7 Questions to Ask the IVF Clinic Before Donor Egg IVF

If you are considering IVF with donor eggs, the safest way to compare clinics is to ask the same structured questions about success rates, donor egg numbers, embryo guarantees, refund policies, and total costs and to make sure every answer is clear, complete, and written. Choosing a fertility clinic for donor egg IVF is not just a medical decision. It is a financial, emotional, and logistical commitment, often involving travel abroad and multiple treatment stages. Asking the right questions early can prevent misunderstandings, unexpected costs, and avoidable disappointment later. This guide walks you through 7 critical questions every patient should ask before committing to a donor egg IVF programme and explains why each question matters.

Donor Egg IVF Clinic Checklist

Before choosing a clinic, make sure you understand:

• How the clinic measures donor egg IVF success rates
• How many donor oocytes you will actually receive
• Whether there is a minimum oocyte guarantee
• If there is an embryo guarantee (and at what stage)
• How sperm quality affects guarantees
• What happens if the treatment fails
• The true total cost, including extras and future transfers

How to easily compare Donor Egg IVF Program offers received from IVF clinics?

1. Ask the fertility clinics the right questions. (see below)
2. Ask the same questions to all the fertility clinics.
3. Keep the same order and number of questions or use „bullets”.
4. Make sure the IVF clinics answer ALL the questions. If they don’t – reply and clearly mark which answers are not clear enough. It’s your treatment, do not leave things unexplained!

Questions to ask IVF clinic

1. What is the clinic’s IVF outcome – donor egg IVF success rate? How is it measured?

Ask the fertility clinic if their egg donor success rates refer to:

• Only one or a number of IVF cycles (e.g. cumulative indicators of 2-3 IVF attempts)
• Clinical pregnancy – 6 week
• Clinical pregnancy – 12 week
• Take home baby – „live birth”

The evaluation of IVF treatment success is extremely difficult, especially when comparing one fertility clinic to another. For more information, go to the article on donor egg success rates prepared by our experts.

2. How many donor oocytes will I receive during my IVF programme?

The number of donor oocytes you receive determines the number of embryos you get after fertilization. From a medical point of view, it is always better to have more embryos than the bare minimum. You can always decide to freeze the remaining embryos and use them in the future. Ask your fertility doctor about the number of received oocytes. Is the minimum, average or maximum number of eggs guaranteed? This is one of the most important questions to ask before IVF – bear in mind that statistically speaking, you can receive on average 2 embryos from 6-8 fertilized eggs.

3. Does the clinic offer a guaranteed minimum number of received oocytes?

Clinics often guarantee a minimum number of oocytes the recipient receives. Important: if the IVF clinic offers “all oocytes from the donor – exclusive donor”, a common practice in IVF clinics in Spain, ask for more details.

• Ask the fertility clinic what happens if only 3-4 oocytes are retrieved from the donor.
• Ask about the average number of oocytes received from the donor.

4. Does the clinic offer a guarantee in terms of the number of obtained embryos?

If the clinic guarantees a number of embryos, make sure you ask if they are day 3 embryos or day 5 blastocysts. This is very important as statistically, you get fewer day 5 blastocysts than day 3 embryos. On average, only 50% of day 3 embryos will survive and turn into blastocysts on day 5. For example, if you have four day 3 embryos you will probably end up with only two or one day 5 blastocysts. Embryo guarantees in most IVF clinics cover only day 3 embryos. Fertility clinics offer such packages as they know that on day 5 there will be less embryos left. They may stop developing between day 3 and day 5 and only about 50% of them are able to survive untill day 5. However, it is believed that day 5 embryo transfer can significantly increase the programme’s success rates. There are many medical publications showing higher success rates with day 5 embryo transfer. Find Top IVF Clinics Abroad

5. Does the embryo guarantee depend on factors such as the partner’s sperm quality? If so, what are the conditions?

When the clinic offers an embryo guarantee, the basic requirement is for a good quality partner’s sperm. Usually, IVF clinics use WHO standards to assess sperm parameters. If this is the case, make sure you ask the clinic which particular standards are being applied and what parameters are taken into account. Some fertility clinics apply their own standards. Find out from the clinic what sperm parameters are necessary to be able to benefit from an embryo guarantee. Make sure you have prepared all questions to ask a fertility doctor concerning what happens if, despite good sperm parameters, you will not receive the guaranteed number of embryos. Can you get your money back if you do not receive any embryos? Can you get a discount on your egg donation program? Perhaps the clinic offers other solutions? Bear in mind that even if your partner had his sperm tested before and his sperm parameters met the clinic’s criteria, during another testing at the clinic it may turn out that the semen has different parameters than it had before. This is completely normal: the parameters of your partner’s biological material can change with time. That is why it is always recommended to have the test done at the clinic, on the spot. If you have sperm testing done at your own cost at a different laboratory, the IVF clinic does not have to respect these results.

