Looking for an egg donor in the UK? Here’s what to know (& how to choose)

Finding an egg donor in the UK

Choosing an egg donor is a big (and intensely personal) decision — but how do you navigate the process with confidence?

We went live with Annabel Yazdi, Matching and Relationship Manager at London Egg Bank, to break down everything you need to know.

Watch as we cover:

• How London Egg Bank makes choosing a donor simple and transparent
• Key factors to consider when selecting a donor
• Why UK-based, regulated donors are an important choice
• How London Egg Bank adds a personal touch to the selection process
• The meaningful relationships built with donors—and why this matters
• Real stories of patients who found their match

Transcript

Eloise Edington 

Hello, welcome everyone. We are back. We are going live with Annabel Yazdi, who is the Matching and Relationship Manager at London Egg Bank.

She will welcome any questions that you have around egg donation within the UK. We’ll be talking a bit about what the process of looking for an egg donor in the UK looks like, what to know, what to think about.

Here she is. Hello, nice to see everybody. Thank you for joining. It would be great to know where you’re joining from, and Annabel should be here any second.

There we go. Hi Annabel!

Annabel Yazdi 

Hello Eloise. I’m so sorry about those technical issues. We are here now, which is perfect.

Eloise Edington 

If you could start by introducing yourself and your role at London Egg Bank, that would be brilliant.

Annabel Yazdi 

Of course, yes. I’m Annabel. I am the Matching and Relationship Manager at London Egg Bank. I’ve been in the team for nine years now. I started off working in the London Women’s Clinic in the new patient team, and then I moved into the London Egg Bank, working firstly with egg donors, recruiting and onboarding egg donors.

After a couple of years, I moved into the matching team, which is the team that works more with the egg recipient and the website and donor profiles.

My role now, as the Matching and Relationship Manager, is basically managing our stock of over 20,000 frozen eggs and helping patients to find their perfect match amongst those donors.

We are working both with patients that are having their full treatment with London Egg Bank and also those that are having treatment at another UK-based fertility clinic that has a third-party agreement with London Egg Bank. This means that patients can purchase eggs from London Egg Bank for their treatment elsewhere.

I’m also working very closely with the external clinics and patients of both London Egg Bank and other UK clinics.

Eloise Edington

Amazing. Obviously the right person to ask these questions to, so thank you for your time today.

Diving in, we’d love to understand a bit more about an overview of the process. How does London Egg Bank make choosing a donor simple and transparent for patients using donor eggs?

Annabel Yazdi 

We hope that our website is user-friendly. We hope that we’re empowering our patients, and anyone looking to use donor eggs in their treatment through London Egg Bank, to make the choice of their donor themselves.

We understand that in other European countries, for example, this isn’t always the case and the donor will be chosen for the patient. But we understand that for a lot of patients, they want that autonomy, that choice.

Our website is set up so that it’s user-friendly. There are filters which patients can use to narrow down the choice from 300 profiles to the handful of profiles that match what you as a patient are looking for.

The matching team are here to provide extra support because we understand that there’s only so much information that our website can give you, and people like that personal communication with the team. So that’s what we can provide as well.

Eloise Edington 

Amazing. What are the key things that you advise to patients when they’re using or looking to use donor eggs to help them with their selection process? Are there common concerns that you might hear, for example, or things people are looking for in particular?

Annabel Yazdi 

The main advice that we try to give is not to wait too long to find the perfect match, because the perfect match most likely won’t exist. It’s just finding the donor that you feel most comfortable with, that matches what you feel you’re looking for, both in terms of physical characteristics and in terms of her personality.

Our donors provide what we call extended profiles, which is information about their character, their motivations for donating, and just interesting stories about themselves to help patients to really see the character—the person behind the donation—and not just her physical attributes.

In terms of common concerns, there are a few that stand out. One main one would be that we do have donors on our website that are carriers of genetic conditions. So if you’re looking at our database right now, you might see that a certain donor is a carrier of, say, cystic fibrosis. This just means that the donor herself was found to be a carrier of the trait when we did the genetic testing. She is perfectly healthy. We are all, in the population, carriers of something that we are not aware of—most of us.

