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Egg Freezing for Your Future Fertility

Give yourself more choices. Freezing your eggs lets you decide when the time is right to start your family.

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Understanding egg freezing

Egg freezing (oocyte cryopreservation) involves collecting eggs from the ovaries and storing them for later use. People freeze their eggs for many reasons, including a health condition, career or education plans, a family history that affects fertility, or wanting to become a parent later. Some patients need to move quickly because treatment for a condition such as cancer could hurt their egg quantity and quality.

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The Egg Freezing Process

Every egg freezing cycle at Sage starts with a consultation, an ultrasound, and blood tests that help your physician plan your care. Next, you will take hormone medications for 9 -14 days to stimulate the ovaries to mature several eggs simultaneously instead of the single egg of a typical ovulation cycle. Regular ultrasounds and blood tests during this phase tell us when your eggs are ready to be retrieved. The retrieval procedure is usually scheduled 12-15 days after you begin medications and is performed under anesthesia in our surgery centers which are connected to our laboratories for immediate rapid freezing.

Our physicians perform a brief procedure that involves guiding a fine needle into each ovary with ultrasound to collect the eggs. You will be under monitored anesthesia for the procedure, which lasts about 20-30 minutes. Following the retrieval, cramping, bloating, a swollen abdomen, and constipation are common. These symptoms typically clear up within 5-7 days. Most patients return to normal activities in 1-2 days.

In our lab, embryologists identify the mature eggs and freeze them using vitrification, a rapid-freezing technique. Once we’ve frozen your eggs, you will receive a report from our embryology team states how many eggs you have frozen and You will always be able to access information about your frozen eggs. Your frozen eggs can be successfully stored for many years, until you are ready to use them.

When you decide to start your family, and you want to use your frozen eggs, we will thaw your eggs and fertilize them in our lab with sperm from your partner or a sperm donor. This process results in embryos. An embryo can then be transferred to your own uterus, your female partner’s uterus, or a gestational carrier’s uterus. Getting ready for transfer usually involves additional hormone medication and ultrasound monitoring. The transfer itself feels much like a pap smear and doesn’t require anesthesia. Some of our clinics offer Valium to help you feel more comfortable during the transfer.

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Who should consider egg freezing?

Freezing your eggs puts you in charge of your own parenthood timeline. We generally suggest freezing before age 35, and the ideal window is usually the late 20s through the mid-30s. Each person’s situation is different, though, and we are delighted to sit down with you and talk through your options.

 

If you are facing a medical treatment or surgery that could affect your fertility, freezing your eggs first can protect your options while you focus on your health. If your doctor or oncologist has raised fertility preservation with you, we can see you immediately. Call us at 888-839-3540.

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Covering the Cost of Egg Freezing

Insurance plans vary widely in what they cover, but you have choices. If your employer-sponsored health insurance plan includes fertility benefits, egg freezing may also be included. If you need a medical treatment that threatens your fertility, egg freezing might be covered as well. Our team will verify your insurance, review your benefits with you, estimate out-of-pocket costs, and consider financing options. At Sage, you will always have a clear picture of your costs.

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Egg Freezing FAQs

Technically there’s no age cutoff for egg freezing at our clinics. We generally suggest freezing before age 35, and the ideal window is usually the late 20s through your mid-30s. Each person’s situation is different. Your physician will review the expected success rates for your age and ovarian reserve and help you decide whether freezing makes sense for you.

After we assess how many high-quality eggs you might produce in your first cycle, your physician will explain your expected results, taking your family size desires and other factors into account. Some patients complete more than one cycle to bank enough eggs for their family goals. We will give you honest information at every stage so you can make the choice that feels right for you.

Egg freezing has no known long-term side effects. It does not raise your long-term risk of ovarian or breast cancer, and it does not cause infertility or early menopause. The hormone medications can cause short-term symptoms such as headaches, tiredness, moodiness, bloating, nausea, and constipation, which go away once the cycle is complete.

Most patients come in 4-5 times over about two weeks while taking hormone medications. After your retrieval, we may meet to review your results and talk about your family-planning goals.

Please avoid alcohol, smoking, and recreational drugs before and during your cycle. High-dose NSAIDs such as Advil should also be avoided during the cycle. Near the end of your cycle, we will ask you to skip strenuous exercise and sex for about a week, until you’ve fully recovered from retrieval.

Sometimes people achieve their parenthood plans without using their frozen eggs. Sometimes life takes an unexpected turn. Simply, let us know if you no longer plan to use your eggs or no longer wish to pay to store them in perpetuity. We will provide a disposition form, where you can choose to donate the eggs to our research team, donate them to another person (if FDA-required testing has been done), or have them discarded. Your physician can help you weigh these choices.

Your eggs are in good hands, wherever you are on your timeline. We provide secure onsite storage for short-term needs and partner with nationally recognized long-term storage facility for patients planning several years ahead. For many egg freezing patients, long-term storage offers the most affordable path to preserving their future family-building options.