Fresh vs. Frozen Donor Eggs:
What Recipient Parents Should Know
Fresh vs. Frozen Donor Eggs: What Recipient Parents Should Know
FAQs About Fresh vs. Frozen Donor Eggs
It depends on your personal egg donation journey. Fresh donor eggs may offer more embryos, which can be beneficial for multiple sperm contributors, those who desire a larger family, or medical scenarios such as lower sperm quality. Frozen donor eggs offer a faster timeline, more flexibility, and lower cost. Learn more about the differences.
Frozen embryos have already been fertilized, giving clinics more information about development. Frozen eggs, however, remain a safe and trusted choice as well. Our expert and compassionate client services coordinators are here to guide you every step of the way toward the solution that best fits your family goals.
Yes. Everie supports intended parents in finding the right donor match. We offer both fresh donors and frozen donor options through our curated matching platform, The Exchange. When intended parents begin their journey, they start by exploring the database to find an egg donor who feels like the right fit. Explore how egg donor matching works.
Important Considerations for Choosing Your Best Path
Choosing between fresh and frozen donor eggs depends on your goals, timeline, and vision for your family.
Frozen eggs, typically offered in cohorts of six, provide flexibility and convenience for many intended parents. On the other hand, with a fresh donation cycle, intended parents receive all the eggs in the cycle, potentially resulting in a greater number of eggs. Both are proven, trusted paths.
There is no one-size-fits-all option when it comes to choosing between fresh or frozen donor eggs, and that’s okay. Exploring your options in donor egg IVF is a deeply personal step in your journey. At Everie, we are here to offer insight, guidance, and support every step of the way.
With fresh cycles, your IVF must align with the donor’s timeline, requiring simultaneous preparation. This real-time coordination allows immediate fertilization but may extend the process and require flexible scheduling.
With frozen eggs, timing is more flexible to create embryos as the eggs are already ready for fertilization. Typically, this process takes about half the time that a fresh donation requires.
Timing and Coordination
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Where we stand out from typical agencies is in our encouragement of disclosed donations and mutual matching. At Everie, we allow our donors and recipient parents to choose from four different types of egg donations: Known, Semi-Known, ID Release, and De-Identified. While we will always advocate for our donors to express themselves and their comfortability by choosing the type of donation they feel best suits them and their needs, we caution those who want to choose De-Identified Donations with the expectation of never being located. In today’s world, we just cannot guarantee anonymity. In fact, anonymity, as it once was, no longer exists. Because of online DNA databases – such as 23 and Me – and the vast interconnectedness proffered by social media, donors can no longer remain anonymous. We’d like you to know that you have options beyond an anonymous donation, and we’ll support you in your discovery and choice, no matter what you select.
The cost of using fresh donor eggs may be higher than that of frozen egg options. Clinic visits, medical monitoring, and potential travel or accommodation for the donor add to the cost. In addition, fresh cycles require compensation to the donor. A fresh donor egg agency can help manage these logistics while keeping you informed.
Frozen egg matches are often less expensive as the eggs are already retrieved, and the donor has already been compensated. You eliminate the variable costs associated with a fresh donation cycle. There may also be opportunities for insurance and/or employer benefits that can be applied to frozen cohort purchases.
Cost Factors
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Something you may not have yet considered when deciding whether or not to become an egg donor, is that there will be a child(ren) in the world who shares your DNA, who potentially looks like you or sounds like you, and might even have some of your personality traits. Our donors are remarkable women, who recognize their ability to powerfully impact other people’s lives and change them for the better. They also understand that their part in this journey is not a one-time transaction but a life-long connection. Our donors understand that the donor-conceived children may become curious about their origins and have a right to know from where and who they come, fostering a strong sense of identity, and providing access to genetic information and biological medical history.
Fresh cycles can provide enough embryos for intended parents hoping to grow a larger family or for those working with multiple sperm contributors. Frozen cycles, on the other hand, usually create fewer embryos—unless multiple cohorts are chosen—making them a great option for those wishingfor one or two children without the likelihood of having many embryos leftover.
Family Size
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This is how Everie is different from every other egg program. Our process of mutual matching allows our donors to choose the recipient parents of their egg donation. It is important to us that our donors have a say in the process. We want them to be in control of their own narrative. Recipient parents select the donor(s) from the database that best match their preferences. We will then reach out to the donor selected and inform them that the recipient parents are interested in using their eggs. Mutual matching ensures you get to make the final decision. Your eggs will only be used if you agree to have them go to the interested recipient parents. We will be your sounding board, your confidant, and your greatest advocate. Donors’ voices deserve to be heard, and we, at Everie, will make sure of that. While there are other egg donor agencies out there, the Everie difference is that we believe in the power of your voice. In addition to being compensated monetarily for your contribution, we want our donors to feel emotionally appreciated and valued as well. Without women like you, so many others would miss out on the opportunity to grow their families.
