fertility clinics

The Alternative Families Show is taking place this Saturday 23rd October 2010 - 10am to 5pm, Grand Connaught Rooms, Covent Garden, London. Tickets are now available on the day priced £10.

The Alternative Families Show is for would be parents and for families already set up. For those people looking to start a family there are experts on hand to discuss all the options available to a same-sex, male or female couple and to single people wanting to become a parent. Informative seminars will be running throughout the day from conception to schooling.

As more and more hopeful parents are forced abroad to seek donor eggs, Victoria Macdonald recalls the agony and joy of her IVF quest
In a coffee shop the other day, a woman came over to tell me, at some length, just how cute my baby daughter is. Of course, I was hardly likely to disagree, but after a while the woman straightened up, looked long and hard at me and said: “So, does she take after her father, then?”

Later that week I was telling a friend just how determined Gabriella was becoming. My friend laughed and said: “Well, we know who she gets that from.”

"You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give" Kahlil Gibran

There is no greater gift that a woman can give, then the gift of life. As we enter the second month of 2010 and some of those new year resolutions start to fade, egg donation is a selfless act that will forever be appreciated and may change the life of a woman in a way you can only imagine. Whether the donated compensation which you will receive matter to you or not, the act of giving touches the soul and remains forever appreciated.

The Measure of an Egg Donor Agency

For those women whose “partners look at them and they fall pregnant” the use of donor eggs may seem completely absurd. It’s a case of “If you have never walked in someone’s shoes don’t judge them,” and often it’s a complete ignorance, as is the case when you are dealing with a choice you would never have to make.

The reality is that, for those increasing woman who, without the use of donor eggs would never be able to experience motherhood, egg donation is the greatest gift of life.

Epigenetics is a new (well to some of us!) buzzword in the field of egg donation for conception. Essentially Epigenetics refers to factors outside the gene, such as a cell's exposure to hormones or genetic variations that can modify a gene. Such factors can change what is ultimately expressed; they can change a phenotype i.e.: they can alter what an organism looks like as a consequence of the interaction of its gene AND the environment. In terms of conception via egg donation that environment begins with the womb of the birth mother.

Egg donation in South Africa is indeed legal and legislated as Chapter 8 of the National Health Act (Act no 61 of 2003) Gamete donation is regulated by The Policy Committee of the South African Society of Reproductive Science and Surgery. The 2008 Guidelines for gamete donation provides the latest recommendations for clinicians involved in assisted conception using gamete (egg) donors.