USING A DONOR

The average cost of an IVF cycle at a private clinic is between £3,000 and £5,000. The average cost of a cycle of intrauterine insemination (IUI) is between £350 and £1,000. Currently the IVF success rate for women using their own eggs and partner’s sperm falls from 15 per cent at age 39 to nine per cent at age 42.

Guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) currently stipulate that one round of IVF be offered free to women between theagesof40and 42 (with certain qualifications). In practice, however, the offer varies widely between health authorities.

Sperm donors receive £35 per donation – it is illegal to pay them more. This is in order to encourage donation as an act of altruism rather than for financial gain. You can either make a private arrangement with someone you know or have been matched with via a sperm-donating website, or donate to someone you do not know through a fertility clinic.

All donors to Uklicensed clinics are screened to ensure they don’t have serious genetic conditions, as well as infections such as HIV, syphilis, hepatitis and gonorrhoea.

In the UK you cannot see a photo of your donor but you will be given their height, weight, eye and hair colour, year and place of birth, and ethnicity. In addition, you will be told if they have had any children, and their children’s gender, their marital status and their medical history. They may also choose to provide a message for any potential children.

As long as the treatment is at a licensed fertility clinic in the UK, the donor will have no legal rights or responsibilities. They will not be named on the birth certificate, have a say in how the child is raised or be required to offer financial support for the child.

When a donorconceived child from a Uk-licensed clinic turns 16 they can request non-identifying information about their donor parent. When they are 18 they are entitled to the donor’s name, and date and place of birth, if known. The law on parental responsibility is not clear for private donors, who might be named as the legal father.