Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Selecting a donor is an essential first step on your journey toward starting a family. During your donor selection process, we recommend creating an Eeve account to access the extended profiles of our egg donors.

Your registration provides unlimited access to detailed donor profiles, where you can find all the information you need to make your final decision. The registration is free and without commitment.

You can use our Donor Search Tool to find a donor who best matches your criteria by entering some of your desired characteristics (eye colour, height, ethnicity, etc.) and selecting profiles from the filtered results.

Finding your ideal donor can start with the characteristics that matter most to you. For example, if ethnicity is particularly important, you may choose to begin by narrowing your search to donors with the same ancestry.

We recommend starting with a broader search first, then refining your filters to keep your options open.

With Eeve, you can view and filter donor details such as eye colour, hair colour, ancestry, and height. Once you select your favourites, you can explore their extended profiles on our website, which contain more details about the donor.

When you’re ready, submit a donor request, and our team will support you with the next steps within five business days.

A basic donor profile is a piece of information about the donor that is visible to users who haven’t created an account with us. This information includes eye and hair colour, height, ethnicity and occupation.

An extended donor profile is a much more in-depth look at each donor and includes information such as personality type, interests and hobbies, detailed medical history, and much more.

Egg availability is subject to demand and adonor’s availability can fluctuate on a daily basis. Number of eggs available from an individual donor cycle, number of reservations for a particular donor and donor withdrawal from the program can all effect donor egg availability. When a fresh donor is reserved they will no longer be available on Eeve until they make themselves available for another cycle.

If you have previously used a donor who is no longer available on our platform, they may have been removed due to a lack of family spots or stock. Please contact our team at mydonor@eevedonorbank.com.au to enquire if they are still available for use.

Patients who are not local to our QLD, NSW, or WA clinics but wanting to access donor eggs in these locations, please contact us for more information on what your options are.

The process of reserving donor eggs can take some time due to the clinical, legal, and counselling requirements involved. These steps are in place to ensure your treatment is safe, well-coordinated, and aligned with your individual circumstances.

Before you can reserve a donor through Eeve, your fertility specialist and nursing team will support you through the required Donor Ready steps outlined below. On average, becoming donor ready takes approximately 4 to 6 weeks, though this can vary depending on individual circumstances.

Donor Ready Requirements

1. Attend Your Fertility Specialist Consultation: Book an appointment with a fertility specialist at City Fertility, Fertility Specialists of WA, or Rainbow Fertility and attend your initial consultation.
2. Obtain a Current Treatment Plan: Your specialist will provide a personalised treatment plan tailored to your specific medical and fertility needs.
3. Attend Two Counselling Sessions: Counselling is required for treatment and must be specific to the use of unknown donor eggs.
4. Complete Your Pathology Screenings: You’ll need to undergo standard pathology tests to ensure it’s safe to proceed with treatment.
5. Undertake Extended Carrier Screening (ECS): If you select a donor with positive carrier screening, you must complete ECS and ensure your results are uploaded to your patient file before you submit your donor request. Alternatively, if you elect not to complete ECS, please confirm you have signed the required waiver with your fertility specialist, and it has been uploaded to your patient file.
6. Complete Your Semen Assessment (if partnered): If your partner is providing sperm, they will need to complete a semen analysis to assess quality and determine suitability for treatment.
7. Confirm Superannuation Release (if applicable): If using superannuation for payment, please ensure your approval has been finalised before reserving your donor.

What Happens After You Select A Donor?

Once you have identified a donor, several additional steps may be required before your reservation can be confirmed.

For international donor eggs, the overall timeframe from donor selection to eggs arriving at your clinic is typically 4 to 6 weeks, but in some cases may extend to 6 to 8 weeks or longer. This is due to multiple coordination and compliance steps, including:

• Confirmation of donor availability with the international egg bank
• Compliance review and donor profile setup
• Completion of patient consents and payment
• Referral to genetic services
• Genetic counselling appointments, if required
• Additional information requests from the donor bank, if required
• Monthly shipping cut-off dates set by international donor banks
• Travel time to Australia once shipped

In some cases, genetic counselling outcomes or timing constraints may lead patients to consider an alternative donor, which can restart parts of this process.

