation, so I hope it’s okay that I post here. I thought you all might have some perspectives and experiences with the various agencies.

We have spoken with Snowflake, Cedar Park, and Embryo Connection and see pros and cons to each. Does anyone have personal experience (good, bad, indifferent) with these agencies that they would be willing to share?

Thank you in advance!!

(And thank you all for donating embryos. The scope of that gift and what it means for a family that couldn’t otherwise have a baby is so huge. I am in awe at the generosity.)

I have a feeling I’m going to be an older parent when I feel more ready to be one, so embryo adoption is a process I am interested in. I would definitely want to keep the child open about it. I’d never want them to feel upset about it. I would want to choose a family similar to mine if possible, how do you go about finding a fit?

Hi all,

I found out about my embryo adoption recently as an adult. My parents had planned never to tell me, so it was quite a shock. I’d like to share some advice from my perspective on how to reduce adoptee-trauma in your children. I think that if embryo adoption is done in the right way, children can grow to see it as a normal instead of a cause for distress.

Select a donor that is 100% committed to an open adoption. You will never want your child to wonder about their origins, what their bio family is like, whether they have siblings, or any of the questions of self-identity that haunt adoptees. I would feel much differently about my embryo adoption if I had been raised with my bio parents in my life, even in a distant capacity.

Let go of the idea that you are “rescuing” embryos, and don’t discuss embryo adoption in terms of saviorism. It was hurtful, for example, when my mom told me that my embryo was “going to be thrown away like garbage” had she not intervened. She also likened my embryo adoption to rescuing a shelter dog that would otherwise be euthanized. If my embryo had been destroyed or lost in the thawing process, as were most of my bio parents’ embryos, I wouldn’t have known nor cared. Embryo adoption is about the wants of recipients to become parents, and has little to do with the imagined, projected “wishes” of embryos.

Select a donor that shares your ethnicity, or be committed to raise your child in their genetic culture. I am Jewish and never knew, despite people telling me I looked Jewish all my life. I feel that I missed out on being a part of my own heritage and history. I wish that I was raised with a knowledge of the Jewish culture and religion, and I would have absolutely loved spending Jewish holidays with my bio family.

Tell your child about their adoption as early as possible. I think that if I had known all along, there would have been very little trauma in the identity of being an embryo-adoptee. However, the trauma of realizing that my parents lied to me about something as fundamental as my very identity; that is something that I may never get over. I feel like I was created to be an adoptee by people who had no clue how damaging it is to have your self-concept eroded so suddenly. Don’t do that to your kid.

If circumstances allow, give your child a genetic sibling or facilitate their relationship with their bio siblings. I can’t express how helpful it was for me to have a genetic mirror with my sister. We looked like no one else in the family, but we looked like each other. When I discovered my adoption, I realized that I didn’t know a single person in my entire life that was genetically related to me, except for her. Thank god for that. We alone can understand and process this situation together, and we are such a resource to each other. I deeply wish I could have had such a relationship with my other bio siblings from my donor family.

I’m happy to answer any questions you folks have.

Hello, I'm just getting started on an IVF journey and I need donor eggs. It's going to cost 11-19 thousand for 6 eggs depending on the bank. I'm curious about adopting embryos. If you have adopted or donated, how was your experience with that? How much did it cost to adopt?

HI everyone! I'm producing a series of videos for donor-conceived kids to learn how to understand and explain donor conception. Episode #2 is about embryo donation. Thought some here might enjoy sharing it with their children. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeCcX0TD4Pk&t=11s

We have seven Frozen embryos and are possibly interested in donating them. The more I think about it the more ambivalent I feel about it. On one hand we have three perfectly wonderful beautiful children born through IVF and it breaks my heart thinking about how we still have seven embryos and I can't possibly have any more children. The potential for these embryos to be these sweet babies I know they can be, their fate is they'll either continue to stay frozen or will be donated. I know these embryos could make another couple's dreams come true.

I'm sad when I think about these embryos never having an opportunity to live their life. I'm sad when I think about someone else raising my biological children. But then I'm happy when I think about somebody else being able to provide a life for them that I'm not going to be able to provide for them. I think an open adoption or at least a semi open adoption is the only way I could move forward with the adoption process. But then I wonder when I get photos of the baby and them growing up is it going to break my heart seeing someone else raise my baby? Will I feel grateful that they have this opportunity?

Also I should note that the state that my embryos are in will not discard them. For that to be an option we would have to pay for them to be shipped to another state that will do so. It also breaks my heart thinking about discarding them and not giving them the opportunity to live their life. My feelings are all over the place despite thinking about this for the last 2 years. I lean towards wanting to donate them but I feel like I would really like to hear what other parents have felt after an open the adoption. Are you happy that you moved forward with it? Do you regret any part of it?

