Fertility Bridges Terms, Processes and

Conditions for Egg Donation

It is imperative that you carefully read, understand, agree to, and print a copy for your records, these Terms of Use, before you use the Fertility Bridges Online Technology Service ("online service") or make any payments to Fertility Bridges for use of the online service or any other service provided.

The online service allows Intended Parents to view profiles and communicate with potential Egg Donors and Gestational Surrogates who have listed themselves in the Fertility Bridges Database of Third Party Reproductive Services.

Egg Donation

We understand that egg donation is often a last resort for an Intended Parent to have a child. We aim to help you as an Intended Parent achieve your goals of starting a family by connecting you to others who can assist in those goals via our online service. However, you should realize that by using our online service to look for an Egg Donor that it could actually cause more pain and heartache to you because your dreams might not only be left unfilled, but also your emotional or physical state could also be severely damaged or harmed from the failure of our service to help you achieve your goal of having a baby. You should be aware of this in advance and decide if you wish to proceed with these risks.

Government Statistics on Clinic Success Rates

By visiting the government web site for IVF statistics you can view previous success rates by reporting clinics for Egg Donation (http://www.cdc.gov/ART/). To receive recent results you need to contact clinics directly. Most clinics appear to report a 50% Egg Donor cycle success rate. Some clinics may report success as high as 83%. Obviously, talk to your doctor about these stats since we are not medical experts and they are open to interpretation.

Infertility is a Complicated Issue

Medical experts have stated that infertility is typically 40% of the time attributed to the woman, 40% to the man, and 20% undefined. If you have an undefined fertility problem that could be attributed to the man's sperm or women's ability to carry a pregnancy, an Egg Donor may not benefit your fertility outcome.

Most Fertility Clinics do not perform comprehensive testing on men's sperm for sperm DNA fragmentation, which could cause poor embryo quality and early miscarriage. Fertility Doctors typically lack a large knowledge base on these types of underlying sperm failures and tend to avoid discussion of them with their clients. After all, they do get paid more for multiple IVF tries.

Due to limited "sperm education", a Fertility Doctor is likely to blame poor embryo quality on the Donor egg than on the sperm. Even though the Donor may be young and have several repeat successes. Without being properly informed, these Intended Parents may choose other Egg Donors, only to have the same negative result over and over again. If your IVF costs are mounting, you may consider speaking to an expert in these matters to learn the facts and decide if advanced sperm testing is right for you.

Many Intended Parents do not realize the life cycle of a sperm is nearly 3 months. It is possible that certain activities or lifestyle choices, in the 3 months prior to producing a sperm sample, could create underlying problems with the sperm and produce poor quality embryos.

Some Fertility Clinics do not do extensive and comprehensive testing on the Intended Mother's ability to carry a child to term and rule out any issues with uterine functionality and various autoimmune issues which could be preventing a pregnancy from forming or completing. These are highly complex problems that require a unique specialist to diagnose, so are often left undiscovered. Even though the sperm and the egg may make good embryos for implantation, there still may be no resulting pregnancy because of the Intended Mother's inability to carry a pregnancy.

There is no guarantee that using an Egg Donor from Fertility Bridges and paying all the fees associated with your Egg Donor Cycle, will result in the birth of a child.

It appears to us at the time of this posting, that the clinics that boast higher success rate with Egg Donor Cycles, 83% versus 50%, perform more comprehensive testing on all parties concerned, the Intended Mother, Intended Father, Egg Donor, and Surrogate (if one is needed). It may be worth it to investigate the best clinics in the country for Egg Donation and decide if the switch from your current clinic and additional expense is justified. With the cost of an Egg Donor Cycle possibly reaching in excess of $40,000 per try (regardless of the clinic), it might be worth considering only working with the best.

50% Success Rate

What we deem from these statistics is that, approximately 50% of the time, Intended Parents who use IVF with an Egg Donor may not succeed. There is no guarantee that using an Egg Donor found through the Fertility Bridges online service, that you will succeed. Of course, we hope you do, but there is no way to guarantee that you will, and in fact you could have a harmful emotional, physical or financial outcome as a result of using our service because of unmet needs, disappointments, other events or issues, or harmful content or actions that could be emotionally hurtful.

Even if you choose a repeat Donor who has had a successful outcome in a prior donation, where the Intended Parent became pregnant or there were a large number of embryos, there is no guarantee the repeat Donor will produce the same results and you could be end up without any embryos or a pregnancy. You must be prepared for a negative outcome and failure and you agree to hold Fertility Bridges harmless from the results of your Egg Donor Cycle, including, but not limited to, any amounts of monies you paid to Fertility Bridges, expenses or Donor fees, or physical and emotional issues that may have arose from participation in the Egg Donor Cycle or working with Fertility Bridges.

