Embryo Donation
Receive Donated Embryos: Build Your Family With BabyTree
Receiving donated embryos can offer a path to pregnancy and parenthood for individuals and families who cannot create or use their own viable embryos. Babytree helps intended parents understand the process, prepare for matching, and coordinate the fertility clinic, counseling, legal, and transportation steps involved. BabyTree’s embryo recipient program helps intended parents explore how to receive donated embryos through a thoughtful, supported process.
Your journey begins with a confidential questionnaire and a conversation with a Babytree coordinator.
Start the Recipient Questionnaire
Could Donated Embryos Be an Option for You?
People explore donated embryos for many reasons. This family-building path may be considered by:
- Individuals or couples unable to create viable embryos using their own eggs or sperm
- People whose physician has recommended considering donor embryos
- Families facing certain genetic concerns
- Single intended parents
- LGBTQ+ intended parents
- People exploring a new path after unsuccessful fertility treatment
- Intended parents who plan to work with a gestational carrier
Only a qualified fertility physician can determine whether a frozen embryo transfer is medically appropriate for you or your gestational carrier. If you are looking to find donated embryos, the medical team must determine whether available frozen donor embryos are appropriate for your treatment plan.
What Does a Donated Embryo Mean?
Donated embryos were created during another person’s or couple’s IVF treatment. When those embryos are donated, Subject to applicable law, clinic requirements, and the terms of the embryo donation agreement, the recipients may receive the right to use the embryos in an attempt to achieve pregnancy.
A child born from donated embryos is generally not genetically related to the recipient parent or parents. In some directed donations involving a relative, the child may share a genetic connection with one of the recipient parents. The person who carries the pregnancy can still experience pregnancy and birth. If an intended parent cannot carry, the embryos may be transferred to a gestational carrier when medically approved.
Embryo donation also creates lasting questions about genetic origins, disclosure, medical information, and possible relationships between donor and recipient families. These subjects deserve thoughtful discussion before a match is finalized.
How to Receive Donated Embryos: The Embryo Recipient Program
Complete the Recipient Questionnaire
Tell us where you are in your family-building journey, whether you are working with a fertility clinic, and whether you expect to carry the pregnancy or need a gestational carrier.
Meet Your Babytree Coordinator
Your coordinator reviews the program with you, answers initial questions, and identifies the information needed for the next stage.
Confirm Fertility Clinic Readiness
Your fertility clinic must be willing to review and accept donated embryos. The clinic may evaluate embryo records, freezing method, embryo stage and quality, genetic testing information, infectious-disease documentation, and transportation requirements.
Discuss Embryo Matching Preferences
You will consider the information that matters to your family and the type of relationship you are prepared to have with an embryo donor. Matching is about more than physical characteristics. Communication, disclosure, family medical information, and expectations for future contact can be equally important. The matching process helps recipients evaluate the available embryo information while establishing expectations for communication and future contact.
Complete Counseling and Legal Agreements
Counseling can help intended parents prepare for parenting a child without a genetic connection, disclosure to the child, and possible future relationships with genetic relatives. Independent attorneys address consent, transfer of rights, permitted use of the embryos, future contact, and other legal terms.
Coordinate Embryo Transportation
Once the necessary reviews and agreements are complete, the storage facility and receiving fertility clinic coordinate embryo transportation and receipt.
Prepare for Donor Embryo Transfer
Your fertility clinic manages the medical evaluation, medication, monitoring, thawing, and transfer plan. If you require a gestational carrier, Babytree can also help coordinate the surrogacy journey.
Embryo Donation Matching and Relationship Options
Embryo donation relationships may be structured in different ways.
Directed or Identified Donation
The donor and recipient already know one another or communicate directly as part of the arrangement.
Open Donation
The families exchange identifying information and agree on a form of ongoing communication or future contact.
Semi-Open Donation
Information or updates may be exchanged through agreed channels, with limited direct contact.
