Frozen donor eggs from Cryos must be thawed, fertilized, and cultured at a fertility clinic, before being transferred to the woman who will hopefully become pregnant and carry the baby. At Cryos we have a high success rate regarding donor eggs, and we are happy to offer you our Cryos Donor Egg Guarantee regarding a successful development of the donor eggs after fertilization.
What is the Cryos Donor Egg Guarantee?
If you qualify for the Cryos Donor Egg Guarantee, and a minimum of six oocytes have been delivered to your fertility clinic, Cryos guarantees that treatment with the donor eggs will result in:
- One high-quality blastocyst (and possibly more)
- OR a pregnancy from embryos that have not reached the blastocyst stage by day 5.
If these parameters are not met, we will replace six oocytes one time free of charge. If the culture does not result in a blastocyst on day 5, but viable embryos less than the blastocyst stage are available, a transfer must take place for the guarantee to be in effect.
Who qualifies for the Cryos Donor Egg Guarantee?
Many factors affect the possibility of achieving pregnancy during fertility treatment with donor eggs. The Cryos Donor Egg Guarantee is meant as a help for you if a donor’s eggs appear not to live up to our high-quality standards. Before we can offer you the Cryos Donor Egg Guarantee, we therefore need to make sure that any failed attempts to achieve pregnancy cannot be traced back to the sperm quality or the fertility clinic’s handling of the donor eggs.
That is why we require that the fertility treatment takes place at a Cryos reference clinic, and that the sperm used to fertilize the donor eggs meets certain criteria on the day of the sperm thaw. We will also need to know if there is anything in your medical history that could affect the chances of the egg developing into an embryo, and any previous tests of your partner’s or sperm donor’s sperm quality must seem favorable. Finally, to qualify for the Cryos Donor Egg Guarantee, you must have at least 6 donor eggs delivered to your fertility clinic.
Why does Cryos offer this guarantee?
We understand that going through fertility treatment takes up energy and resources, and we want to offer you some comfort and support during the process. At Cryos, we have a dedicated focus on quality assurance, and our top priority is to ensure high-quality products and safe processes – all the way from donor screening to the fertility clinic’s handling of the donor eggs in your treatment. On average, most clients purchasing six donor eggs from Cryos will end up with more than one high-quality embryo. With our egg guarantee, we hope to give you peace of mind and reassurance of your success with Cryos donor eggs. Learn more about our success rates with donor eggs and how we screen our egg donors.
Criteria to qualify for the Cryos Egg Guarantee
- The fertility treatment must take place at a Cryos reference clinic.
- An order of minimum 6 donor eggs from Cryos must be purchased and delivered to the fertility clinic.
- The sperm used in the fertility treatment must contain a minimum of 5 million total motile (active) sperm cells with a morphology of 2% or higher (Kruger strict criteria). If you purchase donor sperm from Cryos, this equals 2xMOT5 or 1xMOT10 straw or higher. The sperm will be checked at the time of the egg warming/sperm thaw (prior to ICSI) to verify that it meets the required criteria.
- The sperm may not have been retrieved through surgical procedures that require MESA, TESE or TESA (methods of sperm retrieval procedures).
- Any history of sperm quality tests (like aneuploidy test, DNA fragmentation test, etc.) must provide favourable results.
- Any history of clinical or embryological significance may be requested for review.
From Oocytes to Blastocyst stage – developing eggs for fertility treatment
Donor eggs are retrieved from the donor’s ovaries during ovulation. At this stage, the eggs are referred to as Oocytes, and it is at this stage that the eggs are frozen and stored at our egg bank. Here we will keep them safe until they are delivered to the fertility clinic.
During fertility treatment with frozen donor eggs, the oocytes are thawed and fertilized with sperm. They will then be placed in an incubator and cultured for 5-6 days. The oocytes will then hopefully develop into blastocysts, which is the beginning stage of an embryo. If you want to learn more about embryos and their part in pregnancy, then follow the link to our blog post What is an embryo and how is it related to pregnancy?.
At the blastocyst stage, the egg can be transferred and placed into the uterus. From there, the embryo will hopefully stick and result in a pregnancy, which will show on a pregnancy test two weeks later. If an egg reaches the blastocyst stage before transfer, there is a higher chance of pregnancy. However, not all fertilized eggs develop into blastocysts at all, and transfer of viable embryos that have not reached the blastocyst stage can also take place with success.
Contact us to find a Cryos reference clinic
At Cryos we are ready to help you get started with donor eggs. You can book a free call or contact us to learn more about your possibilities and to find a reference clinic near you.
If you have already found a clinic, you can proceed to our free Egg Donor Search or learn how to choose an egg donor.