Choosing an Egg Donor
Egg banks offer a wide selection of donor profiles. You can explore profiles, choose an egg donor, and begin preparing for your cycle without added wait times. At Everie, we use an egg donor matching platform called The Exchange, designed to foster genuine connections by helping intended parents find egg donors through detailed filters like ethnicity, donation type, and identity preferences. It supports both fresh and frozen donations and offers disclosure options for open ID, semi-open ID, and ID release arrangements.
Success Rates: Fresh vs. Frozen Eggs
Success rates are a key factor in determining whether to choose fresh or frozen donor eggs. The good news is that both options are widely used in IVF and can lead to successful outcomes.
Differences in success rates can reflect several factors:
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The total number of eggs received in a fresh vs frozen cycle
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The impact of clinic and laboratory experience and training
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Individual health and/or medical considerations
Advances in vitrification technology have made both fresh and frozen eggs equally viable approaches to your family building journey.
If you're navigating fresh vs. frozen IVF over age 40, your doctor may recommend the best approach based on your personal health history, timeline, or embryo development goals. What matters most is what fits your life and leads you to the family you are building.
Why Choose Fresh Eggs
Many intended parents consider fresh donor eggs since these cycles often yield more eggs—and in turn, more embryos. This benefit is weighed against the higher cost that comes with a fresh donor cycle.
In a fresh cycle, you obtain all the eggs from the procedure, potentially incurring the following benefits:
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More total fertilized eggs
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More embryos to work with
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More total transfers
Fresh eggs provide the benefits above, with the consideration of a fresh cycle being a longer process.
According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), pregnancy rates per embryo transfer are:
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51.9% with fresh donor eggs
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45.6% with frozen donor eggs
(Source: ASRM Practice Committee, 2021)
A separate study analyzing more than 11,000 donor egg cycles found the following live birth rates:
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51.1% for fresh eggs
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39.7% for frozen eggs
(Source: JAMA, 2021)
Why Choose Frozen Eggs
For many intended parents, the frozen donor egg IVF process offers a more flexible, streamlined path to parenthood. This option is often chosen by those who are ready to move forward quickly, want a simpler process, want to lower cost, or want a small family.
The logistics of frozen cycles are often easier to manage. With fewer required appointments and less coordination, the frozen donor egg cost is typically lower than that of a fresh cycle, making the process more accessible while still maintaining high standards of care. Note that, frozen eggs usually come in cohorts of six.
Fresh and Frozen Eggs: How They Are Used in IVF
Before we get into the differences between fresh and frozen donor eggs, it helps to first understand how the eggs used in each process. The IVF journey follows a similar path in both cases, with a few key differences that can make a big impact. Here is the process step by step:
Egg Retrieval
The egg donor begins by taking fertility medications to stimulate the production of multiple eggs. When the time is right, she undergoes a short, ultrasound-guided procedure to retrieve mature eggs from her ovaries.
In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)
The retrieved eggs—whether fresh or thawed from frozen—are then fertilized in a laboratory. Over the course of about five days, they develop into blastocysts (early stage embryos). Fresh eggs can be fertilized using either conventional insemination or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). On the other hand, frozen eggs, due to the vitrification (freezing) process, require ICSI. Vitrification can harden the outer shell of the egg, making fertilization more difficult. ICSI overcomes this potential challenge by injecting a single sperm directly into each egg using a microscopic needle.
Embryo Transfer
Once a viable blastocyst is selected, it's transferred into the uterus of the recipient parent or a gestational carrier who continues a prescribed medication regimen. Approximately nine days after transfer, the recipient will take a blood test to determine whether implantation was successful. Any remaining viable embryos can be vitrified (frozen) and stored for future family-building plans.
Embryo Transfer With Fresh Donor Eggs
Fresh donor eggs are retrieved and fertilized in real time, which means you and your donor follow a coordinated process from preparation through retrieval. Key points:
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The recipient's IVF cycle is synchronized with the donor's.
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Eggs are retrieved and fertilized right away.
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Recipient parents get all eggs produced in a fresh donation cycle, which may be more than the six provided with a frozen cycle.
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This option involves more planning and scheduling than with frozen donor eggs.
Embryo Transfer With Frozen Donor Eggs
Frozen donor eggs have already gone through the egg retrieval and freezing process and are stored safely by an egg bank. These eggs are available on demand, allowing you to start your journey on your terms. Key points:
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Eggs are retrieved, frozen, and stored in advance.
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Frozen eggs usually come in cohorts of six.
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This option provides faster timelines, greater flexibility, and is ideal for those planning a smaller family.
If you are considering donor egg IVF, one of the first questions you may ask is: Should I choose fresh or frozen eggs? You are not alone—this is a significant decision for many intended parents.
At Everie, we recognize that this choice goes beyond success rates or logistics. It's deeply personal, shaped by your hopes, timeline, budget, and what feels right for growing your family.
Both fresh and frozen donor eggs offer unique benefits, and both are used to pave paths to parenthood. Whether you're leaning toward the fresh eggs or the frozen option, the right choice aligns with your needs. We’re here to help you make it with confidence and care.
Explore the key differences between fresh vs frozen donor eggs.