You agree that you will not ask for any refund of monies paid to Fertility Bridges on behalf of your Egg Donor Cycle, whether you succeeded or failed, because any money you paid are non-refundable (except as defined in our Agency Legal Agreement).

Because most Egg Donor Cycles involve first time Egg Donors, the amount of education an Egg Donor should receive from your clinic is quite high. They are likely to need extra hand holding for this first cycle and will need to speak with your clinic staff frequently to make sure everything is proceeding is planned and they are following directions. This is not something a Third Party Coordinator (not working at your clinic) is equipped to do because they are not medical experts. Nor is it a service that Fertility Bridges offers. We do not provide any medical education or advice to your Egg Donor.

If you don't feel your clinic will be able to walk your Egg Donor through the procedure with the most attention to detail and follow through accordingly, we highly recommend choosing a more capable clinic with experienced staff that has a high focus on customer service. Many clinics fall short when managing their Egg Donors and as a result, something may go wrong which attributes to the 50% Egg Donor Cycle failure rate.

When choosing a Third Party Coordination company, or choosing Fertility Bridges to coordinate your cycle, you should pay strict attention to detail on the type of service that is offered and what role will be fulfilled in the Egg Donor Cycle. Ultimately, as the Intended Parent, part of the cycle success will depend on how well you manage your clinic and your Third Party Coordinator to make sure your Egg Donor is well taken care of and your clinic staff is well organized.

Consult Experts

Before you embark on using our service, and agree to our Terms of Use, you should speak to your Reproductive Doctor, IVF Clinic, Reproductive Attorney, Third Party Coordinator, Psychologist, or any other expert, about any potential problems they could foresee in finding an Egg Donor online from our service that does not screen or guarantee performance of any Donor, or any other issues they may foresee in our Terms of Use. We are a new company and service so there could be unforeseen circumstances we are not aware of.

Selecting a Donor

Our online service is designed to help you find and connect with women who listed they are interested in becoming an Egg Donor. Once you select an Egg Donor to work with from our online service, you should present her online information to your Reproductive Doctor to determine if she is a good candidate for your Egg Donor cycle, before you pay our match fee. Because our service fee may be non-refundable, you want to make sure you are selecting an appropriate person your doctor will work with. Once you begin your Egg Donor cycle, you must proceed with extreme caution, because any medical procedures could cause life threatening, emotionally debilitating or even death to you, your family or other parties participating. Talk to your doctor about the risks.

Not Medical Experts

We are not medical experts, and what happens medically after you match with an Egg Donor from our online service is not our liability.

Hold Harmless

You must hold us harmless from any outcome that results from using our online service or the actions of any person you may decide to work with that you located on our web site, and from all the actions of any and all third parties you have worked with for your IVF process, including Psychologists, Reproductive Attorneys, Medical Labs, IVF Clinics, Doctors, Nurses, Third Party Coordinators, or any and all individuals participating in your IVF process.

Remedy Requirement

We require that if you use our service, that you will allow us the opportunity to remedy any issues you may have before you seek alternative outside remedies. If we do not, or cannot, remedy your issues, you agree you will stop using our service and hold us harmless from any events that may occur from having used our service.

Online Reviews

Because of the extremely private and emotionally delicate nature of our business you agree that you will NOT post any online reviews anywhere on the Internet without first presenting it to our legal department. Often reviews do not take into consideration all the relevant facts of the situation and can be severely damaging to the business being reviewed, which could subject the writer to libel and unnecessary legal fees. Even good reviews can be misconstrued and hurt potential business.

There are truly no anonymous reviews because web sites that post them, if they receive a complaint, will be required to show the real identity of the poster and with a court order will be forced to remove the post until the facts are revealed. Even anonymous emails addresses aren't anonymous because they point to a unique computer in someone's home or office that can be tracked.

Profile Verification

Fertility Bridges aim is to connect you with individuals who have signed up for our service claiming to want to help you achieve your family goals. However, you must know we do not verify anyone’s profiles on our system and we have no idea who anyone really is. Because filling out a profile is free, individuals may not take the process seriously, may not have active profiles, may no longer be interested in egg donation, may not be checking to see if anyone has contacted them, and may not live up to any expectation you might have of them. You may never get a response from anyone you contact which could cause emotional pain and feelings of rejection and other emotional or physical harm we are not aware of.

