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A woman’s ability to conceive can be affected by cancer in many ways. During the treatment of cancer – an unintended pregnancy can be a big problem. Whereas, after the treatment, it may lead to infertility. Especially for patients looking to have babies, this can be very heartbreaking.
The good news is, new advances in reproductive science are offering hope. Now, there are more options for cancer patients that want to grow their family.
As a leading fertility clinic in Orange County, CA, we recognize that egg freezing is a favorite option for Intended Parents before they start their cancer treatment to avert the risks.
Well, this depends on the type of cancer treatments. While most cancer treatments have no effect on the patient’s fertility, some can result in infertility. The cancer treatments that affect fertility include certain types of chemotherapy, radiation to the pelvis, and the abdominal area. Moreover, cancer treatment may require surgery involving the removal of the patient’s reproductive organs. Researchers don’t know if and how newer cancer treatments may impact fertility.
How cancer treatment impacts your fertility depends on a number of factors. This includes your age, your present fertility status, and the type of treatment you get. While some people may be infertile for a short time, others may be permanently infertile. The physicians at our fertility clinic in Orange County can help you evaluate your individual risk as well as consider fertility preservation options such as egg freezing, embryo freezing, and sperm preservation.
When you are undergoing cancer treatment, you need to abstain from sex. Alternatively, you should use a condom or any other reliable form of contraceptive. You should also try not to conceive within six months of completing chemotherapy. This is because it can increase your chances of having a miscarriage or giving birth to a baby with a genetic defect.
You and your health care team have to sit down and have a thoughtful discussion to determine when it is okay for you to conceive. The timing varies based on the patients and the types of cancer. Women should not try to get pregnant until at least two years after undergoing cancer treatment. This will give you adequate time to get beyond the window of a cancer recurrence. Additionally, you can use this time to recover completely from the late side effects of treatment.
Also, the treatment may result in effects that can make it more difficult for you to handle a pregnancy. In such a case, we advise that you check with a maternal-fetal medicine expert before trying to become pregnant.
Remember that you may face a significant decline in fertility resulted from cancer and cancer treatment. Due to such risks, we highly advise consulting a fertility expert and consider freezing your eggs before commencing the treatment.
Chemotherapy drugs may excrete with vaginal secretions and semen. Hence, it’s important that you use a condom to prevent your partner from becoming exposed to it. Exposing yourself to these chemo drugs can result in birth disorders. If you have low platelet counts or low white blood cell counts, your oncologist may suggest that you avoid sex completely since it can increase your risk for bleeding or infection.
There are a lot of ways to preserve fertility for women. The most sought-after way is through assisted reproductive technologies to freeze eggs and/or embryos. Ovarian transposition is recommended for cancer patients who will receive high doses of potentially harmful radiation to their abdomen and pelvis. In this surgical procedure, the woman’s ovaries are moved away from the radiation field in order to prevent them from being harmed.
Alternatively, the woman’s ovaries can be suppressed with medication in order to make them more resistant to the side effects of chemotherapy. This is considered experimental, though.
Ovarian tissue freezing is the only option to preserve the fertility of female patients who haven’t reach puberty. Although this is also experimental, many children have been born using this technique.
The best way to preserve men’s fertility is to bank sperm before they start cancer treatment.
Testicular tissue freezing is the only option to preserve the fertility of young boys who are yet to attain puberty.
Some cancer treatments can cause women to stop seeing her menses, but this may occur for a short time or last for a lifetime. Therefore, it’s still possible for a woman to become pregnant if she ovulates (the release of eggs of the ovaries) before her menstruation return. But if her menstruations stopped permanently, she has entered early menopause, and it is unlikely that she will get pregnant.
You first need to ask your doctor if the cancer treatment can result in infertility and if the answer is yes, what your individual risk is. Plus, you should ask about ways you can protect or preserve your fertility before you commence treatment. If you would like to know more, you can ask to be referred to a fertility expert who will counsel you about your risk and possibly, offer fertility preservation treatments such as egg freezing.
You should speak to your physician about fertility early in the course of diagnosis and before you commence cancer treatment. In fact, the earlier you have the discussion, the more option you are going to have if you choose to undergo fertility preservation treatment. Even if you were not able to discuss your fertility concerns before treatment, you still need to speak to your doctor, as you may still want to have babies after cancer.
Want to learn more about cancer and its impact on fertility? Interested to see how our fertility clinic located in Orange County, California can help you with egg freezing and other fertility preservation options to mitigate the risks? Simply schedule a consultation with us or you can also visit our website to learn more.
Our fertility clinic focuses on helping you build your family regardless of your sexual orientation or the gender you choose to identify with. We are even taking further steps to make LGTB people feel more welcome at our fertility clinic. Each of our patient-facing staff goes through LGTB training to let family-building clinicians provide necessary support and make you feel highly welcome.
Coastal Fertility Medical Center offers one of the most advanced fertility treatments and is completely transparent regarding the costs of procedures and any other expenses that you may have to pay before commencing your treatment. This differentiates us from some fertility clinics that reduce prices before the signing of the contract but charge you extra later on. We make sure our patients are well aware of any possible extra pricing that may occur over the course of their treatment.
The infertility industry is currently segmented, with each service or treatment being handled by a different provider. Our all-inclusive model simplifies an otherwise complex and difficult process. We are here to revolutionize the infertility industry by offering a one-stop-service model to assist our patients through infertility challenges while reducing physical, emotional, and financial risks.