We’re just adding an extra level of security to make sure that before you go ahead with your treatment, you know that the male providing the sperm, whether that’s a partner or a donor, is not also a carrier of the same condition that the egg donor is a carrier of. That’s a really common concern.

Another one would be the age of the donor and whether that’s a big factor in the decision-making process. All of our donors are aged 18 to 35 as per HFEA regulations. We have statistics, we have evidence that show that we have many positive outcomes from patients that used eggs from donors that were in the higher part of that age group, 30 to 35. That’s really nothing for you to be worried about if you’re in the process at the moment of selecting your donor.

We would just say: trust us. We’re an HFEA-regulated clinic. We have very experienced consultants, genetic counsellors, embryologists, and the team are here to help you. We want a positive outcome as much as you do. So trust us, and we hope we’ll be able to find you a good match as soon as possible.

Eloise Edington

That’s really interesting to hear. I’m a mother of donor-conceived children, and I think what is interesting about what you said about being a carrier for certain things—if you were looking to conceive a child with a partner without assisted reproduction or third-party gametes—these things aren’t necessarily things that you would even be able to look into. So this gives you, I guess, a bigger picture of where your selection lies and opens up options to look at what you’re choosing and how that may affect your family building.

Annabel Yazdi 

Definitely. That’s the best way to look at it, absolutely. Because without that information, most of us are in the dark about that. So we’re just providing extra information.

Eloise Edington

You said earlier that a piece of advice is to get started with the journey. Do you often see people who come into this perhaps apprehensive about the first steps? What’s your advice there?

Annabel Yazdi 

I think definitely, because we understand it’s a very personal journey. A lot of patients that come to us have already undergone years of fertility treatment, whether that’s with their own eggs or donor eggs. So we completely understand that for many people, it is a slow journey.

But what I would say is, once you’ve decided that donor egg treatment is for you, the process of selecting the donor should probably be a shorter rather than a longer process. Just because we have seen many cases over the years of patients selecting their perfect donor, and then keeping an eye on the website and seeing the new donors that we add every week, and then being unsure whether they’ve made the right choice.

It’s completely natural, but after a while, I think they just have to stop looking—because you’re never going to be 100% sure.

Eloise Edington 

No, it’s a big decision. You’re right—you need to go with it.

So on that point, why would you advise patients that it is important to choose a UK-based donor through a regulated bank such as London Egg Bank?

Annabel Yazdi 

The main reason would be the anonymity laws in the UK. In the future, any donor-conceived people born from eggs from the London Egg Bank—or in the UK in general from a registered clinic—will have the choice as to whether they would like to know their egg donor’s identifiable details in the future and potentially try to make contact with the donor as well.

We do believe strongly that donor-conceived people deserve that choice. Each family is obviously able to make their own decisions on that, but if you go outside of the UK for treatment, you’ll never be able to change your mind on that. So we do believe that it’s a good place to start if in the future that donor-conceived person does want to obtain that information.

The second point would be that we’re HFEA regulated, which means we have quality standards. Also, we have family limits in the UK. You can be confident that when using donor eggs from London Egg Bank, there will be no more than nine other families created from that donor—and potentially a tenth family if she has children of her own.

This is also a very important factor in the UK.

Altruism would be the next one—the fact that our egg donors are donating for altruistic reasons. They are only paid reasonable expenses for their time and their travel to the clinic during the donation process, which means that they really are donating to help other people. This is their main motivation, which means you can be confident when using eggs from London Egg Bank that, in the future, that donor is potentially open to receiving contact or at least very pleased that you’ve been successful in your treatment and that your child has been born.

Finally, I’d say that as we’re a UK clinic, most of our patients are British in terms of ethnic origin, so there is a wide range of donors here for patients. Rather than going overseas, where that might be more difficult to match their skin tone, facial features, etc., we do have a wide range of ethnic background donors for patients as we’re based in London. So we hope that we can cater to all requirements in terms of that.

But yeah, those are the main reasons why having treatment in the UK is really beneficial when it comes to using eggs.

Eloise Edington

Those are some very good reasons, aren’t they? Some very, very valid reasons.

It also seems that London Egg Bank has the edge when it comes to a real personal touch with the selection process.

So it would be useful to understand the information that you provide both to help patients using donor eggs make informed decisions and to foster connection from the beginning, throughout the whole process.

