With Valentine’s Day around the corner, so are the images and messages of love and relationships. Although most can appreciate the love of friends and family, for others it can be a reminder that they have not yet fulfilled their dreams for a committed relationship or children.
Women are constantly reminded of their biological clock and that with each passing year reproductive aging occurs more rapidly. After 35, the chance of conceiving becomes more difficult and miscarriage rates start to increase. Many women may need to delay childbearing for education, professional, financial or social reasons. In the past, there was nothing to do but wait and hope that things would change; but today, women have the option to take charge of their future fertility with egg freezing.
Egg Freezing
It is becoming increasingly common for women to consider freezing their eggs. This process is called oocyte vitrification, and is a way for women to essentially stop the biologic clock. Once an egg is frozen, the genetic characteristic of that egg and its ability to form a healthy pregnancy will stay frozen in time. The egg will remain the age of the patient at the time of her egg harvest procedure. Pregnancy success rates are based on qualities of the egg not the uterus at time of conception. This means that a woman can benefit from the better fertility of a younger egg, even if she waits several years to use those eggs to become pregnant.
- WATCH: Dr. Anitha Nair discusses Fertility Preservation options in this webcast.
- Read Dr. Anitha Nair’s biography.
Although egg freezing is a newer technology, several years of study have gone into this process and the American Society of Reproductive Medicine no longer considers this to be an experimental procedure. At Shady Grove Fertility (Center for Fertility Preservation), we have already seen good success with egg freezing. As more patients come back to use their eggs we will be able to accrue more data, but current success rates are similar to success rates seen with traditional in vitro fertilization. To date, there is also no evidence to indicate concern about increased risk for genetic abnormalities with the use of frozen eggs.
The Egg Freezing Process
Egg freezing or oocyte vitrification is a process that requires some commitment. Patients must undergo the first half of an in vitro fertilization cycle. This means self–administering hormone injections for about 10 days, office visits to monitor the growth the eggs, and finally an outpatient surgical procedure (under sedation) to harvest the eggs. The procedure is performed vaginally and is completed in less than 30 minutes. Patients are often able to wake-up and recover in about 30 minutes after the procedure. Most patients will describe strong menses symptoms like cramping immediately post procedure, but almost everyone is able to go to work the very next day.
For each patient, we aim to retrieve 15-20 mature eggs to be frozen and stored for later use. For many women to obtain this number of eggs, they may need more than 1 cycle of treatment. We recommend this high number of eggs to be banked because about 85% of the eggs will survive the thaw process and about 50-70% will go on to fertilize.
When a patient is ready to use her eggs, they are thawed, inseminated using a partners sperm or donor sperm and then fertilized embryos are grown in our IVF lab. The patient will take medications to prepare the lining of her uterus and the embryos will be transferred back to uterus, through the vagina, with a painless procedure called an embryo transfer. Two weeks later a pregnancy test is done.
Who Should Consider Egg Freezing
The ideal candidate for fertility preservation with oocyte vitrification is someone between the ages of 32-38, who is certain that her childbearing will be delayed. Patients are asked to do some initial blood tests and a pelvic ultrasound to confirm that they would be good candidates. Women over 38 may be treated, pending their test results.
Fertility preservation should only be used as part of a long term management strategy for fertility. Obviously, nothing can take the place of being pregnant now. However, for a woman who knows that she would look back in regret at not giving herself the best possibility of having a child, this is a great comfort. If you are interested in egg freezing, I would highly recommend you seek a consultation with a fertility specialist.
If you would like to discuss your egg freezing options or to schedule an appointment with Dr. Anitha Nair or another Shady Grove Fertility physicians, please speak with one of our New Patient Liaisons at 877-971-7755.
