If your dream is to start a family one day, but the time is just not quite right now, then you might think about egg freezing with Chill to increase your chances of pregnancy success later down the track. So what are the top reasons for freezing your eggs and what are the first steps to doing so?
Why consider egg freezing?
Delaying parenthood is probably the primary reason people choose to freeze their eggs. Advancing age is one of the top factors affecting female fertility. So, the challenge of leaving motherhood until later in life is that egg quality and quantity decreases as women age, affecting natural conception success rates. By freezing eggs at a younger age, it not only preserves the egg quality (as frozen eggs don’t age) but also gives you a better chance of retrieving more eggs.
Another very valid reason to freeze eggs is for medical reasons. These can include genetic conditions that could limit fertility like Turner Syndrome, a medical condition like endometriosis or PCOS, a family history of premature menopause, or a cancer diagnosis with the need to undergo chemotherapy.
However, before any of our Chill patients proceed to egg freezing we firstly encourage them to understand where they are today fertility-wise, before making any decisions about their future fertility.
Egg freezing – what is involved?
If you do choose to proceed, egg freezing involves a woman’s mature eggs being developed and removed using standard IVF techniques. The process involves three stages of treatment:
- pituitary suppression
- ovarian stimulation
- egg retrieval
The eggs are then frozen using the “vitrification” method for freezing. This involves the egg(s) being cooled so rapidly that the water molecules do not have time to form damaging ice crystals and instantly solidify into a glass-like structure. Compared with the traditional slow-freezing methods, vitrification of eggs at Chill is delivering enhanced survival of preserved eggs, and fertilisation rates equal to freshly retrieved eggs.
The eggs are then stored following the guidelines recommended by the National Health and Medical Research Council regarding egg storage. The maximum time eggs can be kept in storage is 10 years.
When the patient decides it’s the right time to use the frozen eggs, they are thawed and fertilised as instructed and the embryos are created. The embryo is transferred back to the woman and hopefully results in a successful pregnancy. Any spare embryos created can again be frozen for future use.
The team at Chill understand the importance of the decision to freeze eggs and offer additional support through trained counsellors to assist women in making the right decision for your circumstances.
Phone: 1300 215 332