If anyone could help give me some insight into our dilemma I would greatly appreciate it. My husband and I have been married since 2009. Shortly after our wedding I was diagnosed with a condition and told we should not have children because I could become bed-bound. After several years we learned that more available data suggested that pregnancy was not a major concern and so we began attempting to build a family. After a few years of unsuccessful attempts, we pursued our options at a fertility clinic and succeeded in producing 2 healthy male embryos. Our first did not survive thaw, but our second did, and we are now a happy family of 3. We have since attempted 2 more rounds of IVF without success in producing any viable embryos. Last December we began the process of embryo donation and have since been matched with a wonderful couple who have 4 children and have offered us their 3 remaining embryos. While we are wildly excited for this possibility in expanding our family, we are not naive to the repercussions to all parties involved. We understand the complexity for the child that could be born of this decision We are sincerely concerned about our son and the impact this may have on him. The child we would conceive via this process would have at least 4 full biological siblings, but our son would have none. We believe that family is what you make it, and any child we have would be treated the same, but we understand there are complexities that we cannot account for until the children are older and can make decisions for themselves. Does anyone have advice on this matter? Or any reflections on how it has impacted their biological child? While we would love to have another child, we do not need to do so at the cost of our other child’s mental health. My Husband and I are both INFJs and I think that lends us to overthinking. I never want my son to feel he wasn’t enough, and I never want him to feel alone. I am almost 42, so it is a difficult position to navigate. I have done extensive reading from the donor-conceived community, so please believe I have all parties interests involved…and deeply. If we don’t accept these embryos, someone else will, so please know that we feel deeply the responsibility that has been given to us.

Hi all! Thanks in advance for reading and responding. I have a POI diagnosis and my partner and I have decided to go straight for an FET with a donor embryo. My original RE's clinic doesn't have embryos available so I had to find a different Dr/Clinic. My first appointment is next week and they've said I'll need a basic US the first appt and a saline US as well. For those who used their clinic's own program could you share the timeline from initial appt to transfer? My partner and I are moving out of state in mid-December so trying to figure out if we can realistically get an FET done before moving or if we'll need to find another clinic etc after we move.

Hi there! Anyone know of clinics in Boston that will work with a patient that has a donated embryo? I’m currently at CCRM and they don’t want anything to do with embryo adoption/donation. I have an appointment with FCNE to see their stance on it. I’m just wondering if there are any others out there from Massachusetts who found an embryo donor and what their experience was. Do I need to go to a clinic out of state? That sounds messy with insurance. Any help appreciated!

My husband and I decided to do IVF for our second child as we were unable to get pregnant naturally (sperm count issues). 2 children is all we wanted and I fell pregnant on the first transfer. We are looking to donate our remaining embryos - we have 8 day 5 blasts of different grades. My question is will even the lower grade (3bb and 3bc) be accepted to a donor agency? And will we be able to donate as our son has celiac disease and my spouse is a carrier of the gene for celiac? We are not to our knowledge carriers of any other genetic issues that we have been tested for through our clinic or through 33 and me. Thanks!

We are working through the process of donating our 2 remaining embryos now that our family is complete and I am really wrestling with what level of contact/knowledge of any resulting children I would prefer. We are working with an agency and our options seem to be Donor ID Disclosure, Semi-Open, Low Open and High Open. For those of you that have donated embryos or received embryos what did you choose and how has that experience been? Would you change anything in hindsight?

I've read through many past threads so I apologize if this feels like it is a topic that has been covered, guess I'm just looking for dialogue as I think through the choices.

Anyone have advice? I am in the east coast and would like to donate my unused frozen eggs but don’t know how to go about doing this. The hospital they are frozen at has offered very little advice.

Sooooo there's a donor family who is interested in us and we have already chatted a little bit via Facebook Messenger. We plan on doing a Zoom meeting later this month to get a feel of each other's personalities. We are both seeking a semi-open relationship. Can you maybe tell me what to expect during a Zoom meeting like this and help me come up with more questions to ask the donors? What kinds of questions should we expect from the donors?

Roughly 6-7 years ago I donated my eggs through three different rounds to three different couples. I was young and at that time in my life I truly had no desire to have any children of my own and wanted to do something good. Yes, there was a financial benefit as well, but I believed I was helping these couples. I still do think it was a good thing. However, from the donor’s side of things it was less than ideal. I had OHSS after my first round and didn’t want to donate again, but was in a way guilted into it by the fertility liaison.

