No question is insignificant when you begin this journey.
We are here to help you understand the process and feel informed.
Donor Eggs: If you are selecting Premium Banked Donor eggs (notated with a snowflake icon), shipment typically take place within 3 weeks. If you select a donor that does not yet have banked eggs, it may take anywhere from 2-4 months to complete the retrieval and shipment process. We recommend not scheduling your procedures until after the eggs have arrived at your clinic.
Donor Sperm: Sperm vials can be shipped immediately after they have been released from our six months quarantine and retesting period.
The World Egg & Sperm Bank only recruits egg and sperm donors who reside within the United States and Canada.
Yes, blood type is listed on every donor’s full profile. In order to view the donor’s full profile, you will need to complete our registration.
Intended Parents base their decision on many different personal considerations but most look for a donor who is generally a good physical match to their overall family profile. Some doctors wish to review your donor’s information prior to your final selection. We can assist you with narrowing down your options. Contact us at Recipients@twesb.com if you need further assistance with your choice.
It depends on the options you choose. We offer options where you obtain all your eggs from the same donor as well as options where you can obtain eggs from different donors.
We control full end-to-end logistics — from donor recruitment to delivery — within a single, integrated facility operating under one set of enforceable standards. This is different from independent IVF clinics, “virtual banks,” aggregators, or websites that outsource to third-party affiliates.
We follow stringent guidelines and exercise meticulous oversight for our lab to ensure that all the donor eggs and sperm are labeled properly, and the correct donor gametes go to the correct Intended Parents. We have a detailed witnessing procedure to ensure that the gametes you have selected are the ones that you receive. We undertake numerous internal audits and meet all criteria outlined by numerous national and international regulatory agencies.
A mature egg has a single polar body. We do not freeze eggs with more than one polar body, large vacuoles, or are misshapen. We also do not freeze eggs that mature after retrieval or ones that are larger than a normal egg.
Pregnancy rates for fresh vs frozen eggs are very similar. For more information please read our full comparison of fresh vs frozen eggs here .
Good sperm come from healthy men with good sperm parameters of concentration, motility and morphology (shape).
If good sperm are frozen correctly, separated on a gradient column and not overly centrifuged, then frozen sperm produces just as good results as fresh sperm. For safety though, fresh donor sperm should never be used due to risks of sexually transmitted diseases. Donor sperm should be tested for diseases, quarantined (stored frozen) for at least 6 months and then retested. The sales of fresh donor sperm is prohibited by the FDA.
The World Egg & Sperm Bank offers guarantees based on your purchase options. Full description of guarantees can be seen here .
Our outcome measures reflect the variation among doctors, scientists, lab technicians, and practice skills that is present across all IVF centers. When we examine all clinics using our eggs the average pregnancy rate is approximately 50% from the first transfer of embryo(s) from the first cohort of eggs. Considering all the factors that go into a cycle and the variables beyond the control of The World Egg & Sperm Bank after they leave our laboratory, we believe this reflects a true probability of success. To see more about our pregnancy rates, click here.
Pregnancy rates with frozen sperm are heavily influenced by female factors such as age of the woman and patency of her tubes. Typical pregnancy rates using donor sperm for insemination are in the 15% range.
The World Egg & Sperm Bank reports pregnancy rates based on each egg thawing cycle. For example, if Patient A has one thawing cycle and becomes pregnant, and Patient B has one thawing cycle and fails to become pregnant, The World Egg & Sperm Bank would report the results of these two cycles as a 50% pregnancy rate. If Patient B obtained a second set of eggs from The World Egg & Sperm Bank and became pregnant with that set of eggs, The World Egg & Sperm Bank would report the results of these three-egg thawing cycles as a 67% pregnancy rate (two of three).
However, other egg banks often report the pregnancy rates on a per-patient basis (and not a per-cycle basis). This type of calculation is often categorized as a cumulative pregnancy rate. Using the example above, other egg banks may report a 100% pregnancy rate using this per-patient calculation (two of two patients became pregnant over the course of three cycles). When comparing statistics from different egg banks, one should confirm that the calculations are performed in the same manner. This way, the actual comparisons are fair and represent the real likelihood of pregnancy in each scenario.
There are no hidden charges. You pay for the donor eggs and/or donor sperm and shipping. However, remember that you must consider your doctor’s charges for your monitoring, medications, thawing, fertilization, embryo transfer, or any other procedures your doctor recommends for you.
It is best to discuss this with your physician but The World Egg & Sperm Bank has had many excellent results from fertilizing our eggs in our lab and shipping frozen embryos.
You have the option of obtaining additional eggs for a cost of $2,750 each for Premium Banked Donor Eggs and additional eggs for the Baby Bundle Discount for $1,750.
Most sperm banks offer three types of sperm preparation: ICI, IUI and IVF, using 40 year old, antiquated technology. In these sperm preparations, cryoprotectant is added to raw semen and frozen. Raw semen contains debris, including leukocytes, dead sperm and bacteria that the sperm is logged in at freezing.
The World Egg and Sperm Bank is the first to bring sperm banking into the future with the use of new technology for freezing all of our sperm. Our PureSperm™ eliminates all the debris, known as a dirty pellet, and we freeze only pure sperm.
The World Egg and Sperm Bank offers PureSperm™ vials which are highly customized to meet today’s use in IVF clinics. We have created an ICSI vial, which is used to select one sperm to inject into one egg at a time, to maximize fertilization. Our ICSI vials are roughly a third of the cost of all other sperm banks that require you to purchase much more volume than is needed.
We suggest you meet with a genetic counselor who can guide you. If you do not currently have a genetic counselor, we can refer you to some that we work closely with. If you and the genetic counselor elect to have the donor tested for the specific mutation, we will do our best to contact the donor and have him or her tested. However, as we have expanded the genetic testing panels to include the broadest testing available, it is unlikely that you would encounter this issue.