Inside the Egg Donation Agency Fee: Unveiling the Comprehensive Services Behind the Fee

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Are you someone who is fascinated by all the pregnancy, childbirth,
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A common question that I get asked by intended parents working with my egg donor
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and surrogacy agency, Graceful Beginnings, is what is included in the agency fee.
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So the agency fee is the payment that goes to the agency.
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And it is one of the big costs of egg donation.
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You know, the egg donor fee and the medical costs are usually higher, but the agency fees,
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you know, for agencies in California, this fee can range anywhere from $9,000 up to $15,000.
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But a lot goes in to that agency fee.
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We do a lot of work to earn that fee. So I'm going to share what that is.
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So that donor that you fall in love with on the donor database,
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a lot of work went into even getting her on the database.
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We spend a lot of time, a lot of money recruiting donors.
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We do all sorts of referral bonuses, getting current donors to refer friends
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that they think would be a good match. So a huge part of our job is donor recruitment.
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And then again, paying those referral fees, paying for ads.
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We also often do, you know, a lot of work with intended parents before there's even a match.
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So numerous phone calls, lots of emails to give them as much information as
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they need before matching. machine.
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And sometimes we don't get paid for that time if the intended parents decide
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not to match with that donor, which is of course fine, but that is a big piece of our job.
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Another thing is the insurance for egg donor and surrogacy agencies is incredibly high.
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So that is a big expense that that donor agencies, surrogacy agencies have.
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And so a piece of that is built into the agency fee.
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And then next, when intended parents request to match, you know,
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we do a lot of coordination with the donor, making sure that the schedule works for her.
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If it doesn't, figuring out how how we can adjust things to make it work for her.
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Sometimes intended parents want a video of the donor or they want to do a Zoom
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call. We facilitate all of that.
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If that is a request that's made.
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And then next, if there is a match, then we coordinate on all of,
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or actually this happens before a match, retrieving the donor's records from past cycles.
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This is sometimes easier said than done, but we make sure we get those.
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If somebody wants to match with an experienced donor, we send all of those records
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over to the fertility clinic that the intended parents are working with.
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So the donor can get preliminary approval.
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If she gets that, then we do the match because we want to make sure that preliminary approval is given.
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In some cases, that doesn't happen first.
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You know, if it is a really experienced donor that has just impeccable records
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and say there's two intended parents that both want to match with the donor,
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sometimes intended parents will forego that preliminary approval approval,
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and then just want to match with the donor.
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So all sorts of factors there that we support intended parents through.
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All right, next, if it is a first-time donor, the agency is responsible for
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scheduling the donor's psychological evaluation, making sure that happens in a timely manner.
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We are responsible for scheduling the donor's family risk assessment with a genetic counselor.
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Throughout all of this, we are regularly communicating with the intended parents
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to keep them up to date with everything.
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We are almost constantly texting with our donors, you know, making sure they've
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scheduled their appointments.
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We have notes on our calendars, myself and my coordinators, to make sure that
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we are checking in with the donor the day before her appointment to make sure
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she shows, you know, so we are doing.
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Almost constant communication with our donors who are in cycle.
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Once we get all of the results back from those preliminary evaluations,
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we of course send them to the fertility clinic.
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And then if they all look good, it is time to schedule the donor's medical evaluation.
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So we facilitate that we work with the donor and the clinic to find,
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you know, the ideal day and time for that evaluation.
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If the donor is out of town, the agency is responsible for coordinating all of the travel.
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The intended parents pay for the travel, but the agency coordinates it.
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So we book the flights, we book the accommodations, transportation,
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and then we have escrow send the per diem to the donor based on how many days
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the donor was out of town.
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And so this involves quite a lot of coordination with the donor.
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To make sure everything works for her,
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to make sure she's okay with the accommodations and so on and so forth.
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Sometimes we have donors that have never traveled on there. And so we do a lot
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of coaching in that regard.
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We're almost, you know, constantly on the phone with them as they're getting
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ready to go through security or whatnot, just making sure they're comfortable,
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making sure that they get where they need to be.
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All right, so once that medical evaluation is done, there are results that come
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in usually about a week later.
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As an agency, we check in regularly with the clinic to see when the results are in.
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Some clinics are really busy and they don't notice right away when those results come in.
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So it can be helpful for the agency to regularly kind of give that little push
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like, hey, can you check to see if the results are in?