For local donor eggs, timelines are generally shorter and coordinated directly through City Fertility laboratory and transport teams. We typically recommend allowing approximately 3 weeks from reservation approval to eggs arriving at your clinic.

Important note on international donor selection

Please note that this process may take longer if you are selecting a donor directly from an international donor bank rather than through Eeve. This is due to the additional compliance and regulatory checks that must be completed before donor eggs can be approved for import into Australia.

Donors available through Eeve have already completed these compliance requirements, which can help reduce delays and support a smoother coordination process.

Once you have completed your donor-ready steps, submitted your donor request and received confirmation that your donor is available, you will receive an email with useful information on what will happen next. Our friendly staff will call or email you to organise everything.

If you are a new patient, we will:

• Book a medical consultation
• Book pathology collection
• Counselling
• Patient education

You may reserve an allocation of eggs from one donor at a time.  An allocation consists of six (6) to eight (8) eggs, either fresh or frozen. According to Australian law, donors may be used to create up to 10 families in Queensland, 5 (five) families in New South Wales, 5 (five) families in Western Australia (excluding the donor’s family), and 10 women in Victoria.

Unfortunately, due to demand exceeding supply, purchasing an entire donor is not possible.

IN-VITRO FERTILISATION (IVF)

In-Vitro Fertilisation involves the fertilisation of the egg by the donated sperm in an incubator outside the body before the embryo is transferred back into the recipient’s uterus.

Your specialist will discuss your IVF treatment cycle with you. The treatment type usually depends on an individual’s medical history, age, diagnosis and other related fertility factors.

Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI)

ICSI is a specialised form of In Vitro Fertlisation (IVF) that involves the injection of a single sperm directly into a mature egg. Frozen donor eggs require ICSI procedure due to the vitrification processes involved in egg freezing. ICSI is also used for the treatment of severe cases of male infertility.

This may be possible depending on the availability of eggs from your selected donor.  Please contact our friendly team at Eeve to discuss your requirements.

Donor eggs supplied by Eeve Donor Bank to recipients can be used at City Fertility network clinics, including Rainbow Fertility and Fertility Specialists of WA.  They may not be used at a clinic outside of our City Fertility network.

Seeing a Fertility Specialist is a very important step in your treatment. Both City Fertility and Rainbow Fertility take patient safety and patient outcomes very seriously.  Medical and fertility assessment needs to occur so that the most suitable treatment path can be determined and informed consent from all parties can be given.

Donors recruited after September 2019 now complete Extended Genetic Carrier Screening. If the donor is positive for one or more conditions, this does not mean the donor has the condition; merely that they are a carrier. Genetic carrier screening for sperm providers is required to ensure they are also not carriers of the same condition. If both the sperm provider and the egg donor are carriers of the same condition, there is a higher chance that the child could be born with that genetic condition.

We strongly recommend that patients complete either expanded carrier screening or genetic counselling to understand the carrier status of the donor they selected. This can be organised through your treating clinician once a donor has been selected.

If the egg donor has a positive genetic carrier screen, it does not mean the donor has the condition; it merely means they are a carrier.  If the sperm provider is also a carrier for the same condition, it increases the chance of a child being born with the genetic condition.

We suggest you meet with a genetic counsellor who can guide you. If you do not currently have a genetic counsellor, we can refer you to some that we work closely with.

