Egg freezing, also known as oocyte cryopreservation, is a process where a woman’s eggs are extracted, frozen, and stored for future use. This technique has become increasingly popular among women who want to preserve their fertility for various reasons.

What to expect from the Egg freezing process?

Choosing to delay pregnancy by freezing, your eggs is more common than once it was. Whether it’s because of a desire to pursue a career, find a partner or handle health concerns, choosing to freeze your eggs gives you the opportunity to manage other aspects of life until you’re ready to conceive.

While egg freezing is no longer a foreign concept, not everyone is aware of the full process that’s involved. Understanding what to expect, associated costs and how egg freezing can preserve fertility are all critical components to making an informed decision.

Benefits of Egg Freezing

1. Preserves fertility: # Therapeutic egg freezing. Egg freezing allows women to preserve their eggs at a younger age, when they are healthier and more likely to result in a successful pregnancy.
2. Flexibility: # Social egg freezing. Frozen eggs can be stored for years, giving women the flexibility to pursue their careers, education, or personal goals without worrying about their biological clock.
3. Increased chances of pregnancy: Using frozen eggs can increase the chances of pregnancy, especially for women who have struggled with infertility or have experienced multiple miscarriages.
4. Reduced risk of genetic abnormalities: # pregnancy after 35. Freezing eggs at a younger age reduces the risk of genetic abnormalities, such as Down syndrome, which increase with age.

Reasons for Egg Freezing

1. Career or education: Women may choose to freeze their eggs to focus on their careers or education without worrying about their fertility.
2. Medical conditions: Women with medical conditions, such as cancer, may choose to freeze their eggs before undergoing treatment that could affect their fertility.
3. Age: Women may choose to freeze their eggs due to advancing age, as egg quality and quantity decline with age.
4. Personal reasons: Women may choose to freeze their eggs for personal reasons, such as not being ready for motherhood or not having a partner.

Process of Egg Freezing

1. Ovarian stimulation: Hormonal injections stimulate the ovaries to produce multiple eggs.
2. Egg retrieval: Eggs are retrieved through a minor surgical procedure.
3. Egg freezing: Eggs are frozen using a process called vitrification.
4. Storage: Frozen eggs are stored in a cryobank for future use.

Choosing to delay pregnancy by freezing your eggs is more common than it once was. Whether it’s because of a desire to pursue a career, find a partner, or handle health concerns, choosing to freeze your eggs gives you the opportunity to manage other aspects of life until you’re ready to conceive.

While egg freezing is no longer a foreign concept, not everyone is aware of the full process that’s involved. Understanding what to expect, associated costs, and how egg freezing can preserve fertility are all critical components to making an informed decision.

What is egg freezing?

Egg freezing is known as oocyte cryopreservation and it’s one form of assisted reproductive technology (ART).

During the procedure, medications are used to stimulate eggs to grow. Those eggs are then harvested from the ovaries and frozen for storage. At a later date, the eggs can be thawed and combined with sperm to create an embryo. The embryo can then be implanted into the uterus during an embryo transfer cycle.

Regardless of the reason for freezing eggs, the overall goal is the same: storing eggs allows you to preserve fertility by harvesting eggs at a younger age, which can be used at a later date. Although this won’t guarantee a pregnancy, it can improve the chances of successfully conceiving later in life.

Egg freezing process and timeline

While timelines might vary slightly, you can expect the entire egg freezing process to take between 2 to 3 weeks to complete. Most cycles can be done in less than 2 weeks.

Stimulating the ovaries to produce eggs is timed with your menstrual cycle to ensure optimal results. During this process, the ovaries are monitored carefully using ultrasounds and blood work to check hormone levels.

Medical exam

First, you’ll need to meet with a fertility doctor to discuss your desire to freeze your eggs. Your doctor will schedule an exam where a complete medical history, blood work, and hormone testing will be completed.