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And if so, then the doctor reviews them.
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They give approval, medical clearance.
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And so once we receive that medical clearance, the agency,
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we work with the intended parents attorney and the donor's attorney to get the
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drafting of the donor contract started.
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Oftentimes, both parties have quite a few questions for the donor agency to
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make sure that the donor contract reflects certain terms that were in the retainer agreement.
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If, you know, both parties want to have, you know, a semi-known or a known donation,
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there's a lot of coordination that goes on there with the agency often being a middleman with that.
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We're also making sure that the legal process moves forward in a timely manner.
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You know, if we have a very clear deadline, we make sure that everybody knows
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about that and that everything is moving as quickly as possible.
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Once that legal clearance
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is given then it is time for the clinic
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to create the the cycle calendar so as soon as we get that cycle calendar we
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check with the donor to make sure that works with her schedule if it doesn't
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then we work with the clinic to figure out an alternative we also of course
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are checking with intended parents throughout all of this,
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to make sure that they don't have
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any conflicts. So a lot of our job is communicating with intended parents,
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the clinic, and the donor to make sure that everybody is on the same page and
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moving forward at the same pace.
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And so once the donor calendar is set, everything looks good.
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Typically, the donor is starting birth control.
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We check in with her to make sure she starts birth control on the correct day.
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We always have every appointment, every piece of the donor calendar in our calendar.
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So again, we check in with them to make sure the day that they're supposed to
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stop birth control that they stop,
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that the day before all of their monitoring appointments, we check in and remind
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them, make sure that they know where to go, what time they need to be there.
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If it is an out-of-town donor, the agency is responsible for finding the outside
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monitoring clinic, getting all of the needed information to that clinic,
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scheduling the appointments.
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And we're also regularly checking in with the donor to see how she's feeling,
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to see if she has any discomfort, if she needs anything,
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we are very present at all times, but especially during the cycle to make sure
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the donor has everything that she needs.
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She understands how to do the fertility injections.
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Of course, you know, the nurses at the fertility clinic provide a lot of support.
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But my co-founder, Anna Lee, she is also an RN.
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She was a third party coordinator for a major clinic in Los Angeles for about 15 years.
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Before that, she worked at a fertility clinic in Austin, Texas for about 10
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years. So she has a ton of experience as well.
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I've worked in this industry for about 15 years. I was a donor many times in my 20s.
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So between the two of us, we're able to give a lot of support for the donor injections.
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Annalise sometimes does FaceTime with the donor to make sure that she is doing
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the injections properly and again at the correct time.
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All right, and if the donor is an out-of-town donor, we again coordinate all
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the travel to the fertility clinic, make sure that she gets on that airplane on time,
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yada yada, similar to if she needs to travel for the medical evaluation,
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but obviously she's there for a longer period of time.
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Throughout all of this, we are
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also responsible for requesting payments to different parties from escrow.
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So we provide instructions for escrow to send payment to the psychologist that
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does the psych evaluation, to the genetic counselor that handles the family risk assessment.
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We are responsible for obtaining the donor insurance policy.
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For making sure the donor attorney is paid for, making sure the donor per diem
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is paid, that the donor receives reimbursement for all incidentals, such as birth control.
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And then we are responsible, too, for the donor receiving her $500 start of
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medication fee from escrow.
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And then, of course, right after she receives or right after she undergoes the
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egg retrieval, we instruct escrow to remit her the remainder of her donor fee.
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Throughout all this time you know we are also
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communicating with the intended parents regularly letting them
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know when the donor is going to start medications how she's feeling when she'll
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be traveling to the clinic making sure that they have all of the information
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they need i myself i answer phone calls and text messages all seven days of the week at all hours.
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Especially you know if a donor is traveling if
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she gets to the car rental place at
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4 a.m and nobody's there then they're
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talking with me to figure out you know how
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to get to their accommodations so I am pretty much always on and providing support
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to our donors and intended parents and then after the egg retrieval technically
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our job is done but I personally stay in communication with the intended parents.
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Making sure that, you know, they have all the information that they need,
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and just to support them through some of those next steps if they want it.
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So I'm sure I've forgotten a few pieces of all of the things an egg donor agency
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does, but that is a broad strokes view of everything that is included in that agency fee.
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If you can like subscribe comment that would be so incredibly helpful that will
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allow me to keep providing this content for you guys all right love you,
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