Before you are ready to reserve a donor through Eeve, your fertility specialist and nursing team must support you through the following ‘Donor Ready’ workup steps:

1. Attend Your Fertility Specialist Consultation: Book an appointment with a fertility specialist at City Fertility or Rainbow Fertility and attend your initial consultation.
2. Obtain a Current Treatment Plan: Your specialist will provide a personalised treatment plan tailored to your specific medical and fertility needs.
3. Attend Two Counselling Sessions: This will allow you to explore the implications of using donor eggs, including future considerations for you and your family.
4. Complete Your Pathology Screenings: You’ll need to undergo standard pathology tests to ensure it’s safe to proceed with treatment.
5. Undertake Extended Carrier Screening (ECS):If required, complete this genetic testing and ensure your results are uploaded to your patient file. Alternatively, if you elect not to complete ECS, please confirm you have signed the required waiver with your fertility specialist and it has been uploaded to your patient file.
6. Complete Your Semen Assessment (if partnered): If your partner is providing sperm, they will need to complete a semen analysis to assess quality and determine suitability for treatment.
7. Confirm Superannuation Release (if applicable): If using superannuation for payment, ensure approval has been finalised before reserving your donor.

Once the above steps have been completed, confirm you are ‘Donor Ready’ with your nursing team prior to reserving your donor eggs.

Learn more here: Becoming Donor Ready.

Local donors recruited through Egg Donors Australia, can donate their eggs if they meet these criteria:

• Aged 18-32 if clinic recruited.  Egg donors over 32 will not be accepted for clinic-recruited donations.
• Healthy with no history of genetic disease. Donors will not be accepted if they suffer from an illness, disease or inherited condition that can be passed on to a child conceived from their donation
• Donors who can provide their family medical history.  If married or in a de facto relationship, the partner must consent to the donation.
• Donors must have a permanent address and be contactable for follow-up medical tests. They are required to provide three identifiers and proof of a permanent address, e.g. driver’s licence, photo ID and passport.
• Clinic-recruited egg donors must be eligible for full Medicare benefits in Australia.

Overseas donors recruited through international donor banks can donate their eggs if they meet the following criteria:

• Women between ages 18-32
• Non-smoker
• No alcohol and/or drug abuse or addiction
• Good knowledge of medical and genetic history of family members up to biological grandparents (even if applicant is adopted, they must know this information)
• Cannot be on the following forms of birth control: Depo-Provera or Implanon/Nexplanon
• Healthy Body Mass Index
• Be willing to administer medications by injection (very small subcutaneous needles)

All egg donors are tested for infectious diseases and certain medical conditions before donations commence. All donors recruited after September 2019 now complete an Extended Genetic Carrier Screening test.

At the age of 18, any child born from donor gametes is entitled to know their genetic origin. Counselling is required before the donor’s identifying information is provided.

The donor’s availability list can change daily due to either all stock being exhausted or family limits being reached. Additionally, The World Egg and Sperm Bank refreshes their donor database every 24 hours, which means you may need to receive a confirmation from The World Egg and Sperm Bank to ensure your donor has been successfully reserved. Should your preferred donor be unavailable, our Central Donor Team will assist you find other suitable donors.

To avoid disappointment, it is important to place your reservation in a timely manner and complete all the steps required prior to purchase the donor.

Eggs and embryos are cryopreserved (frozen) using a special technique called “vitrification” which uses a rapid cooling process to reduce damage to the cell(s).  They are stored in liquid nitrogen at -196C. There is no evidence to show that shipping between clinics or from overseas will have any effect on egg or embryo quality.

You can either download the app from your App Store (if you have an iPhone) or from Google Play if you have Android. Be sure to check the IOS app store or Google Play store for mobile device compatibility.

You can download our Eeve app from any device from Android, to iPhone. The only mobiles our app does not work on is for Microsoft devices. If you have a Microsoft phone, please note you can still navigate through our website and select donors you like – our website is mobile friendly and it has all the information you need to browse your favourite donors.

• A City Fertility nurse will follow up throughout your pregnancy. To ensure family limits are adhered to and are not breached, it is a legal requirement in Australia for any live birth created with donor gametes to be reported.
• In Victoria, births will be reported to VARTA
• In New South Wales births will be reported to the Ministry of Health.
• If an overseas egg donor was used, the live birth will be reported to the provider in addition to state reporting.
• In WA births will be reported to Reproductive Technology Counsil (RTC)

What if all stock of that donor has been exhausted, what are my options?