Annabel Yazdi 

Like I said before, we understand that every patient or every couple that is coming for treatment with London Egg Bank—or to use eggs from London Egg Bank elsewhere—is on an individual journey, and we understand that everyone has different needs.

We have a team that is here to support you. You will be in touch with a dedicated matching officer who will be your point of contact at any stage in the process of selecting your donor. Specific questions about donors or bigger questions about the laws in the UK, any doubts that you might have—we’re here to help you.

The donor profiles really do speak for themselves because they’re very detailed in terms of the amount of information we can give you. Like I said, the donors write extra messages in their extended profiles because they understand the importance of that. They understand that patients are looking at them to potentially help them create or expand their family. So everything they can share about themselves is really important.

You can see they go into a lot of detail. They take a lot of care over these messages, which is more information than you might know or find out about a donor going abroad, for example. I would say so, yes.

We do find that when patients come to us and they maybe have looked elsewhere first or had treatment elsewhere and then come to the London Egg Bank, they’re surprised at how much information we can share with them.

Eloise Edington

Can you tell us more about the work that London Egg Bank is doing to build meaningful relationships with the donors, and why this matters to the donor conception process?

Annabel Yazdi 

Of course. We started recruiting donors just about 10 years ago, and we’ve slowly built up the trust and the community of donors over that time. In 2024, we had over a thousand donors completing an egg donation cycle with us, which is incredible.

We are in constant contact with our donors. Once they’ve completed one donation, they may come back for a repeat donation in the future.

They’re also always in contact with us about the outcomes of their donation. They often want to know if any children have been born.

We can share non-identifiable information with them—the sex of the child, the year of the birth, and any general queries they may have about their own fertility.

We also, at the London Egg Bank, run a program called the Donor Welfare Program, which means two years after their donation, all donors are offered an internal pelvic ultrasound scan and a consultation if they’ve got any queries about their own fertility—if they want to consider maybe their own treatment or fertility preservation for the future, or just if they want to double-check that everything is fine in terms of their own ovarian reserve.

A lot of donors do take us up on that, and sometimes from that, decide to donate again—and sometimes don’t, and that’s completely fine,

It’s just there as an extra support for them so that donors understand what a massive, life-changing thing they’re doing by helping patients. We’re also here for them after their donation for any extra support they need.

Eloise Edington

Absolutely. Well, as a parent to donor-conceived children, I can agree that it is a life-changing opportunity that donors provide. So it’s fascinating to be having these conversations.

If anyone has any questions for Annabel as we’re speaking, please do ask. You can also DM us afterwards, and the London Egg Bank is linked in our bio to find out more.

I’d love to hear if there are any stories that you can share about patients using donor eggs who found their match through London Egg Bank, and what made the experience special for them.

Annabel Yazdi 

Lots of different patients come to mind because I’ve been here for so long, and we obviously have so many stories that are really touching.

But one particular one that I can mention is a couple who came through maybe about six years ago now. They selected their donor based on her extended profile. She’d written a really lovely poem about herself, and it was just so informative, funny, and really endearing. They loved her profile anyway, but that was just the icing on the cake.

They went ahead with that donor using the partner’s sperm and they were successful. They had a child, and a couple of years later they were in touch to see if there were any more eggs available from their donor, which we always encourage patients to do — but we can never guarantee, unfortunately, that that will be the case.

For this particular donor, there were no eggs available, but we did reach out to her to see if she would consider another donation because she was still within the age range. She was more than happy to do that.

She came back, donated more eggs, and these patients went on to have another successful pregnancy — two children from the same donor.

That was lovely because the patients sent a thank-you letter. The donor read that letter and was so touched, and it just reaffirmed that she had made the right decision all those years ago.

Eloise Edington

That actually sparks a good question. Would you advise intended parents to think about how many children they might like to have when they’re making a decision on a donor and purchasing the eggs?

Annabel Yazdi

It’s difficult because we can never guarantee how many embryos will be created from any batch of eggs and how many of those embryos will go on to lead to a live birth.

So definitely, for patients that are certain they want more than one child from the same egg donor, it’s always advisable to start with a larger number of eggs if possible.

We sell eggs in batches of six and ten, but there’s no upper limit. So if you are already thinking that you want to have two or three or more children, there’s no harm in purchasing more eggs because then you know from the start how many embryos you have.

