What is egg freezing?

Egg freezing is a way of giving people the possibility of future fertility.

Freezing eggs when younger, means that you can preserve the possibility of pregnancy later in life.

The number and quality of eggs that can be collected with egg freezing declines with age.

A person in their thirties might have 10 to 15 eggs available for egg freezing after one cycle.

A person in their early forties, due to a lower egg count, may be required to undertake several cycles

to obtain a similar result.

How do I use my frozen eggs?

When it is time to warm the eggs, they need to be fertilized with sperm.

This can be partner or donor sperm.

A procedure called ICSI is used to fertilize the eggs.

This is where one sperm is injected directly into each egg.

The developing embryo is then grown in an incubator, until it is ready for embryo transfer

However, it is important to know that not all of the eggs will survive the warming process,

and only a select few of these might ever develop into embryos.

For example,

if 9 out of 10 eggs survive the warming process,

On average, 5 to 6 eggs are successfully fertilized,

From which 1 to 3 embryos develop.

Finally, the best candidate embryo is then transferred, with the remaining few being frozen for potential use, at a later date.

It is important to remember that there is never a guarantee of a successful pregnancy.

Even if you decide to go ahead with egg freezing, you should still consider having a baby at an earlier age.

That way, if the frozen eggs fail to develop, it is still possible to consider further egg collections.

That will depend on how many eggs your body will make in an egg freezing cycle and the age that you freeze your eggs.

On average, 10 eggs are collected for someone under the age of 35.

10 eggs will give a person approximately 70% chance of having one baby.

20 eggs will give a person approximately a 90% chance of having one baby.

So we usually say, aim for 2 egg collections with a month break in between.