Individuals who have filled out profiles in our system may in fact not be who they claim to be and could completely be misrepresenting themselves on our online service. This could cause severe emotional or physical harm if you chose someone who was misrepresenting themselves. It is imperative that you have your Reproductive Attorney, and/or other third party, do a background check to verify your Egg Donor’s personal and background information. It is also critical to have your doctor perform medical screenings to help verify your selection’s medical, health, lifestyle, genetic or any other claim. Consult with your doctor on their recommendations of whether you should use an Egg Donor candidate found on our service.

Fraud

Keep in mind; if someone were really adamant about deceiving another person, it may not be detected even by a hired expert, such as your doctor or a background check expert. As a result, you are taking full risk by working with anyone found through our online service that their profile may be fraudulent. Our hope is that the people who sign up for our service have good intentions to help you complete your family, however, we know the Internet is not the safest and most reliable place for anything so not everyone’s intentions may match your own.

Harmful Content

It is possible that by using our service you may be exposed to certain comments or content that you find harmful or damaging. You agree that you understand these risks and will hold us harmless from the actions of anyone who posts content on our web site

Errors and Failures

We provide a global online service for people around the world to fill out an online profile and communicate with others via an internal system designed to keep personal information private. Because technology is not foolproof, this might not actually work as it is designed. You agree to hold us harmless from any technological or human errors that may cause unpredictable circumstances that could be harmful to you or your Egg Donor.

Private Information

Our system is designed to prevent communicating parties from seeing each other’s private contact information. However, because people, technology and the Internet are not 100% reliable for protecting information, errors can happen. If it is important for your personal information to be guaranteed privacy, we recommend that you NEVER use your real name, phone number, email address or any identifying contact information about yourself in any communication with us or filling out your profile. As an alternative, you may use a code name, an anonymous email, and buy a prepaid phone that is not attached to your name, or provide your Reproductive Lawyer's contact information in lieu of your own. We only need your real name on our signed agency contract that can be mailed to our office, thereby avoiding technology.

Anonymity

If your goal is to complete an anonymous egg donation from a legal perspective, you will have to consult with your Reproductive Lawyer before you begin using our service. It is possible that they will require you to use a Third Party Coordinator to handle all communications with a potential Donor so as to maintain your anonymity. If you use our internal system to communicate with a potential Donor, your donation may not be considered in legal terms, “Anonymous”, even if you never share your name or contact information with each other.

Payment Non-Refundable

We charge a fee for a match and another fee for coordination.  A match is defined when we provide contact information on an Egg Donor to your Reproductive Attorney, your Reproductive Doctor or IVF Clinic Egg Donor Coordinator, your hired Third Party Coordinator, or other qualified third party, who you should pay to verify your Egg Donor’s identity and verify their online claims.

The Fertility Bridges Match Fee is refundable only under special circumstances as outline in our Agency Legal Agreement.

Egg Donor Agreements

Egg Donors who have signed up to be part of our online service agree not to sign up with any competing third party coordinating database or IVF clinic database that we referred them to in relation to their match with you. If your IVF Clinic, Reproductive Lawyer, or Third Party Coordinator inquires to you about your Egg Donor’s availability to join their program, you are legally obligated to inform them it is against their Egg Donor’s Terms of Agreement with Fertility Bridges to join a competing program that Fertility Bridges referred them to and they will face heavy fines.

Completed Match

Once you have found an Egg Donor you would like to work with, please contact one of our staff members to complete the match for you. Do not attempt to elicit private information from an Egg Donor directly because this is in violation of our Terms of Agreement and you will be fined $2,500 per occurrence. Once your payment is processed we will send a match sheet with the Egg Donor’s identifying information to your Reproductive Lawyer, Third Party Coordinator, or IVF Doctor; whomever you specify.

No Guarantees

Fertility Bridges cannot guarantee the service of any outside provider you use in association with selecting an Egg Donor from our service. Even though we may provide a list of Third Party Reproductive Service Providers, you must perform your own due diligence before hiring anyone to assist with your third party reproduction and you agree to hold us harmless from any incident that may occur from their actions.

We are not experts in determining what your personal best options are for completing your Egg Donor cycle. Talk to your fertility doctor about what your next step should be, and who you should hire to help facilitate the completion of your Egg Donor Cycle, after you select an Egg Donor from our service.