6. What happens if the IVF treatment program fails? Will I get a refund if:

• there are no oocytes for fertilization
• there are too few oocytes (fewer than the required minimum the clinic offers)
• there was no embryo transfer, in spite of the fertilization of the right number of oocytes
• the number of embryos is fewer than was guaranteed.

You may also receive a refund if you are in IVF Refund Program – which basically means fixed cost treatment until the expected (agreed) outcome. If the treatment is successful you won’t receive any refund however if the treatment is not successful (expected results are not met) you will receive the refund – depending on the IVF Refund program specification – usually 100%. Find out EggDonationFriends’ tips on what to do when IVF with donor eggs fails. 

7. What is the total estimated cost of a single donor egg IVF programme, including appointments, oocytes/donor eggs, required laboratory tests, IVF laboratory procedures, embryo transfer and medications?

• Ask a fertility specialist or fertility clinic about the average cost of the IVF program and find out if the following are included: appointment cost, ultrasound, preliminary and qualification tests of the egg donor, egg donor hormonal stimulation, egg retrieval, ICSI egg fertilization, other IVF laboratory procedures, e.g. blastocyst culture or AH (assisted hatching) and embryo transfer.
• Ask if FET (frozen embryo transfer) is included as you may end up with few embryos stored
• Choosing the IVF clinic: remember that in 90% of the clinics the IVF treatment cost will not include, such things as: embryo freezing (there may be a need to freeze the embryos even if you have not planned it), frozen embryo transfer in the patient’s next cycle, additional tests for the egg donor and/or egg recipient, e.g. carrier screening.
• Even if IVF clinics or fertility specialists answer all your questions, you still may not know the full cost of the program. An IVF program is a type of treatment which, when performed in compliance with the medical code of practice and standard practices of infertility treatment, very much depends on the individual medical condition of the patient. Good IVF clinics should offer a personalized treatment plan.

Find Top Egg Donation Clinics Abroad

Other questions to ask about IVF, e.g. IVF treatment plan?

We have talked about the most important questions to ask a fertility doctor about IVF. Although you can also ask for more details about the treatment plan. What is the optimal plan? Ask the fertility clinic or a fertility specialist how many visits you will need, how much time you should spend at the IVF clinic abroad, when you need to come with your partner, and when you can come on your own. Apart from questions to ask a fertility centre, you need to check what medical tests you can do in your home country and what tests should be done at the fertility clinic abroad. Finally, one of the most important questions about egg donation is whether you will need to pay the whole amount upfront or whether the clinic offers a payment plan according to the stages of egg donation treatment. First and foremost, do not be afraid to ask!

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Every month, consultants from EggDonationFriends.com are helping hundreds of patients to find the best possible place for their treatment. Given our past years experience in communicating with patients, we can tell that the main focus is on information regarding the cost of the therapy and the success rate provided by the clinic. In our opinion, those are not and should not be key factors in the process of clinic selection. What we suggest is:

• To pay attention to the particular clinic’s specialization – meaning – which aspect of IVF therapy is their field of expertise.
• We emphasize checking if the clinic actually has experience in treating cases like yours. Every patient is unique, the medical history and reasons of infertility are never the same, however, some clinics have developed similar treatment protocols based on the numbers of similar cases they have worked with.

When asking the clinic if they have experience in cases like yours, you are expected to share your medical history in detail.

• The main focus will be, first of all, if you had previously failed IVF treatments?
• How they were conducted (what was the doctor’s plan)?
• Was there any additional treatment performed (PGS / PGT-A, MACS, AH, Embryo glue, Scratching etc)?
• Were there any eggs retrieved (if yes how many of them and what was their quality)?
• Was there successful fertilisation?
• How many embryos were developed and to which stage they were cultivated (day 3, day 5)?
• How was the process of implantation?
• If there was implantation and the miscarriage occurred, then on which week (up to 6th, between 6th and 12th or after 12th)?
• All the additional information regarding surgeries and traumas suffered and other type of treatments will contribute to better understanding of each patient’s case.

In addition to this information, you will still need a personal consultation at the IVF clinic to establish the right course of therapy. Prior the visit, we can anticipate information if the clinic were treating patients like me and with what outcome. It is always worth asking for any case studys of patients with similar issues. Find Top IVF Clinics Abroad

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If you want to know more about IVF with donor eggs process, risks and options, we recommend reading Complete Egg Donation Guide.