We are unfortunately never able to guarantee — like this story — that a donor will be able to come back.

It has happened a few times, but there are other occasions where the donor has either passed the age limit or her life circumstances have changed, and she’s just not able to consider it anymore.

Eloise Edington

That makes complete sense. Someone’s asked what the waiting list is like.

Annabel Yazdi

We don’t have any waiting lists. It’s a live system on our website. We update it every week, and like I said, there’s around 300 profiles at any time. The only time you may need to wait is if you’re looking for a very specific ethnic background.

We find that maybe East Asian donors are the group that go most quickly once they’re on the website. After that, it will be South Asian. We do have a steady flow of donors. We have amazing young women who come through every month intending to donate, and if they pass the criteria, then they go on. But that process can take two to three months.

That’s why at any given moment you won’t see many donors of specific ethnic backgrounds on our database — but they’re coming soon.

If that is you and you’re looking and there is no donor matching what you’re looking for, just get in touch with us. As long as you’ve got a treatment plan in place, we will be in contact with you as soon as we feel there’s a donor that matches your needs.

Eloise Edington

Fantastic. That’s really useful to know. I hope that answered the question.

Someone has said, “Thank you so much, London Egg Bank. You guys helped me a lot. I was trying to get pregnant for four years. Since I came to you guys, now I’m pregnant — seven-month-old baby girl.”

Annabel Yazdi 

That’s lovely to hear — a success story. 

Eloise Edington 

I’d love to ask you: what do you wish more patients using donor eggs knew about the egg donation process in the UK and also the support they can receive from your very knowledgeable team?

Annabel Yazdi 

The main thing, from patients that come to us from maybe other clinics, is there’s really no need to wait.

We hear so many stories of patients that have been waiting a year or more for an egg donor on a waiting list. That really is sad to hear, because we’ve got a bank — we’ve got 20,000 eggs frozen, we’ve got 300 donors on our website at any time.

There’s no need to wait. If you’re ready to start treatment, frozen eggs are the perfect solution because they’re ready to be thawed when you’re ready.

Aside from all of the details in selecting your donor, there’s really no need for it to be a long process once you’re ready.

Even though we can never guarantee the outcomes for treatment — even when using donor eggs — we do know that when switching from using your own eggs to using donor eggs, your chance of pregnancy is significantly increased.

We have a cumulative pregnancy rate after two embryo transfers of 74%. It is different for everyone, but we are here to help, and we do believe that we can help you to significantly increase your chances.

The only other thing is: just trust. Trust the doctors, trust the clinicians, and be grateful to the donors, because we’re all here to help you and to hopefully help you to have that successful outcome.

Eloise Edington

Amazing. Well, I’ve learned a lot today, so thank you so much for your time. As I mentioned, if anyone has any questions for Anabel and the rest of the team at London Egg Bank, please do head to our link in bio to find out more.

Whether it’s to do with using donor eggs within the UK, the donor screening process, or how London Egg Bank can help you today in this process of choosing a donor — whatever stage you’re at — then please feel free to reach out.

Any last piece of advice that you would give to people contemplating egg donation within the UK?

Annabel Yazdi 

I would say there’s a lot of support out there — like The Ribbon Box, London Egg Bank, many other organisations, the Donor Conception Network. You’re not alone. There are a lot of people going through this journey, and we’re here to answer any questions. No question is a silly question.

Implications counselling is always really encouraged and important, both for making decisions now and in the future.

They can help you with resources, information on how to talk to your child in the future about their conception, and to deal with wider questions from family members and friends. There’s always support available.

It’s something that is becoming more and more talked about now, so we hope that you don’t feel alone in the journey.

Eloise Edington

Great advice.

Annabel Yazdi 

There are also some great books out there to help people navigate that journey — and when you’re becoming a parent to a donor-conceived child, how to start that conversation.

Eloise Edington

Absolutely top advice. Thank you so much for your time, Annabel. We really appreciate all the knowledge you’ve shared with us today. If anyone has any questions, feel free to drop us a DM, drop the team a DM, and follow our link in bio.

Thanks again for your time, and have a good evening, everyone.

Annabel Yazdi

Thank you.

Eloise Edington

Okay, thanks everyone. Bye.