Everything to know about donor egg IVF in Portugal

Kicking off 2025, donor egg IVF is a huge talking point in our TRB community, with many looking for support both within the US and further afield.

And for those considering travelling for donor egg IVF treatment, Portugal is one the fastest-growing destinations, both in popularity and donor availability.

We sat down live with Patricia Rocha, Egg Donor Coordinator, and Ana Luísa Alves, Psychologist, at Porto-based clinic Procriar, for the very latest.

Watch as we cover:

• The egg donation process
• Portugal’s legal and ethical framework
• Anonymity and Portigal’s open-ID approach
• Choosing an egg donor
• The kind of support you can expect
• And much more

Transcript

Eloise Edington

Hello everyone, I’m going live today with Ana and Patricia from Procriar Fertility Clinic, based in Portugal, to discuss egg donation and egg donation with IVF abroad in Portugal. We get lots of questions on this, so it seems very fitting to have their expertise here today.

We’ve had a few technical hiccups, so hopefully, they’ll be able to join now so that we can answer questions from you guys, which will be hugely insightful for your journey, wherever you are, especially around egg donation abroad and in Portugal.

Hello! Can you see me now? Yes! Wonderful! We are here, fantastic!

So, I’ve just thanked everyone for their patience. If you could please just start by introducing yourselves, Procriar Clinic, and also your jobs, and what you do before we start talking about egg donation in Portugal with IVF.

Patricia Rocha

My name is Patricia Rocha; I’m one of the nurses at Procriar Clinic. We are located in Porto, Portugal. We are a fertility clinic, and my main role this last year has been coordinating the donation program. I have Ana with me.

Ana Luísa Alves

I’m Ana Luísa Alves. I’m a clinical and health psychologist at Procriar, and I work in donor assessment as well as with patients undergoing fertility treatments.

Eloise Edington

So please tell us a little bit about the egg donation process at Procriar, how does it work?

Patricia Rocha

So, as I was saying, I’m coordinating the donation program. We start from the very beginning when our donors apply through our website, so they are our candidates at that time. We do the first initial screening just to try to rule out any reasons why they would not be suitable to actually donate with us.

The other part of my job is to look for the best match for the couples we have receiving treatment at Procriar and try to allocate them together with the lab team.

Obviously, we review a lot of things—not just the physical characteristics—but we have access to a lot of information. Sometimes, we might not be able to share this with the couples, but yeah, we review quite a lot of things when we actually allocate a donor to a couple.

Eloise Edington

How are egg donors screened physiologically at Procriar?

Patricia Rocha

Yes, so we can just explain from the very beginning.

We screen the candidates that we receive, and then they have a first medical appointment, and that’s when we go through all the medical history, family history, height, weight, you know, if they’ve donated before—all of these things that we go through.

We do an ultrasound to make sure everything is okay for them to proceed, and then they go and see Ana for the psychology screening.

Ana Luísa Alves

Yes, the psychology screening is very highly rigorous because we need our donors to meet our higher standards.

So, basically, where to start? At the beginning, we focus on their life story, and we try to understand their motivation behind being a donor. That’s very important, and we try to give them as much information as possible so they can understand the process of the donation and if they have the availability and responsibility to carry it out.

Then, we talk about some ethical and legal assessments that are very important, like confidentiality and non-anonymity. We also assess their mental health and talk about their mental health status and their family history too.

We use some tools—psychological instruments and tools—to understand their emotional intelligence and their personality traits. This will basically help us to have a very detailed profile of our donors, some obviously physical characteristics, like Patricia was saying, but also emotional intelligence and personality traits.

We also try to understand their hobbies, their interests, and we have some trivia questions.

At the end, we ask for a little message from these donors to their future families, and basically, this whole process is to make sure that our families get these profiles to help them make a good decision about their donor.

Eloise Edington

Why is Portugal such a popular destination for egg donation and IVF growing in popularity in fact?

Patricia Rocha

Yeah, so we think, for starters, Portugal is a wonderful country, of course—very safe, obviously, it’s very affordable as well, and very easy to travel to when you’re from abroad.

At Procriar, we have a multidisciplinary team; we speak several languages, and I think this helps us build a strong, personalized relationship with our clients and patients.

I think that’s the main mission of Procriar: we try to be different because of that. We try to actually know the patient’s name, know the patient’s history, and we try to have one medical doctor allocated to the patient throughout their journey.

