What our Southern California fertility center wants you to know
Egg freezing is a fertility treatment that circumvents the biological clock. Our Southern California fertility center team wants you to know what’s involved and how the process works. Understanding egg freezing begins with a timeline.
The egg freezing process, which takes 2 weeks, starts with stimulating the ovaries with hormones to produce multiple eggs. Once the eggs are sufficiently mature, they’re removed with a needle through a procedure that leverages ultrasound technology and also involves light sedation.
Next, the embryologist transports the eggs to the IVF lab for immediate evaluation and cryopreservation. The large amount of water the eggs contain is replaced with a solution that prevents formation of potentially damaging ice crystals. The frozen eggs can be thawed for future use whenever the couple is ready to have a baby. Fertilization of the egg, once thawed, requires intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) – using a needle to inject a single sperm. Prior to transfer, fertilized embryos will undergo PGS biopsy and PGS testing in order to determine which embryo is the best quality to transfer. The embryo is then transferred to the uterus.
No longer experimental: Understanding egg freezing and the evolution of the technology
Egg freezing has become so accepted, predictable and effective that, in 2012, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine found it no longer experimental. Worldwide, thousands of babies have been born after egg freezing with no meaningful difference in the rate of normal births (those without defects or chromosomal abnormalities) compared to the general population.
Our Southern California fertility center regards egg freezing as effective and has seen that long-term storage of frozen eggs (5, 7 or even 10 years) is possible. This fertility treatment is also gaining traction as more employers make it eligible for full or substantial coverage.
Candidates for egg freezing at our Southern California fertility center
Understanding egg freezing and its limitations is important, too. The fertility preservation technique can help women who are in their reproductive prime, 20s to mid 30s. You may be a good candidate if you:
• Want or need to delay childbearing to focus on professional or other goals
• Want to delay having another child
• Have a family history of early menopause
• Have religious or ethical concerns about freezing embryos
• Cancer patients who wish to preserve their fertility prior to cancer treatment
You can read more about when to consider egg freezing.
Take the next step
Contact us at our Southern California fertility center to learn more about egg freezing and other fertility treatments. We’ll help you do what’s best for your needs.