• If a local donor was used, we can reach out to them to see if they would be willing to re-donate.
• If your donor is from one of our overseas providers, we can reach out to the egg bank to see what remaining stock they have available.

Deleting an Eeve account is permanent. After going through the process, all of your preferred donors and matches will be erased.

To remove your Eeve account, simply email us at contact@eevedonorbank.com.au and we will send you an email within two (2) business days to confirm your account has been deleted successfully or it’s in the process of being removed.

The process of reserving donor eggs can take some time due to the clinical, legal, and counselling requirements involved. These steps are in place to ensure your treatment is safe, well-coordinated, and aligned with your individual circumstances.

Before you can reserve a donor through Eeve, your fertility specialist and nursing team will support you through the required Donor Ready steps outlined below. On average, becoming donor ready takes approximately 4 to 6 weeks, though this can vary depending on individual circumstances.

Donor Ready Requirements

1. Attend Your Fertility Specialist Consultation: Book an appointment with a fertility specialist at City Fertility, Fertility Specialists of WA, or Rainbow Fertility and attend your initial consultation.
2. Obtain a Current Treatment Plan: Your specialist will provide a personalised treatment plan tailored to your specific medical and fertility needs.
3. Attend Two Counselling Sessions: Counselling is required for treatment and must be specific to the use of unknown donor eggs.
4. Complete Your Pathology Screenings: You’ll need to undergo standard pathology tests to ensure it’s safe to proceed with treatment.
5. Undertake Extended Carrier Screening (ECS): If you select a donor with positive carrier screening, you must complete ECS and ensure your results are uploaded to your patient file before you submit your donor request. Alternatively, if you elect not to complete ECS, please confirm you have signed the required waiver with your fertility specialist, and it has been uploaded to your patient file.
6. Complete Your Semen Assessment (if partnered): If your partner is providing sperm, they will need to complete a semen analysis to assess quality and determine suitability for treatment.
7. Confirm Superannuation Release (if applicable): If using superannuation for payment, please ensure your approval has been finalised before reserving your donor.

What Happens After You Select A Donor?

Once you have identified a donor, several additional steps may be required before your reservation can be confirmed.

For international donor eggs, the overall timeframe from donor selection to eggs arriving at your clinic is typically 4 to 6 weeks, but in some cases may extend to 6 to 8 weeks or longer. This is due to multiple coordination and compliance steps, including:

• Confirmation of donor availability with the international egg bank
• Completion of patient consents and payment
• Referral to genetic services
• Genetic counselling appointments, if required
• Additional information requests from the donor bank, if required
• Monthly shipping cut-off dates set by international donor banks
• Travel time to Australia once shipped

In some cases, genetic counselling outcomes or timing constraints may lead patients to consider an alternative donor, which can restart parts of this process..

After Your Reservation is Submitted

Once your donor reservation has been submitted and approved, shipping timelines are set by the international donor bank you have chosen. We recommend allowing up to 4 weeks for your eggs to arrive at your clinic.

Important note on international donor selection

Please note that this process may take longer if you are selecting a donor directly from an international donor bank rather than through Eeve. This is due to the additional compliance and regulatory checks that must be completed before donor eggs can be approved for import into Australia.

Donors available through Eeve have already completed these compliance requirements, which can help reduce delays and support a smoother coordination process.

International Donor banks carefully control the storage and shipment of vitrified gametes. Moving gametes from a storage tank to a shipper is a delicate matter, as gametes can ‘warm’ within seconds. The International Donor banks ship your gametes directly to your clinic. There are no middlemen or distribution hubs. That may not be the case with gamete banks that outsource to affiliates. Instead, their gametes can be transferred from a retrieval clinic to a storage location and later transferred to the intended parent’s clinic. That is potentially three shipments and two transfers to storage tanks before the gametes reach your clinic.