We also try to have one member of our international patient coordination team allocated to the patient as well, from the very first contact all the way until they have a baby in their arms, hopefully. So, we try to make this relationship very close.

Eloise Edington

Are there specific laws regulations processes that people should be aware of when exploring egg donation in Portugal, and what should intended parents know about the legal and ethical process in Portugal with egg donation IVF?

Patricia Rocha

Okay, so regarding the legislation we were talking about, I think the main thing in Portugal is that we are monitored by the National ART Authority.

So, all the information regarding ART treatments done in Portugal needs to be documented and monitored by the state. They’re very, very transparent about this; they really make sure everything is, all the information is collected, saved, and stored for a long, long time.

Then, we have quite an open and permissive attitude toward IVF treatments. We’re getting better every year, we hope, and this is a good thing because we can also offer treatment to single women and same-sex female couples. It’s a big community at Procriar, and we’re very proud of that.

Regarding donations, our donors are non-anonymous, like I already talked about. We think this policy safeguards the child’s right to know information about the donor but also allows us to protect our donors, give them clear guidelines about the number of donations they can do, their compensation, and the whole donation process.

We’ve found that most of our donors are motivated to actually help other people because, if we think about the amount of time they spend coming to the clinic, being monitored, and all of these things, and if you compare it to the compensation they get, you know, they do this because they really want to help.

Also, it’s very important for them to understand that they can be contacted by their offspring once the offspring turns 18, and they also allow us to share some information on the extended profiles that Ana talked about.

So, all of this, all of these things, allow us to have a large pool of donors in Portugal, and Procriar is one of the biggest. This allows us to offer treatments with minimal waiting times—actually none—and to keep our prices affordable for patients. So, it’s quite a good thing.

What can we do when we help our patients actually choose an egg donor? So, the main thing is, right from the beginning, our international patient team and the medical doctors speak with the patients, try to understand what their expectations are.

When the time is right, they’re sent to the donation team, and we review the entire donation process with them, trying to manage their expectations, because sometimes it can be quite difficult. Then, we try to select the best match that we have available, and we propose them to the patients with these extended profiles. If the patients feel like it’s not the right match, we can look for another option and discuss it.

At Procriar, we offer genetic matching; we can do genetic matching up to 20,200 genes studied with our donors and compare them to the patient receiving these eggs.

We’ve also been doing, since last year, immunological matching with a test called the cure test, and this allows us to try and give the best prognosis to our patients with an egg treatment.

Eloise Edington

Great, thank you

Patricia Rocha

I will probably proceed with how we can help parents prepare emotionally for these treatments. We know that IVF can be challenging, especially emotionally, and physically also, so some strategies can be useful. I would say it’s crucial to be well-informed.

Even before starting the procedures, people should know all the procedures and what egg donation entails.

It’s important for us to understand these patients’ values and try to understand that sometimes this is not their first option and that they didn’t want to go through a donation.

However, they need to feel comfortable about it, so that can be basically like living with this decision peacefully. We make this work with them. Seeking psychological counseling can be fundamental, and at Procriar, we offer this support to all of our patients during all this treatment—at the beginning, during the treatment, and even after treatment to deal with some challenges that they might encounter.

It’s always important for these families to have a strong support system, like friends and family who can support them. They can also look for support groups, even online, so they can feel like there are other people who share the same insecurities, the same problems as them, and have similar experiences.

Also, it is very important to take care of their health, physically and mentally too. Balancing their diet, exercise, and lifestyle is very important. Sometimes, practicing stress-reduction techniques such as meditation, yoga, mindfulness, or exercise can help maintain calm and clarity during the whole process.

It is also important to work on the couple’s relationship—like active listening to each other, maintaining the couple’s interaction and connection, and making plans together.

Life shouldn’t be all about IVF; life should be within the couple. They should be able to have all these couple moments, so adjusting expectations together and understanding each other’s limits, which sometimes may be different, and even some points of view, is very important for them to keep the communication alive.

We also help them manage expectations. Sometimes it’s very important to be prepared for the emotional highs and lows of the process, and having realistic expectations can help them better cope with some situations that arise.

Eloise Edington

Thank you. 

