"Freeze My Future"
Egg Freezing & Fertility Preservation

What is Egg Freezing?

Who can benefit from Egg Freezing?

• Young girls/women diagnosed with diseases such as cancer who require treatment  (chemotherapy/radiotherapy) that will affect their fertility, and who are a long way from relationships and not wanting to create embryos with anyone else’s sperm other than their future husband.

• Women who want to pursue and extend their career without taking breaks to have children knowing that they still have options for a family in the future.

• Women with a family history of early menopause.

• Recently a mother also froze some of her eggs knowing that her daughter will be infertile due to Turner syndrome.

• Women who want to avoid ethical, religious and legal concerns regarding embryo creation and freezing during an IVF cycle.

• Women who are looking for or waiting for egg donations. Frozen eggs can be banked (stored) until required instead of stimulating an egg donor for a fresh cycle. It may help to ease the financial burden for the oocyte recipients, because the oocyte bank may provide lower cost than fresh donation in the future.

How are eggs frozen?

Vitrification and Slow freezing are two major methods have been used.

Vitrification is a relatively new method and seems to give better outcomes than slow freezing, although the clinical results of vitrification are not large enough to compare fully with slow freezing.

Why is egg freezing so difficult?

Eggs are very temperature sensitive and it has been difficult perfecting the techniques to provide good survival through the sub-physiological temperatures. It is still possible for cryo-damage to occur and this can severly comprimise the outcome of an egg freezing treatment.

When is the best time to freeze eggs?

As young as possible.

How long my eggs can be stored?

Theoretically, forever, if they are well-preserved in the liquid nitrogen.

Success Rates

Approximately 200 births from frozen eggs have been recorded worldwide. Success rates vary widely and egg freezing techniques are still in their infancy. Not all centres practising egg freezing are obtaining the same success rates. As this could be many patient's only chance of fertility in later life it is important to select the best program. Patients should inquire about success rates.

Cost

Egg freezing is still very new, so an actual cost is difficult to determine. It is likely to be a little more expensive than IVF and will probably range from $12,000 to $20,000.

Please remember

Egg freezing, like IVF, is not a perfect science. When undergoing egg freezing you may be "putting all your eggs in one basket", meaning that you are putting all your future hopes and dreams of a family into the freezer. These eggs may not survive; they might not fertilize; they might not produce good quality embryos, and the embryos might not implant. It is important to remember this when deciding to proceed with egg freezing. Be sure you find the right doctor and IVF team to freeze your eggs.