Archive for the ‘Staff Corner’ Category
Monday, June 6th, 2011
 One of the questions Intended Parents often ask is “Can you recommend a good doctor?”. Other variations include “Should I stay with my current doctor?”, “Should I move to a doctor closer to where the egg donor lives?”, and sometimes “I’m not sure if I should move doctors or not – what do you think?”
Here are the answers to those questions, in our opinion…
1) “Can you recommend a good doctor?” Yes, we can provide recommendations for you.
We have been fortunate enough to work with many of the top Reproductive Endocrinologists (“fertility doctors”) in the country, and from those experiences (and client feedback) we have a good sense of who most of the better doctors are. We base our recommendations on a number of factors, including:
- General reputation and feedback from past patients
- Quality and professionalism of the office staff (front office, nursing, etc.)
- General compliance with current “industry standards”, including information such as number of embryos typically implanted, compliance with common testing, administration of medication, etc. (Note that since we are not physicians, we cannot comment, and would not deign to comment, on any particular doctor’s medical protocol. However, when we see a lower success rate and highly unusual protocol used, we get concerned…)
- General office “vibe” (for example, many clinics with in-house egg donor programs are very negative towards working with agencies)
- Specific success rates (sometimes per SART, sometimes per our own information or in-house statistics)
Note that we do not limit our work to any particular group or clinic, but as we gather first-hand information, we will use it to help our clients make the best choice for them.
2) “Should I stay with my current doctor?” “Should I move to a doctor closer to where the donor lives?” That all depends…
We believe that the most important criteria in choosing or keeping your physician include:
- Your comfort level with and trust in your doctor. If you love your doctor and totally trust him or her, as long as they are supportive of using an egg donor from an agency, definitely keep that doctor. We think that if you are calm during the process, and are willing to do what your doctor says because you trust in that doctor, you are more likely to have a successful cycle. This is only said from anecdotal evidence and other’s opinions, but being in a good place psychologically as you’re on buckets of hormones (and going through a somewhat surreal process) can’t help but benefit you.
 If finances are an issue (as they generally are) and you choose an egg donor from another city, you might want to consider moving to a doctor in that city. However, if you love your current doctor, the difference in dollars is probably irrelevant — certainly in the long term. If you do choose to use or keep a doctor in a city far from where the donor lives, make sure that you’re aware of the outside monitoring costs as early in the process as possible. (The finance person at the doctor’s office, along with our cycle coordinator, can help you with that.) The less surprises that happen in this process, the better.
All of BHED’s clients are assigned a cycle coordinator — a senior member of our staff who follows your case through from the time you choose your donor until retrieval (and often, beyond.) The Cycle Coordinators will be in regular contact with your doctor’s office from the time you sign your contract with us, and she will alert you if we have any unexpected challenges with the doctor’s office. Most of the time things work out just fine.
Note that we stay with you until you become pregnant or decide to discontinue trying. Your choice of doctor is certainly an important part of this process, and is one of the keys to the success of your pursuit to begin or build your family.
We look forward to helping you realize your dream through egg donation!
Tags: Beverly Hills Egg Donation, BHED, egg donation, egg donor, egg donor agency, egg donors, fertility doctor, fertility doctors, Reproductive Endocrinologists
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Friday, June 3rd, 2011
 The post-retrieval recovery is very manageable. Truly. If you’re active and healthy, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to bounce right back. It’s important to take about a week to recover – take it easy, drink lots of Gatorade and Vitamin Water, and follow your doctor’s instructions. Allow your body to heal. Everything inside of you has just gone through the ringer, and you’ll feel tender, sore, and bloated in the days following the retrieval (not unlike what you’d experience with a heavy period). You can expect to get your first post-cycle period about 10 days after your procedure (10-12 days after your HCG shot) and once that’s come and gone, you’ll feel a million times better.  If you wish to donate again, you’ll need to have two normal periods before you’re cleared to go for another cycle. Any weight gain can be chalked up to fluids, so be sure to drink enough electrolytes (the swelling and retention usually go down quickly).
Every doctor is different, and your clinic will have specific instructions for your recovery (you’ll also get more information regarding when you can get back to your “normal routine” – including working out, having sex, etc.), but the most important advice for a smooth recovery is to let the body do its thing, drink plenty of fluids, and be good to yourself. You’ll be smooth sailing in no time.