I met my husband around this time and he has always known from the start. He also never wanted to have children and this was something we felt strongly about until a little over a year ago. We recently had our first child and it didn’t occur to me that my past donations would result in half siblings. I know that sounds ignorant, but for so many years I didn’t think about it too much. I don’t view those donated eggs as my kids. They have my genetics, but especially after having my child it gives me a new found respect for all of the things parents have to do to keep a human alive. So in my eyes and heart, the couples that grow, birth, and raise the potential offspring are most certainly the parents. However, when it finally hit me that my children will grow up and possibly have half siblings I decided to reach out to the clinics and the agency as I am entitled to know of any live births. I was only able to discover one known half sibling that is 4-5 years old from the first donation. The agency refuses to return my calls and the clinic where the second and third donation took place cannot give me any info. So I won’t know of any others.

This information has rocked my world. Again, I don’t think of that other child as mine, but I am not naive enough to believe that our kids will never find out about each other with the DNA kits and whatnot. My husband and I have agreed that we will tell our children (we intend on having more) about my egg donations and that there is at least one known half sibling when we feel the time is right.

Emotionally it feels very strange. Because there’s a part of me that exists and I can’t do anything about it. All parents required anonymity. I think it would be natural for those children to want to know about their biological relatives. But I never told my family and we’ve never told my husband’s family. It’s not a dark secret, pretty much every other person in our life knows about this. My family simply wouldn’t understand and would definitely have the opinion that those kids are their grandchildren and that I am terrible for doing what I did. So I’m not quite sure how to share the news with them in the future. It isn’t something that needs to be share immediately because it’s not like I can open communication with the known child or the potential others. I just want to be as open and honest with my children as I can. I am in no way trying to search out that child to expose the truth about their conception. Moreso preparing myself for the possibility of them seeking more insight into their biological relatives.

Lastly, and I feel awful saying this, but it makes me feel like I cheated my children out of a normal life. They will have to come to terms with this unique situation and it wasn’t something I even thought about during that time in my life. Same goes for the donor conceived child. If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have done it. But that makes me feel like a monster too because that means at least one mom wouldn’t be experiencing the joys of motherhood like I am. And let me say, as a person that was adamant about not having children and ended up miscarrying twice before successfully meeting my little babe… I have never known a love greater. I’m just at a loss on how to feel emotionally.

My ex and I did IVF and got 7 healthy embryos. Right before implanting our relationship blew up. I struggled for 3 years to get those embryos and I wasn’t going to let them go to waste. I decided to donate all 7 embryos which were adopted by 2 different couples (4 for one and 3 for the other). One of the couples has a successful birth resulting in a baby boy in April. It’s a closed adoption but I chose to know the outcome of when the first one was successfully born. I’m so happy I was able to provide that happiness to another couple struggling because I’ve experienced the pain before.

I do wonder if when the children turn 18 if they’ll try to find me since they’ll have access to my number and email. I just want them to always see their parents as their true parents because all I did was provide the tools but they are the true parents. I have the option to close access to my info entirely and sometimes I wonder if doing that would be best.

Can anyone whose adopted embryos tell me how you feel about this topic? Is anyone just not telling their kids altogether they are an embryo?

Does anyone have any experience with the embryo recipient side? I have started looking into embryo adoption. I have signed up with Empower by Moxi and Embryo Connections. I have done the zoom with Connections and it was wonderful- but only get a match sent every 1-2 weeks. Moxi has 40 donors- you just have to pay to reach out. Just looking for any advice!! Thank you!!

Wanting to learn more about PGT testing and what it is, whether it’s worth it, and if it’s required to know the “grade” of the embryo?

Are there any risks to the embryo as they go through the PGT testing process?

Planning to freeze eggs / embryos at some point and unsure how many we would need to build out our family.

Just starting to look into this after my last failed IVF cycle. I started to fill out the profile and can’t articulate anything well for the questions, my mind feels jumbled from experiencing loss with our last transfer. I told my partner I want to start this right away given our ages but he is the “let’s talk about it some more” person who doesn’t want to just jump into it. I feel overwhelmed with the process and understanding the legalities of it. I feel like a charity case even though I should t feel this way. I worry we wouldn’t get selected for some reason or it will take even longer. How do you calm your anxiety with all of this?

Has anyone considering embryo donation struggled with the idea that baby won’t share any genes? I’ve done 4 rounds of IVF - round 1 yielded 1 embryo and successful pregnancy but she unfortunately passed at 34wks after a car accident. Round 2 brought 1 embryo - my now 2yr old son. The next two we got nothing. I have severe DOR and my AMH has plummeted since round one. We want to give my son a sibling but after these two failed rounds I’m considering donation. I just struggle a little cause everyone says how my son looks just like me and his unique features that my husband and my genes created. It’s essentially making me mourn the loss of my daughter all the more since they both look similar. Anyone else have these thoughts?