Intra-partner egg sharing is becoming increasingly popular among lesbian couples who wish to start a family. The appeal of this treatment lies in the fact that both partners can be actively involved – one providing the eggs (the genetic mother) and the other carrying the pregnancy (the birth mother). In addition to this, both partners are expected to go through different stages of the IVF cycle, using donor sperm from The London Women’s Clinic, LWC’s sister company The London Sperm Bank, or another sperm donor of their choice.

The LWC has issued a 10-step guide to the treatment process:

1. You will be provided with medication and a course of stimulation injections to increase your follicles and thicken your womb lining.
2. Your cycle is then monitored to track the development of the follicles, using ultrasound scans, possible hormonal blood tests and by adjusting the dose of the stimulation medication if necessary.
3. When the follicles are large enough, a further injection will be administered to ensure that the follicles mature and that the eggs are released.
4. The egg collection procedure will then be scheduled and involves an egg collection needle attached to a scan probe being passed through your vagina. The needle then pierces the vaginal wall and enters the ovary. The fluid from each follicle, which contains the egg, is aspirated and passed over to the embryologist who searches through the fluid for the egg
5. The eggs are collected and each one graded by its development. The eggs are then placed inside an incubator before they are mixed with the selected sperm and in vitro fertilisation takes place.
6. The donor sperm you have chosen (from the London Sperm Bank or elsewhere) is combined with each egg in a special culture medium in a Petri dish. Usually about 60-70% of the eggs collected will be fertilised. During this time the second partner (birth mother) is taking medication to build up the womb lining ready for the embryo transfer. 
7. The clinic will contact you the day after egg collection to let you know if fertilisation has taken place and to arrange a time for your partner’s embryo transfer.
8. The embryo transfer procedure is similar to a smear test. The culture medium containing one or two embryos is loaded into a thin catheter with a syringe on one end. The doctor carefully guides the catheter through your partner’s vagina and cervix and deposits the embryo(s) into the uterus. Implantation begins three or four days later.
9. If your partner has not had a period within 14 days after embryo transfer, she should test herself with the pregnancy test kit provided by the London Women’s Clinic.
10. If your partner is pregnant, we may recommend some further medication. An ultrasound scan will be performed at six or seven weeks’ gestation to confi rm a visible heartbeat and ongoing pregnancy.

Intra-partner egg-sharing can also be carried out in conjunction with the clinic’s egg-sharing programme, which enables women under 35 who are donating eggs to their partner to also donate to the LWC egg-sharing programme in order to receive subsidised treatment.

In light of the UK’s ‘donor crisis’, there is considerable evidence that egg-sharing is a technique with positive success rates, as well as proof that lesbian couples who wish to start families are benefiting greatly from the procedure. From a study of 393 consecutive egg-sharing and conventional IVF treatments in lesbian women at the LWC between 2005 and 2009, more than half of the sharers (59%) and 47% of the recipients achieved successful pregnancies, a greater success rate than that achieved by traditional insemination treatments.

For more information, please visit londonwomensclinic.com