Patricia Rocha

I think that we should talk about the open ID approach, right? So, in Portugal, we have confidentiality, which basically means that these families don’t know who they are receiving from, or who the donor is, and the donor doesn’t know to which families they are donating to.

However, since 2018, in Portugal, we have legislation that guarantees that a child born through sperm or egg donors has the right to request information about their donor identification when they turn 18.

The disclosure of donor information is entirely controlled by the family to ensure that they share the information in the way they prefer, at their own timing. This guarantees that the information is never revealed by accident.

At Procriar, we provide these families, obviously, with psychological profiles of the donor, as I mentioned before, which gives them a little more information about what to expect.

But it’s always important to say, be very conscious when creating expectations about this donor and potential contacts. We also provide psychological counseling to help these parents and families go through the journey of disclosure.

Ana Luísa Alves

So okay, I can go through the next question, which I think is about the emotional support and the counseling that we offer at Procriar.

We have psychological counseling and support for parents in any phase of treatment. There are some key aspects of this support.

First, I would say we always help them manage stress and anxiety. We know this population can have a high risk of anxiety and stress, so before, during treatments, and while waiting for the results, sometimes these are very eventful situations that may arise, causing stress.

We try to help them deal with expectations too. We also provide decision-making support before treatment, such as working on the acceptance of donation, to facilitate the process. Even on genetic screening, that’s very important for some couples.

We assist families in deciding whether or not to have treatments, what other possibilities exist, when to stop, and when to start another treatment. We also assist families in deciding how and when to disclose the donor information, emphasizing that this is their choice: if they want to, how they want to, and when they want to do it.

We can also help improve communication in couples’ relationships. Like I said before, this is very important to strengthen the relationship, as it’s the foundation, and always build a support system while preparing for different outcomes. We help set realistic expectations and even support exploring alternative options if needed.

We also address grief and loss in some cases, providing a safe space for them to process all their feelings and emotions. We give them time to make decisions, not rushing them, and always prioritize their mental health.

Our counseling helps them make decisions, understand the implications of donation, manage the stress of treatments and the results, and we support these couples in working through their challenges and different points of view, ensuring they are emotionally prepared and feel supported. 

Patricia Rocha

Yeah, so I think from the things we’ve talked about before, just to give you an idea of what it’s like if you’re looking to have treatment in Portugal and at Procriar specifically: how long would patients need to stay at Procriar, or in this case, in Portugal?

We review the treatment plan with the medical team as soon as you start your treatment. You also have the nursing team in touch with you directly whenever needed. Throughout the process, you’re always in touch with someone. We’ve been able to closely monitor all aspects of the treatment with patients abroad.

However, some of our patients prefer to come and have the ultrasounds, the monitoring ultrasounds, with us. If it’s very difficult to book flights and stay here for a longer period, that’s completely fine. We just need to make sure you have your medical doctor, a gynecologist, who can perform the ultrasounds and knows what they’re doing. They should be able to give us a full report for us to be okay with it and make a treatment plan around it.

So, if everything goes to plan, the patients only need to travel on the day before the procedure, like the examination of the embryo or the embryo transfer. We always recommend that they arrive the day before.

We’ve been having issues with flights—flights are canceled or late, and then patients aren’t here, which is very sad for everyone. So, we ask them to arrive the day before and stay for at least 48 hours to ensure they have time to rest and recover. Afterward, it’s safe for them to travel.

Then, we have follow-up care for at least two weeks after, when they do a blood test to check if we’ve got a positive result. If it is positive, they’ll have a clinical ultrasound until the 12th week of pregnancy, and then we give them the discharge, and they have their baby. So, I think that’s the main process around egg donation at Procriar.

 Eloise Edington

 If anyone has any questions for the team or wants to know more about the open ID opportunity for egg donation within Portugal please do head to our link in bio to learn everything, and get in touch with their wonderful team who are full of insight and expertise. 

Patricia Rocha

You have all of the information about the treatments we do on our website at Procriar our website and in our social media as well anything you would like to ask just please send us an email submit a a form in the website and we will be able to  help you we’ve been doing quite a lot of treatments with patients abroad and things have been going really well so  hopefully we can help you and we’re all here to help that’s our mission so please let us know if you need anything else.

Eloise Edington

If you want to learn more about the process involved in traveling to Portugal for egg donation IVF treatment in Portugal then please do DM us or contact their friendly team with the link in bio.

Thanks everyone, great to see you!