Our globally respected team of specialists are helping improve IVF technologies to enter into a generation of better outcomes for infertility. Although you’ll have a doctor guiding you, you are also going to benefit from the experience and insights of other doctors during case review collaboration meetings, which take place every week. So, you won’t just rely on the expertise of a specialist but benefit from the knowledge of many reputed fertility experts.
Our team specializes in difficult cases and help patients who may have been considered “hopeless” at other fertility clinics. Thanks to our personalized solutions, expertise, and internal collaboration, weare able to maximize pregnancy success rates that are well above the industry average, even in difficult infertility cases.
We know that every situation is different and that everyone requires different treatments. Unlike facilities that take “a one-size-fits-all” approach for all cases, our fertility specialists use more than 40 customized protocols to raise the chances of success. The customized approach even extends to our fertility laboratory. Our on-site lab director and his highly-experienced team nurture every embryo and egg to increase the odds of success of each cycle.
Coastal Fertility Medical Center offers one of the most advanced fertility treatments and is completely transparent regarding the costs of procedures and any other expenses that you may have to pay before commencing your treatment. This differentiates us from some fertility clinics that reduce prices before the signing of the contract but charge you extra later on. We make sure our patients are well aware of any possible extra pricing that may occur over the course of their treatment.
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Following the Preimplantation Genetic Screening process, which helps ensure there are normal chromosome numbers and detects possible genetic disorders, the most healthy embryo(s) are selected to be implanted into your or your chosen surrogate’s womb. 2 weeks after the transfer of the embryo, your physician will conduct a final blood test to determine the level of hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) in your body. Increased hCG levels usually indicate a positive pregnancy test.
For fertilization to take place, the collected egg and sperm are combined in a petri dish and cultured in an embryo incubator. This dish is closely watched to check whether any of the eggs have been fertilized. Once the egg is fertilized, it is referred to as an embryo or a blastocyst on the 5th day of development. Our in-house embryologist carefully nurtures every embryo to the right time, even if it means working outside the standard business operating hours. For instance: If an oocyte is not mature, our laboratory will wait for it to mature and then ICSI it at the right time.
The egg retrieval is a slightly invasive medical procedure that takes about 20 to 30 minutes. You will be given an anesthetic to make you sleep for the duration of the procedure. Using ultrasound technology, your doctor will harvest your eggs transvaginally with a small, hollow needle connected to an ultrasound probe. Once your eggs are collected, your partner’s semen or donor sperm you have pre-selected is used for fertilization. The sperm are washed and prepared, and the top-quality sperm extracted is used to fertilize the eggs.
Your doctor will create a customized medication schedule that contains information about the fertility medications and hormone injections you have to take. Medication and injections are taken to encourage your ovaries to mature a large number of eggs for fertilization. Since women don’t respond to fertility drugs and hormones the same way, personalized protocols are crucial to the IVF cycle success. At Coastal Fertility, we will monitor you closely, letting you understand the changes occurring in your body and keeping track of how your egg follicles are growing.
On-site consultations typicallyinclude a standard fertility evaluation, consisting of a physical examination, complementary follicular ultrasound, and testing to enable your doctor to know your present fertility status and draw up a treatment plan.
This consultation includes a detailed medical evaluation with a doctor. You and your physician will review your health records and have enough time to talk about your goals and get answers to your questions. We recommend that you jot down all your questions before the visit to allow you to make the best use of the time spent with your doctor.
Your Reproductive Endocrinologist will take all factors into consideration and create a comprehensive plan of care, otherwise known as the treatment plan. This plan will include treatment recommendations from the physician and enable your financial coordinator to make a precise quotation once you meet.
Our globally respected team of specialists are helping improve IVF technologies to enter into a generation of better outcomes for infertility. Although you’ll have a doctor guiding you, you are also going to benefit from the experience and insights of other doctors during case review collaboration meetings, which take place every week. So, you won’t just rely on the expertise of a specialist but benefit from the knowledge of many reputed fertility experts.
The infertility industry is currently segmented, with each service or treatment being handled by a different provider. Our all-inclusive model simplifies an otherwise complex and difficult process. We are here to revolutionize the infertility industry by offering a one-stop-service model to assist our patients through infertility challenges while reducing physical, emotional, and financial risks.
Our fertility clinic focuses on helping you build your family regardless of your sexual orientation or the gender you choose to identify with. We are even taking further steps to make LGTB people feel more welcome at our fertility clinic. Each of our patient-facing staff goes through LGTB training to let family-building clinicians provide necessary support and make you feel highly welcome.
We know that every situation is different and that everyone requires different treatments. Unlike facilities that take “a one-size-fits-all” approach for all cases, our fertility specialists use more than 40 customized protocols to raise the chances of success. The customized approach even extends to our fertility laboratory. Our on-site lab director and his highly-experienced team nurture every embryo and egg to increase the odds of success of each cycle.
Our team specializes in difficult cases and help patients who may have been considered “hopeless” at other fertility clinics. Thanks to our personalized solutions, expertise, and internal collaboration, weare able to maximize pregnancy success rates that are well above the industry average, even in difficult infertility cases.
Upon your arrival, you will check in with a Patient Care Coordinator. We will obtain your insurance information for benefits verification, a copy of your identification and take a picture for your electronic medical chart
Coastal Fertility is the leading provider of fertility solutions located in Orange County. Join us to get free updates on fertility news, treatments, infertility solutions and more.
Coastal Fertility is the leading provider of fertility solutions located in Orange County. Join us to get free updates on fertility news, treatments, infertility solutions and more.