As you age, the likelihood that you will naturally conceiving a child reduces because the number and quality of your eggs drops. Egg freezing, therefore, is a fantastic option if you wish to preserve your fertility and, in some ways, stop the biological clock.
There are various reasons why you might consider having your eggs frozen. Here are a few:
- You might not feel ready to start a family but would like to in the future. Perhaps you would prefer to focus on other aspects of your life at present, such as your career or education, or you haven’t found ‘Mr Right’.
- You might be undergoing treatment for an illness such as cancer, which will likely affect your fertility.
- You might have a family history of early menopause and wish to preserve your eggs before they are all depleted.
- You might not want to have leftover embryos for ethical or religious reasons.
You should take time to assure yourself, particularly if you fall into the first category above, that you have weighed all the social pros and cons before coming to your decision to freeze your eggs.
What Does the Process Involve?
Whatever your reason for choosing to freeze your eggs, the process can be highly beneficial. The process is similar to IVF. You will be injected with various ovarian stimulation hormones, which encourage your ovaries to mature more eggs. This is because the more eggs you produce, the higher your chances of success.
Whilst you’re in our operating theatre and under sedation, your eggs will be collected using a needle and an ultrasound probe. This will take around 20 minutes. Our laboratory is alongside our theatre and, in there, rather than mixing the collected eggs with sperm cells (as with conventional IVF), the water is removed from the eggs and they are double-wrapped and cryogenically stored in liquid nitrogen. When the time comes for you to want to use your eggs, they will be thawed and those which survive will be fertilised with sperm.
How Long Can The Eggs Stay Frozen?
This procedure comes with limited risks and there is no evidence to suggest that long term freezing will affect the quality of the eggs or the health of the baby. In fact, thousands of babies have been born via this method and there should be no related problems during the pregnancy. At Concept Fertility, we store eggs for up to ten years, which is the UK legal limit. This can be extended by special permission in specific cases, such as for fertility preservation after cancer treatment.
If you know that you’d like to have a baby one day in the future but you’re not quite ready now, please feel free to contact us to arrange a consultation or ask any questions about fertility preservation. We offer competitive prices and excellent success rates!