Tags: Beverly Hills Egg Donation, BHED, egg donation, egg donation recovery, egg donor, egg donors
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Friday, April 8th, 2011
 “How long will it take for me to get matched?” This is one of the MOST common questions BHED gets from donors. The truth is, there’s really just no way to predict how quickly you’ll be matched. We’ve seen donors matched within hours, and some are on our database for 2-3 months (up to a year or more) before they start a cycle. Understandably, the biggest factor in how quickly a donor gets picked is her resemblance to the intended mother. BHED has many recipients looking for their “perfect match” at any given time, and chances are good that a donor will get chosen much sooner if she happens to look physically similar to one of them. That said, some recipients care more about an impressive educational record, or a donor with common interests, than physical similarity, and still others only want to work with donors who have donated before, have children of their own, or have a particular blood type. Finding the right donor is such a personal (and big) decision, and every recipient goes about it in his or her own way.
Even though physical resemblance is completely out of the donor’s control, there are a number of things you can do to help increase your chances of getting matched more quickly…
1. Make sure your profile is filled out completely, and is kept up-to-date. Our staff will contact you every few months to go over your information and make sure it’s still accurate, but be sure to send along updates as they come along. Also, if you recently added volunteer work to your resume, graduated from school, ran in a triathlon, or increased your GPA – let us know about it!
2. Pictures, pictures, pictures. Upload great photos to your gallery (casual, friendly shots taken in natural light that look like YOU!). Besides current photos, we need pictures of you growing up (at various stages in life – baby through adult), pictures of your immediate family members, and (most importantly) a nice, clear headshot, which is the first thing recipients see when your profile comes up. Making sure your photo gallery is in good shape is one of the biggest things you can do to help yourself get matched. BHED holds photoshoots every 6-8 weeks where donors can get (free!) professional photographs taken for their profiles. You can contact Alexa Abrams, our donor coordinator, at alexa@bhed.com for details.
3. Return calls and emails from our office promptly. When a recipient narrows their list down to one or two favorite donors, they generally have additional questions, want to confirm dates and/or request to see more pictures. If you see a phone call or message from our office, make sure to get back to us as quickly as you can. We can’t match you if we can’t get in touch with you, and most recipients want to be sure their favorite donor is communicative and responsible before moving forward.
Again, how quickly a donor gets matched is often completely out of her control, BUT, in our experience, donors who keep the above tips in mind are far more successful in finding a match. Our donor team is always happy to review your profile with you and suggest changes to better showcase yourself. Be patient, be communicative, and know that sometimes getting chosen by a recipient is just a matter of time. We look forward to seeing you matched!
Tags: Beverly Hills Egg Donation, BHED, egg donation, egg donation southern california, egg donor, egg donor process
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Wednesday, January 5th, 2011
We at BHED are so excited to be ringing in 2011, and to have closed out 2010 on such a great note. As you may have noticed, the last couple of pieces we’ve posted on this blog are from two of our international recipients. Our client list stretches far and wide across the globe; in fact, we’ve worked with intended parents from over 50 countries. Whether you’re coming to us from just down the street in Southern California, or based in another city, state or time zone, our staff will guide you through egg donation with experienced professionalism.
2010 saw the launch of “Ask Kate” (www.askaneggdonor.com): an interactive forum for prospective donors, recipients, and anyone else with questions about what goes into being a donor. Ask Kate is helmed by our own Kate Lee (a 6-time previous donor), who brings her unique perspective to “shedding light” on the donor experience.
We would like to wish ALL of our donors, recipients and colleagues a happy and healthy year ahead. If you’re a recipient, we look forward to helping you find your donor match in the coming year. We have more impressive candidates than ever before and are adding new donors to the database every week. For our prospective donors, now is a great time to join BHED. Our donor team is here to be an advocate for you and help guide you through the process to start to finish.
Here’s to a wonderful New Year!
Tags: Beverly Hills Egg Donation, BHED, egg donation, egg donor, egg donor agency, Southern California egg donor
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Wednesday, October 20th, 2010
 Donors are Only Donating for the Financial Compensation
While the donors we work with appreciate the compensation they get from participating in a cycle, in most cases money is not the primary driving force behind their decision to donate. Through conducting one-on-one interviews with all of the donors in our program, we’ve found that most of them come to us with some sort of personal connection to infertility. Often they’ve seen a family member, close friend or colleague struggle to conceive and want to help someone else in the same position. Others are parents themselves and feel compelled to help others experience the joy of starting a family. Regardless of a particular donor’s situation, money is rarely the only motivating factor in her decision. Successful donors with our program understand the gravity of their decision and are invested in the donation process.
