Egg Freezing

Why do women freeze their eggs?

You might choose to freeze your eggs for any number of reasons. For example, more women are delaying childbirth for professional or other lifestyle choices. As you age, the quantity and quality of your eggs decreases, which puts you and your pregnancy at risk. Other women may opt to freeze their eggs because the need for medical treatment like chemotherapy may prevent them from becoming pregnant later. Egg freezing is also common for women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) if more eggs than are needed are harvested.

Whatever your reason, egg freezing enables you to save and maintain your eggs when you are young and save them for the future when you are ready to bear children. When eggs are harvested from a younger woman, IVF and successful pregnancies are more likely.

How does egg freezing work?

If you opt to freeze your eggs, you’ll go through similar hormonal treatments as women going through other fertility treatments to stimulate your ovaries into producing many eggs. Your hormone levels will be monitored closely so that your eggs can be harvested just as your ovaries are able to release them.

Your eggs are the largest cells in your body and have a high water content. As a result, your eggs are quickly and safely dehydrated and frozen to -196C. If excess water wasn’t removed, ice crystals may form, which could damage your eggs.

How are frozen eggs stored?

Once your eggs are frozen, our laboratory staff stores them in a special facility that maintains the subzero temperatures to protect and preserve your eggs. Eggs have been successfully frozen for around 10 years.

What happens when I am ready to have a baby?

When you are ready to become pregnant, you can contact the office to start the IVF process. Our laboratory staff will unfreeze your eggs, which will be fertilized in the IVF process and inserted into your uterus. You’ll typically come back to our office for a pregnancy test 10-12 days after implantation to see if the embryos have successfully attached to your uterus.