Nonidentified Donation
Personal identifying information is not routinely shared between the families. Permanent anonymity cannot be guaranteed because DNA testing, social media, and public records may reveal genetic connections.
No single relationship model is right for every family. The goal is to establish realistic expectations that respect the donor family, recipient family, and any child born from the donation.
Donor Embryos: Medical and Fertility Clinic Considerations
Every embryo group has a unique history. Your fertility clinic may review:
- The age of the egg provider when the embryos were created
- The source of the egg and sperm
- Embryo stage, grade, and freezing method
- PGT results, if testing was completed
- IVF laboratory and storage records
- Donor medical and family history
- Infectious-disease screening documentation
- The number of embryos available
PGT-tested embryos are not guaranteed to implant or result in a healthy pregnancy. Untested embryos are not automatically unsuitable. Your physician should explain the limitations and significance of the available information.
Depending on when and how the embryos were created, the fertility clinic may also review donor eligibility records, infectious-disease testing, genetic history, prior consent documents, and any additional screening required under current clinic policies and applicable regulations.
Legal and Emotional Preparation
Embryo donation involves the transfer of rights and responsibilities associated with the donated embryos. Independent legal counsel helps ensure that everyone understands and voluntarily agrees to the arrangement.
Counseling with a professional experienced in third-party reproduction may help you consider:
- Parenting without a genetic connection
- How and when to tell a child about their origins
- The needs and interests of donor-conceived people
- Future medical information sharing
- Contact with the donor family
- Relationships between genetic siblings
- Expectations if no child is born from the embryos
Costs and Timing
The total cost and timeline vary with the program, match, fertility clinic, legal requirements, embryo location, transportation, and treatment plan. Expenses may include:
- Program and coordination services
- Counseling
- Independent legal representation
- Records review
- Storage and embryo transportation
- Fertility clinic evaluation
- Medication, monitoring, and frozen embryo transfer
- Gestational surrogacy, if needed
Your Babytree coordinator can explain which costs are known at each stage. Medical outcomes and matching timelines cannot be guaranteed.
When a Gestational Carrier Is Needed
Some intended parents need both donated embryos and a gestational carrier. This may include intended parents who cannot safely carry a pregnancy or whose family structure requires a carrier.
Babytree can help coordinate the embryo donation and surrogacy paths so that the fertility clinic, attorneys, donor family, intended parents, and surrogate understand the sequence of medical and legal steps.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the disadvantages of embryo donation?
Embryo donation can involve important emotional, practical, and medical considerations. A child born from donated embryos is typically not genetically related to the recipient parent or parents, and families should consider disclosure, genetic origins, possible future relationships with the donor family and genetic siblings, and the availability of medical information. Embryos are not guaranteed to survive thawing, implant, or result in pregnancy or live birth. Counseling, legal guidance, and fertility-clinic review can help you make an informed decision.
Can I review information about the embryo donors?
The information available depends on the donor, clinic records, and matching arrangement. It may include personal and family medical history, embryo information, and other non-identifying or identifying details permitted by the match.
Are donated embryos genetically tested?
Some have PGT results and others do not. Your fertility clinic should review any available results and explain their limitations.
How long does the process take?
Timing depends on program fit, availability, clinic review, matching, counseling, legal work, embryo transportation, and medical preparation. Babytree does not guarantee a specific timeline.
Do I need a fertility clinic before applying?
You may begin the BabyTree questionnaire before selecting a clinic, but a fertility clinic must ultimately evaluate your medical eligibility and confirm that it can review, receive, store, and transfer the donated embryos.
How much does it cost to receive donated embryos?
Costs vary based on matching and coordination services, counseling, legal representation, clinic review, embryo storage and transportation, medication, and frozen embryo transfer. Gestational-carrier services create additional costs when required.
Is embryo donation the same as embryo adoption?
The terms are sometimes used interchangeably by programs, but ASRM considers the use of donated embryos a medical donation process rather than a legal adoption. The terminology and applicable legal procedures may vary by program and jurisdiction.