All Potential Donors who Apply to Participate are Accepted
Not so! Most candidates who apply to our egg donor program do not make it onto our database, for a variety of reasons. For starters, only a small percentage of those who apply are even suitable candidates for donation. Even to be initially considered for our program, applicants must fall within the appropriate age range (21-29), have the flexibility to accommodate the demands of an IVF cycle, have a clean personal and family health record (free of infectious diseases and genetic conditions), and have completed or are completing some form of higher education. Even then, BHED’s donor application process is rigorous, and many potential candidates are weeded out before they are added to our site because they haven’t met one or more of our requirements. A potential donor is asked to not only fill out a lengthy application, but must meet with a BHED donor representative for a personal interview (in person or via webcam), submit a wide range of photos for her profile (including family and childhood pictures), provide transcripts and other relevant education documentation as appropriate, and respond to emails and phone calls from our office in a timely manner. If we feel that a donor does not have the time or dedication to see a cycle through, we won’t add her to our program.
A Donor Might Drop Out of a Cycle at Any Time
Donors do occasionally drop out of cycles. It’s rare, but it happens. For this reason, we have a number of checks and balances in place to ensure that all of our donors actually ARE committed to participating in a cycle at any given time. We call them regularly to check in, request updates, and confirm their availability and willingness to donate. In the rare instance that a donor does drop out after being matched, it almost always happens very early on in the process. In particular, it’s extremely unlikely that a donor won’t follow through with a cycle after she’s started medication. At that point, she’s attended several doctor’s appointments, coordinated with an attorney, and done psychological and genetic evaluation – all without any compensation. As with most egg donor agencies, our donors receive a small portion of their fee once they start medication (in our case, $750) and then get the remainder of their balance after the retrieval. It’s unusual for a donor to drop out of a cycle in the first place, but almost completely unlikely for her to call it quits “late in the game.”
Donors Lie on Their Applications
In general, the vast majority of donors are not inclined to lie on their applications because most are well-meaning candidates who are donation for very personal reasons. However, this is another reason why we find it beneficial to have a system in place to substantiate the information that donors provide. We review every applicant’s profile during her interview and, if the donor claims high academic achievements, ask that she provide documentation from her school to back up her claims. Impartial professionals also gather additional information through the psychological evaluation, genetic counseling, and medical screening which can be crosschecked for inconsistencies. It’s important to restate that it’s very unlikely for a donor to deliberately submit inaccurate information, but we hope that the steps we’ve put in place to weed out those that do give our clients added peace of mind.
Tags: Beverly Hills Egg Donation, BHED, egg donor, egg donor agencies, egg donor agency, egg donor program, egg donors
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Thursday, February 25th, 2010
You’ve been searching for weeks for your ideal egg donor candidate, taking into consideration physical characteristics, fertility history, family health and educational achievements. Â You’ve ranked your favorites, narrowed them down, slept on it and now that you’ve found your perfect match and are ready to book her, you can breathe a big sigh of relief and know that your search is finally behind you.
Right?
 Not quite.  Despite the best of intentions, something will go wrong in 25%-30% of all egg donor cycles and most, if not all of these issues cannot be predicted in advance.  Beverly Hills Egg Donation has an extensive in-house screening process and a team of donor reps who work diligently to ensure that our selection of donors is the strongest that it can be, but there is always the potential for surprises once a cycle gets underway.  As is the nature of working with a young woman in her early to mid- twenties, your donor will be having medical testing for a number of things that, if not for this donation, she likely would never have been tested for at her age.  There are also occasionally unforeseen issues that come up in the psychological testing, genetic counseling, or during the legal process.  In fact, this is why we utilize these professionals in the first place – to protect you and ensure that you have the best chance possible at a successful outcome once the medication phase of the cycle begins.  While our personal screening process is an initial review, we employ others to help uncover any health/genetic problems that may otherwise have gone undetected and confirm that your donor is psychologically prepared to donate.
This is why, no matter how perfect your donor may seem, we always recommend that you select a backup option before going forward with your cycle.  We have many repeat donors available (which lessens the possibility that something unexpected will come up to deter or derail your cycle), but even then if something goes wrong and you have a backup choice, our cycle coordinator will be able to help you move seamlessly onto that donor without using any momentum.  There is also no additional agency fee to switch donors; your full fee will be applied to the subsequent cycle.
Ideally, your cycle will be completed smoothly and without a hitch. Â However, one of the best things that you can do to make your experience with egg donation as successful as possible is to remain flexible and be prepared for the unexpected – which includes having a backup donor in mind before you book your perfect match.
Tags: Beverly Hills Egg Donation, BHED, egg donation, egg donation agencies, egg donation california, egg donation process, egg donor, egg donor agency, egg donor california, egg donor cost, egg donor cycle, how to choose an egg donor, IVF, Southern California egg donor agency
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Monday, February 15th, 2010
Check out our freshly updated “Who We Are” page to meet the newest staff members to join the BHEDÂ team. Â Liz Bader-Natal, Bay Area Coordinator, Â provides support to Donors and Intended Parents throughout the duration of the cycle. Â Sally Blackford manages our online server and has lent a tremendous hand in keeping day-to-day administrative work running smoothly. Â And Diana Ashley, a previous donor herself, works in Donor Outreach to keep each of our donor’s profiles accurate and up-to-date.
