There are a lot of couples that have trouble getting pregnant, fortunately there are now options available to help them. One of those options is egg donation. This is becoming an increasingly common way to have a baby. If you are going to use an egg donor you are going to have to find an egg bank. The following tips will help you to find a good one that will meet your needs.

1. Look for an egg bank that uses frozen eggs: When you start looking for an egg bank you will find that you have two choices, you can use fresh eggs or frozen eggs. In the past egg donation was always done with fresh eggs but this is far from a convenient way of doing things. With fresh eggs you have to find a donor and then you have to wait on her cycle for the eggs to become available. With frozen eggs they are already donated and ready to go, you just pick a donor and the eggs can be implanted right away. Not only does this make things a lot faster it is also a lot more convenient since you only have to visit the facility once. It is also quite a bit cheaper than using fresh eggs.

2. Make sure that the donor eggs are thoroughly screened: Obviously if you are going to be using donor eggs you want to do everything that you can to ensure that you have a healthy baby. That means that the eggs that are used need to be properly screened. This is something that all donor egg banks do but some are more rigorous with it than others. Make sure that you ask exactly what the donated eggs have been screened for.

The main things that you are looking for when the eggs are being screened is any diseases, particularly sexually transmitted ones. You also want to have genetic testing done to make sure that the risk factors for genetic diseases are low. The better donor banks will also do DNA testing and a full chromosome analysis. In addition you want to make sure that the eggs are tested for fertility so that you will have the best chance of becoming pregnant using donor eggs. You can go online and get a list of everything that the eggs should be tested for so that you can make sure that they have been.

3. Choose an egg bank that offers lots of information about the donor: One of the real benefits of using an egg bank is that you can choose the genetic make up of the mother. Some people are uncomfortable with this but most people like the fact that they will have a certain level of control over what their child will look like and their other genetic features. In order to do this you need to have as much information about the mother as possible. The days when you based the choice on little more than a brief biography are long gone. These days the better donor egg banks will provide much more detailed information.

These days when you are choosing a donor you can expect to find pictures of the donor, both current ones and from childhood. There will be physical information like height, weight, eye and hair colour. You can also expect information on their educational background and occupation. More importantly there will be information on their medical history. The better banks will also include things like results of intelligence tests and personality tests. This gives you a lot of information on which to base your choice of donor.

4. Research the donor egg bank thoroughly: The decision on which donor egg bank you are going to use is a big one and it should not be entered into lightly. You want to make sure that you find the facility that will give you the best chance of having a baby. That means that the biggest thing that you need to look at is their success rate. They should be able to tell you exactly what percentage of fertilizations result in healthy babies. If you can't get a straight answer on this be very suspicious. You also want to find out things like how well they treat their patients, in this respect it is just like choosing any other doctor.

In order to research a donor egg bank the best place to start is with your doctor, this is especially true if you have been seeing a fertility specialist. They should have a good idea of which are the better facilities. The other place that you are probably going to want to check is online, there are communities dedicated to egg donation. Many people who have been through the process will be available on these sites to offer advice and tell you about their experiences.

5. Compare costs: There is no getting around the fact that egg donation is very expensive, expect to pay tens of thousands of dollars for the procedure. There is however a pretty big difference in cost from one facility to another so you will want to look at what it costs in different places. That being said this is not really the sort of thing where you want to take the cheapest option. Make sure that the facility meets all of your needs before you start worrying about the cost.

It is also a good idea to look into whether or not your health insurance covers the cost of egg donation. There are some plans that do and others that don't. This is something that you are going to have to find out from your insurance provider. It is very unlikely that the insurance company will cover the whole cost so you should expect to have to pay a fair amount out of your own pocket.