Who Should Consider Egg Freezing?

Previously women freeze their egg when they are thirty–eight years but currently they do so more at the age of thirty-six. Women of younger age are beginning to freeze their egg more and more in recent times.

Many women freeze their egg now to have time for their work more than they did in the past.

Is egg freezing a good option for me?

There is no yes or no answer to this. It depends on your peculiar situation. You need to consider all your circumstances and weigh your entire situation before you conclude whether it is a good option for you or not. What works for one person may not work for the other because of their varied circumstances.

Who Should Consider Egg Freezing? 

Egg freezing procedure was at first used by women who are experience fertility reduction as a result of radiation therapy or chemotherapy. A woman’s egg and ovaries age faster than herself and this leads to a reduction in the quality and quantity of egg that she produces starting from her 30th year to her 40th year. Therefore, as her fertility reduces by the time she reaches the age of 35, she may start to ponder about banking her eggs if there is an expectation that she may not be able to start a family till a later age.

With the frozen egg, she has some hope of having a child in the future and this give her more chances of becoming pregnant when she eventually settles down to build a family.

To be able to make informed decision regarding your peculiar situation, a consultation with a fertility specialist clinician is recommended.

They will assist you to evaluate the risks, anticipated results which include your pregnancy rate and possible options to egg freezing that you ought to be aware of and finally help you and provide you with the needed guidance while you make a knowledgeable decision.

Invariably, women opt for egg freezing as they age and the possibility of them to begin to experience chromosomal abnormalities increases. Some women also freeze their egg for other reasons like constant miscarriage, birth defects or some disorders that makes it difficult for them to conceive

The majority of women see egg freezing as a way to stop the biological clock, broaden their fertility and pregnancy options by safeguarding their younger and supposedly healthier eggs. For women who want to extend their childbearing years, egg freezing has turned into a very smart option.

Women who want to freeze their egg go through the same procedure that women follow to retrieve egg for IVF treatment. Usually they’d be given hormone shot to boost ovulation. The only variation with egg freezing is that the retrieved eggs are not immediately used for fertility treatment but frozen or banked for later use.  When eventually the woman wants to make use of the egg, it is brought back to the normal temperature, fertilized by injecting a single sperm into its cytoplasm and transferred into the uterus of the woman for implantation as embryo.

The egg freezing cycle takes roughly four to six weeks including the ten to fourteen days the woman would be given hormones shots to stimulate multiple egg production by the ovary and their faster maturation.

Similar to the IVF procedure, the woman would constantly visit the Clinic everyday for morning ultrasounds and blood work all through the entire period that the procedure would last. Once it has been determined that the eggs have adequately matured, a retrieval procedure is scheduled in order to have these removed with a needle placed through the vagina and under ultrasound guidance.

This process is carried out under conscious sedation and is not commonly painful. The retrieved eggs are instantly frozen.

Can I freeze eggs?

The egg freezing procedure also known as oocyte cryopreservation is a comparatively easy one. It has recorded great success rates in a number of fertility clinics starting from 2013 especially if the egg freezing is done before the woman turns 37.

The record about older women and their success rate with frozen egg has been minimal.

The advancement made in egg freezing procedure in the recent years have improved to a great extent the possibility of the egg surviving the process of defrosting and resulting to pregnancy. This development is great news for women who are considering egg cryopreservation as fertility preservation option.

Reasons why women Freeze their egg

There are different reasons why women freeze their egg.

Medical reasons

The majority of women do that for medical reasons like cancer treatment. Treatment of cancer is poisonous to the ovaries and results to early menopause.  The medical reason for egg freezing could also be as a result of lymphoma, breast and gynecologic cancers.

Single women

Apart from medical reasons, many women freeze their egg because they have no partner. This was revealed by Noyes, the senior research team member of a study published in May, 2013 by New York University Study. These women thought that they haven’t gotten a relationship that is favorable for carrying a child.

For study and career purposes

A few women freeze their egg because they are not yet ready to have baby till they have finished their study and attain their career goals.

According to Sarah Elizabeth Richards, author of the book, “Motherhood Rescheduled: The New Frontier of Egg Freezing.” The greater numbers of women who freeze their egg between 2005 and 2011 do so because they haven’t got the right partner for marriage.

However, the wave is changing and most women are going for egg freezing because they want to deter child bearing till they have achieved their career goal.