What You Should Know Before Freezing Your Eggs?

Nowadays, an increasing number of women are freezing their eggs worldwide.

But before you get all excited about this new technology, know that it is not a decision that you should take lightly. 

Egg freezing is a method used to preserve a woman’s ability to get pregnant at a later stage in her life – whether for medical reasons such as cancer treatment or for social reasons such as career, studies, or no partner.

The procedure involves:

• Stimulating the ovaries with hormones to produce multiple eggs
• Collecting the eggs from the ovaries
• Freezing the retrieved eggs in liquid nitrogen
• Storing them in tanks (at subzero temperatures)
• Thaw them and fertilize them in the future. 

Some Keys to Consider Before the Procedure

Here are some key things to consider if you are thinking about freezing your eggs: 

1. Eggs Should Be Frozen Ideally Before Mid 30s

As you get older, your eggs decrease not only in quantity, but also in quality.

The average age at which women freeze their eggs is around 37.

However, the highest Live birth rate from previously frozen eggs has been shown to come from women who undergo the procedure before they are 30. 

Freezing your eggs in your early 20s may result in a good number of high quality eggs.

However, you are unlikely to know at this age if you will ever need to use them, as you may be able to conceive naturally. 

In your early 30s, egg number and quality remain relatively high.

However, around the age of 35, women need to freeze more eggs than younger women for the same chance of future pregnancy because 20% of the eggs are lost during the process. 

So for a better chance of pregnancy success in the future, it is best to freeze your eggs before you reach the age of 36. 

2. You Might Require Several Treatment Cycles

Ideally, women should freeze around 8 to 15 eggs to have a reasonable chance of future pregnancy. 

However, the number of eggs collected during one cycle of treatment depends on:

• how your body reacts to the fertility drugs
• your age at the time of undergoing the procedure
• your ovarian reserve. 

So keep in mind that you may be among those who need to go through multiple cycles to get a good amount of eggs to freeze. 

Besides, the process of egg freezing is not only expensive, but can also be physically and emotionally draining.  

3. Success Rates Aren’t High

Once your eggs are retrieved, it is important to be aware that not all your eggs will be mature enough for freezing. 

Furthermore, you cannot know about the quality of your frozen eggs until they are thawed and used. 

There’s a lot of room for failure when you’re freezing eggs.

In order to lead to a successful pregnancy:

• The egg must be mature
• It should survive the freezing process/thawing process
• The egg should successfully get fertilized
• The fertilized egg must divide and become an embryo
• The embryo must get transferred into the uterus
• The embryo must implant successfully in the uterus   

So a successful pregnancy is not always guaranteed with frozen eggs.

While younger women lose approximately 10% of the eggs they freeze to the process, older women can expect to lose 20%.

This is because eggs are less metabolically robust when frozen later in life.

4. Not All Clinics Are Credible

Make sure you pick a clinic that has plenty of experience with the procedure and high success rates in achieving fertilization and pregnancy with frozen eggs.  

Ask the clinic to provide you with success rates from their own data and not only based on published articles and data from other clinics. 

Make sure the clinic adopts the new method of egg freezing known as vitrification, and has all the material and media needed for the procedure.  

Earlier egg freezing methods were less successful, as they used a “slow-freeze” process that sometimes formed ice crystals in the eggs and damaged them. 

Vitrification is a super-quick freezing process that doesn’t allow ice crystals to form.

It allows the eggs to successfully get through the freezing, thawing, and fertilization process. 

Personally and professionally, I definitely think that egg freezing is a great idea for anyone who is considering having children in the future.

However, take your time to fully research your options.

Also, keep in mind that if you don’t freeze your eggs, you do have other possible roads towards parenthood.

Read our article on How to Ensure You Have the Right Gynecologist.

If you have any questions don’t hesitate to contact me.