With the increases that we’ve seen in every area – from donor applicants to interview, to cycles to manage and medical records to request (and fax, and file, and update…), these ladies have jumped in with both feet and done a stellar job helping our program grow with grace.
Tags: Beverly Hills Egg Donation, BHED, egg donation, egg donation agencies, egg donation california, egg donation los angeles, egg donor, egg donor agency, egg donor california, egg donor cycle, egg donor database, egg donor los angeles, egg donors, Southern California egg donor agency
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Thursday, January 14th, 2010
 For our applicants who live outside of the Los Angeles area, we conduct our interviews via webcam, which gives us the exceptional ability to say that we’ve actually met each one of the egg donors on our database! Â I’ve worked with other agencies in the past and I can’t say that the same is true for those organizations. Â This gives us the confirmation that the person on the other end really is who they say they are, and gives us a much better feel for the donor’s personality and character. Â I really enjoy being able to communicate with a donor in this way. Â Some donors who have children of their own will even bring their child(ren) to the camera for a few minutes. Â I also love seeing a donor who takes copious notes during our interview – when I can see her writing, it’s confirmation to me that she wants to make sure she knows what is required of her.
More and more of our applicants now have their own cameras that they are able to use for the interview, and for donors who don’t we will send one out via UPS.  From a logistics standpoint, this system actually runs surprisingly smoothly.  The only challenge I’ve experienced when working with webcams is that some donors who have never used a webcam before might have some trouble setting it up, but that is usually sorted out quickly and we can start the interview.  When the interview is over the donor just sends the camera back to us to be used by another candidate.  The process of sending the camera back is very simple as well – we provide them with a return label so there is no expense to the donor.  It makes it easy for everyone!
-Susan Rai, Beverly Hills Egg Donation
Tags: Beverly Hills Egg Donation, BHED, egg donation agency, egg donation california, egg donation los angeles, egg donor, egg donor california, egg donor database, egg donor los angeles, egg donors
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Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
Although we’re thrilled about the start of a New Year, we have to admit that we’re still pretty smitten with 2009… 
This last year was a busy, happy and successful one here at Beverly Hills Egg Donation. In 2009 the total number of pregnancies that we’ve been a part of increased by 44%. Â Even BETTER – Â of our clients who completed cycles with us last year, 82% got pregnant. Â Now there’s a reason to celebrate! Â We also have more terrific donor candidates than ever before, with new ones being added to our database each week, and are committed to continuing our reputation as one of the most well-respected egg donor agencies in the industry. (We’re also committed to posting more blog entries in 2010 to share the invaluable resources and experiences we’ve come across within the donation community – a New Year’s resolution from our admin team!)
We’re looking forward to an even better year ahead and wish you all the best in your journey with egg donation, whether it be as a donor, intended parent or colleague.
Happy New Year!
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Monday, September 28th, 2009
If you’re registered as an egg donor, getting a new tattoo becomes a decision that can have a much bigger affect than you’d ever anticipated. Â For a potential recipient who has spent weeks pouring over donor profiles (and sometimes thousands of dollars on previous failed IVF cycles), only to fall in love with their perfect match, news that their ideal donor has gotten a tattoo from an unlicensed facility can be devastating.
 All of this can be avoided if you keep in mind that potential donors cannot donate their eggs if they’ve had a tattoo or body piercing within the past six months to a year – typically six months for a piercing and one year for a tattoo. Â The only exception to this rule is if you can provide written and signed proof that your tattoo or piercing was administered at a state-regulated facility, using a sterile technique. Â Even then, however, some doctors will still require that donors wait eight weeks before donating – one clinic still requires donors to wait the full 12 months! Â To make things even more complicated, the official regulations vary from state to state, and only 32 states even have such regulations. Â If you choose to have your tattoo or piercing administered in a state that does not enforce regulations, you can be sure that you’ll be in for an extremely long wait before you’re finally able to donate.
If you’re serious about wanting to donate and help a family in need, Beverly Hills Egg Donation recommends that you hold off on any plans for a new tattoo or piercing until after you’ve completed your donation cycle(s).
Tags: Beverly Hills Egg Donation, BHED, egg donation, egg donation and tattoos, egg donor, egg donor cycle
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One of the questions Intended Parents often ask is “Can you recommend a good doctor?”. Other variations include “Should I stay with my current doctor?”, “Should I move to a doctor closer to where the egg donor lives?”, and sometimes “I’m not sure if I should move doctors or not – what do you think?”