Third Party Coordinators

Not all clinics have staff to manage the complexities of an egg donation cycle. Even though your IVF Doctor may attest at his/her abilities to perform the procedures for egg donation, his/her staff may not be capable or experienced enough to handle an Egg Donor that is coming from an outside source, such as Fertility Bridges. Some clinics, even those experienced, have accidentally told the Egg Donor the Intended Parent’s real name, even though the Intended Parents chose to stay anonymous. You can imagine how this could be quite troublesome for some and a good reason to fully evaluate which IVF clinic you choose to work with for your egg donation cycle. Be sure to remind your clinical staff repeatedly that your Egg Donation is anonymous and not to reveal your real name at any time to the Donor.

It is likely you will have much more interaction with the clinical staff, than your doctor, so particular caution should be paid attention to the clinic staff’s organizational and personal communication skills. It doesn't matter how good an individual doctor is if the supporting staff are poor performers.

If your clinic cannot easily handle an outside Egg Donor, and you decide to stay there, instead of choosing a clinic more adept, timely, and polite about handling outside Egg Donors, then you should do your best to educate yourself about Egg Donation and follow up daily that important tasks are completed.

Most Egg Donor Cycles have outside Third Party Coordinators that do not work for the Fertility Clinic. These coordinators help to facilitate your Egg Donor cycle based on your direction and help maintain anonymity between you and the Egg Donor by serving as your communication liaison with your Donor.

Fertility Bridges does offer Egg Donation Coordination Services as an additional and separate fee of $3,000 per cycle.

If you do NOT choose Fertility Bridges to handle your Egg Donor Cycle coordination, and instead hire an outside party, we cannot guarantee the service of any Third Party Coordinators. You must perform your own due diligence before hiring anyone to assist with your third party reproduction plans. You agree to hold us harmless from any and all of their actions, even if we provided a referral to them.

Egg Donor cycle coordination is very complex with a multitude of factors that have to be carefully orchestrated. Direction on how to proceed in the cycle must come from the Intended Parents and the Fertility clinic. Due to medical privacy laws, Third Parties, such as Fertility Bridges or Third Party Coordinators, do not have unlimited access to Intended Parents' medical IVF cases, therefore Intended Parents must constantly keep Third Parties abreast of any new information or tasks that need to be completed.

It is Fertility Bridges' understanding that Intended Parents who are the happiest with their Egg Donor cycles are the ones who take control of the process and follow up daily, if needed, with their Third Party Coordinators, Reproductive Attorney, Doctors, Clinic, Nurse Staff, Psychologists, labs, travel agents, or other participating Third Parties. Intended Parents who do not follow up daily on their cycle often see things fall through the cracks, and may experience time delay and increased financial expense.

You should never assume anyone who you hire as a Third Party outside provider to complete your Egg Donor cycle will have all the information they need to act on your behalf. You must direct every person accordingly to your own intentions and schedules and follow through very diligently to ensure that each party is completing their task in a timely manner as you directed. You direct the process - coordinators do not direct you.

Every Third Party administrator or coordinator at some point has a bad day, or even a bad week, and could offer bad service during some time period of your engagement with them. People get sick, go on vacation, become swamped with emergencies, or are presented with other unpredictable events, so that you may not always be their number one priority.

Though we may provide information or web links to various Third Party Service Providers, we by no means will ever attest that the service they provide, or we provide, will be perfect. Our hopes are that most of our clients who work with the lists we provide will have a good experience; however, we know occasionally some will NOT and this is a normal part of doing business. You agree to hold Fertility Bridges harmless from any and all actions of any Third Parties we may have provided information on and understand we do not do any due diligence on these companies and it is your sole responsibility to learn about them in-depth and determine if they are a good option for you.

No Advice or Psychological Assistance

You understand that Fertility Bridges does not provide legal, financial, medical, genetic or psychological services or advice for the Egg donation process (or anything else) for Egg Donors, or Intended Parents. Advice should be obtained from qualified third parties.

If you read or hear anything associated with Fertility Bridges that appears to be advice, please be aware that it is NOT advice, and should not be construed as advice.

It may be the opinion of one person and there is no guarantee it is accurate information or is relevant to your situation. You should always consult with your doctor before taking any action on any information we provide you, or any Third Party provides you.

Because Egg Donation failure can be so devastating to Intended Parents if it doesn't work out as planned, you should talk to your doctor about having medical personnel, who focus on emotional crisis, on call to help you cope with any possible cycle failures. Fertility Bridges' staff do not have expertise in handling personal trauma, and will not and can not be available for these types of issues, whether by telephone, email or personal visit after a cycle failure.

