Using an agency
If you choose EA through an agency, the most popular ones are Snow Angels Embryo Adoption, Snowflakes, NEDC, Embryos Alive, Children's Connections Inc, and Cedar Park. They all require a home study (Embryos Alive will accept a dossier or a home study). The NEDC requires you to travel to their clinic for the transfer, the others ship the embryos to your clinic. The fees for the home study, shipping, and transfer will vary, but average around $6000-$8000.Using a clinic's donor embryo program
If you choose ED through an anonymous clinic program, you will first need to find one that offers this service. This can be difficult, but with a bit of work you can find many options. You can start by calling clinics near you and ask f they have a donor embryo program. Be very clear, because many times will might assume you are looking for eggs. Egg donation is obviously very different from embryo donation. Clinics generally do not require a home study, although many require a psychological screening. Don't let this scare you away. These "screenings" are actually useful informational sessions and you will be glad you had one! I know we were! The average wait time through a clinic is about a year and the fees will vary greatly, with most in the $5000 range. Some can be as low as $3000 and others up to $9000. If you are willing to travel, you can sometimes find programs with lower fees even with travel costs included.Finding embryos on your own
Another option is to find embryos yourself. Once you've found some, you can either travel to the donor's clinic where they are stored or have them shipped to you. Some couples who seek to adopt embryos on their own spread the word that they are looking for embryos on blogs, forums and other social media sites. Miracles Waiting is also a great site to find a match. It is a classifieds ad style site where donors and recipients can make contact with one another and discuss the terms of an adoption. On Miracles Waiting, recipients pay a one time nominal fee to join. Another matching site is NRFA - National Registry for Adoption. Recipient pricing is between $20-$39 a month and is free for donors. And another matching option is on the forums on Parents via Egg Donation. By choosing the matching site route you may save money over using an agency yet still have an open, or semi-open relationship with the donors. However, your wait time could be be a very long time, OR a very short time, depending on how long it takes for a match to be made. And you will have to coordinate all of the logistics yourself (legal paperwork, shipping, etc). This can have it's challenges, but also it's rewards and is not nearly as difficult as many may think. The two big pieces to coordinating this are finding an attorney and working closely with your third-party donation coordinator at your clinic to take care of the rest of the steps (embryo screening, shipping, etc.) You're not alone because your clinic should hold your hand through what steps need to happen.If you choose to adopt embryos by locating them yourself and you are looking for an attorney to draw up your contract, I used Adam Aseron here in Austin, TX and highly recommend him. He was exceptional to work with on both of our embryo adoptions and seems to enjoy playing a part in this exciting process for infertile couples. He can help people throughout the US, and is not limited to Texas. In fact, even though he is local to us, he did all of the work for us remotely through email. He was very responsive to email and gave a quick turnaround for all of our requested contract changes. He charged us a flat fee to draw up a contract rather than charge by the hour which was very cost effective. Here is his contact information:
Adam Aseron
Website: Giles, Sayers & Aseron PLLC
Phone: 512.582.7464
Double-donor embryos
And lastly, there is the option of double-donor embryos. California Conceptions uses anonymous donor sperm and anonymous donor eggs and their success rates are some of the highest out there. The offer up to three cycles for around $12,000. The downside is that if you get pregnant the first try, you've now spent much more than you might have if you had gone another route and was successful your first try. But you are pregnant, so that matters very little if you can afford it! The upside is that if you don't get pregnant you get another try (or two) for that price which is lower than you would pay for three tries at most other clinics. They do not offer a single transfer price though - it's package only. I am not very familiar with this program so please contact them for more information if you are interested. There are also programs overseas that offer affordable double-donor programs.
Another popular double-donor program is at Reprofit in the Czech Republic. Patients who have chosen this route have said that it's very affordable to use this option even when considering travel costs. And one of the perks is that they got to experience a lovely European vacation as part of the process.
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