Additionally, you can expect to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound to perform an antral follicle count (AFC), which is a way to assess your ovarian reserve, or the number of eggs remaining in your ovaries.
During this time, your fertility doctor will outline the recommended stimulation protocol to ensure that the maximum number of eggs can be safely retrieved without putting you at risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS).

Your doctor will also provide an estimate of how many eggs they expect to retrieve, as well as outline how to take the necessary medications required to stimulate your ovaries and prepare for egg retrieval.

Ovarian stimulation and monitoring

Depending on your physician’s recommendations and where you are in your current menstrual cycle, you might start this process by taking birth control pills or other medications such as estrogen, Lupron, or Agustin to help synchronize your follicles so that they respond similarly to the stimulation medications that you’ll take later.

If birth control or other synchronizing medications are recommended, you’ll usually begin taking them either during your period or immediately after ovulation has occurred.

You’ll continue to be monitored either with blood tests or ultrasounds to ensure that you begin stimulation injections at the right time. Once you’re cleared to begin injections, your physician or treatment coordinator will provide detailed instructions for self-administering the injections.

While medication regimens and treatment protocols can vary, most people will take gonadotropins — follicle-stimulation hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH) — which stimulate the ovaries to produce multiple eggs during a cycle.

These injections will be administered over about 10 to 12 consecutive days and taken subcutaneously in the belly. During those days, you will be monitored regularly, and your doctor may adjust the dose and combination of your medications, depending on how your body responds to the injections.

During the stimulation phase, you will usually have 3 to 5 monitoring visits to assess the progress of your follicles. Once the follicles reach a good size, you’ll receive a trigger shot, which is an injectable medication — usually either human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), GnRH agonist , or a combination of the two.

Egg retrieval

Also known as egg harvesting, egg retrieval is the process of removing eggs from your ovaries. During this process, you’ll arrive at your doctor’s hospital or IVF clinic and an IV canula will be secured. This will allow them to provide general anesthesia for the procedure since you’ll be asleep during the process.
During the egg retrieval, your doctor will use a transvaginal ultrasound probe with a needle, which is inserted into your follicles under ultrasound guidance. The fluid inside the follicles that contains the eggs is aspirated and collected into tubes, which are then given to an embryologist.

The embryologist will examine the follicular fluid and identify the eggs. The entire process takes roughly 10 to 20 minutes to complete. Once you wake up, your doctor will tell you how many eggs were retrieved.

The number of eggs retrieved depends on several variables with age and ovarian reserve being the two most important factors. In general, people who are 40 and older have fewer eggs retrieved compared to people who are younger or under the age of 35.

Recovery and egg freezing

It’s not uncommon to experience cramping, bloating, constipation, and vaginal spotting during the first 24 hours after egg retrieval. Most patients can ease discomfort with over-the-counter pain relievers or heating pads. If you experience more severe abdominal pain, feel faint or lightheaded, or have heavy vaginal bleeding, contact your doctor immediately. Finally, within a few hours of egg retrieval, the mature eggs that were successfully collected will be frozen through a process known as vitrification. This process relies on rapid freezing through the use of liquid nitrogen to minimize the risk of ice crystals forming on the eggs, aiming to improve survival rates.

Risks and Considerations

1. Cost: Egg freezing can be variable with costs ranging from Rs 1,00,000 to 1,50,000, along with annual freezing charges

2. Success rates: Success rates vary depending on age, egg quality, and other factors.

3. Emotional considerations: Egg freezing can be an emotional process, and women should consider their emotional readiness for the process.

4. Medical risks: As with any medical procedure, there are risks associated with egg freezing, such as ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS).

Conclusion

Egg freezing is a viable option for women who want to preserve their fertility for various reasons. While there are benefits and risks to consider, egg freezing can provide women with flexibility and increased chances of pregnancy in the future.

We at Keshvi IVF & Women care Hospital, Udaipur (Rajasthan, india) provides you better opportunity to preserve your future by preserving your eggs at an affordable cost.

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