Egg Donor Behavior

Fertility Bridges does not interview, meet or screen the Egg Donors listed in our service. They are NOT pre-screened by our service. The Egg Donors candidates on Fertility Bridges typically have responded to an online ad for egg donation and have filled out an online profile on our service.


Fertility Bridges cannot guarantee that an Egg Donor will follow through and complete any of the steps in the egg donation process after you found them on our service and paid our match fee. Legally no one can force an Egg Donor to donate her eggs if she changes her mind, whether you have a legal contract or not.

We recommend working with either a repeat Egg Donor who has already successfully completed a fertility cycle to reduce the odds she may change her mind. Though there is no guarantee that will help either. When selecting an Egg Donor you should consider their age. Younger Egg Donors tend to be less mature and exhibit more unpredictable behavior (and are more likely to back out), often because of their rigorous college schedule or early career commitments (though other factors also arise). However, older Egg Donors have a higher incidence of genetic defect in their eggs and may have a less than ideal outcome. Talk to your doctor about your choices. We do not personally know any of the Egg Donors listed on our site and have no idea how they will behave or if they will start or complete a fertility cycle.

Intended Parent Behavior

We understand that infertility can take an emotional toll on our clients and perhaps even affect Intended Parent’s ability to be polite, patient and calm during the egg donation process. However, it is important that you as an Intended Parent do the best you can to remain professional to our staff during the ups and downs of the egg donation process. Most of our Donors are only willing to give their “gift of life” to Intended Parents who they think will be polite, patient and calm with any children that might be born of their ovum. We do share our personal experiences with you to your Donor and allow them to make their own decisions if they think you will become loving and gentle parents and deserving of their eggs.

Egg Donation is not for the faint of heart and it is not unusual to hit some snafus along the way that could be upsetting. We understand that infertility takes a large emotional toll on our clients and that more bad news can be so devastating it may cause Intended Parents to act in unpredictable ways. If you do not think you will be able to handle this emotionally or to be polite to our staff during this process, then we ask that you choose another agency to work with. We aim to work with potential parents who look at Egg Donation and bringing a child into this world, as a spiritual process and are able to work through any potential problems with us as a peaceful team player not an adversary.

You understand that if problems arise we may choose to share your emails and phone conversations with your Doctor or psychologist at your Fertility Clinic and allow them to determine if you are psychologically capable of proceeding with an egg donation IVF cycle.

Egg Donation can be a legal and financial risk to Intended Parents and cause them worry. If you (or your spouse) are not prepared to emotionally handle the aspects associated with Egg Donation or it is a financial strain, we urge you not to continue with the process.

Fertility Bridges Network

You understand that the www.fertilitybridgesnetwork.com where the Donor Database is located, is an online place for you to find an Egg Donor who has posted her personal information (minus her name and contact information), photos, videos, stories and other media items that you can review to determine if she is a good Egg Donor fit for you.

You can use the database anonymously to peruse online profiles and communicate with Donors to ask them questions and see replies. You can also ask Fertility Bridges staff to communicate with any Donor for you instead of using the online system to do so. Not all Intended Parents are comfortable using this type of technology.

No Warranties

Fertility Bridges makes no warranties or representations about www.fertilitybridges.com or www.fertilitybridgesnetwork.com (its web sites) or the contents within or any web site that it is linked to. The information provided is for use only "as is" and may not be accurate, complete or current. In no event shall Fertility Bridges or its employees, contractors or partners be liable for any damages including incidental, compensatory, consequential, punitive, direct, indirect, special, loss of use, loss of income or profit, loss of damage to property, claims of third parties or other losses of any kind (even if Fertility Bridges has been advised that these damages or losses are possible), in connection with or arising out of the use of www.fertilitybridges.com or www.fertilitybridgesnetwork.com or any web site in which it is linked.

Certifications

You certify that the information you provide to Fertility Bridges now and in the future is accurate and truthfully reflects you in an accurate way.

You certify that you are at least 18 years of age and able to understand the Terms of Use and are qualified to enter into this agreement.

If any part of this agreement is deemed problematic or void, the other parts will remain valid.

Hold Harmless

By submitting your contact information to Fertility Bridges with the intent of obtaining a password to view our Egg Donor Database, you agree to these Terms of Use and agree to hold Fertility Bridges and its staff, contractors, and partners with Fertility Bridges, harmless from any and all responsibility or liability related to the risks associated with the legal, financial, psychological, medical, genetic, and any other type of aspect of the entire egg donation process from your original application for a database password to Fertility Bridges to the time post egg retrieval.