Age plays a major factor in women’s fertility. Ladies in their 20s to early 30s are in their peak reproductive years. However, not many women today feel ready to have a baby at this age. Whether they haven’t found their right partner or they want to focus on their career. Also, it is possible that they simply are not ready yet, or they just don’t want to start a family. Nowadays, Egg freezing has become an attractive option for many women. It offers an alternative reproductive insurance policy against age-related fertility decline. Here are some things that you might want to know about the egg freezing process including the success rates, risks and procedure costs.
What Is the Egg Freezing Process?
Egg freezing process (oocyte cryopreservation) involves stimulating the ovaries with medication to produce multiple eggs in women ovaries. After retrieving those mature eggs, it will go for the freezing process until the time you decide to use them.
Is There a Right Candidate?
The older women get, the less likely they are to become pregnant. A woman in her 20s or 30s who is not using birth control pills has a 25% chance of conceiving. By the time she is 40, those chances drop to 10% and as years go on, the chances get even slimmer.
Egg freezing is the best option for younger women, particularly those younger than 35 years. At this age, they have the highest quality of eggs. According to many experts, women over the age of 38 aren’t ideal candidates for egg freezing, since they have fewer healthy eggs that can be retrieved and fertilized compared to younger women.
Egg freezing is a way to preserve your fertility before it starts to decline. It can be a life- saving option for women who are not ready to get pregnant just yet.
Many women can undergo this procedure, including those who have endometriosis or ovarian cysts. It is also an option for women who have a family history of premature ovarian failure and early menopause. Early menopause leaves these women with a shorter than usual baby-making window. Cancer treatments have a high chance of making women infertile, so women about to undergo cancer treatments may choose to preserve their fertility by freezing their eggs. Finally, women undergoing IVF also have the option to choose egg freezing along with embryo freezing as a part of IVF treatment.
How Does Egg Freezing Work?
The egg retrieval process used during the egg freezing procedure is the same as with a woman undergoing IVF. Here’s what you can expect from the process.
- Over the course of 14 days, hormonal injections will stimulate your ovaries to produce multiple mature eggs.
- You will also have to get ultrasound check-ups to see how many follicles are growing and how well they are developing. You should also expect multiple blood draws to monitor your hormone levels.
- Once the follicles are mature, you’ll receive a trigger shot of hCG or Lupron to finish egg maturation and begin the ovulation.
- The fertility doctor will start the egg retrieval procedure 36 hours after the trigger shot. Eggs will be retrieved transvaginally from the ovarian follicles through a needle guided by ultrasound, this needle will reach your ovaries and aspirates the fluid and egg from each follicle. They can retrieve about 12 to 15 eggs with this step.
- The egg retrieval procedure takes around 20 to 30 minutes. You’ll be under IV sedatives.
- Immediately after the egg retrieval procedure, the eggs are frozen via a flash-freezing ultra-rapid cooling process known as vitrification.
- Eggs can be frozen for as long as you like, but you’ll have to pay a storage fee for those eggs. Since this technology is relatively new, experts are not sure how long the eggs can be safely and effectively stored.
- Once you are ready, one or more eggs will be thawed and fertilized. The eggs that survive the freezing process will be fertilized when a single sperm is inserted directly into the egg. The resulting embryo will then be transferred to your uterus.
- You may need to undergo more than one cycle of egg retrieval as well as hormonal drugs that help stimulate ovulation.
How Much Does Freezing Your Eggs Cost?
The price for the egg freezing process varies from one fertility treatment center to another and depending on how many cycles may require for ovulation. The cost to harvest your eggs may range anywhere from $7000 to $15000. This cost includes the egg retrieval procedure, hormonal medications that fertility experts use to stimulate ovaries to produce multiple eggs, and freezing the eggs with vitrification method.
Storing the retrieved eggs after can add up your cost over $1000 per year. Also, you’ll want to consider the cost of fertilizing and implanting the embryo once you decide to get pregnant. You might require multiple cycles of embryo transfer to conceive successfully, and this might cost you an additional several thousand dollars.
Many clinics offer different payment plans and loans to help out potential intended parents with the upfront costs of egg freezing. Some of the leading tech giants like Apple, Google, and Facebook have insurance plans that cover some of the costs associated with egg freezing.
Does Insurance Cover Egg Freezing Cost?
Only a few health insurance plans cover the cost of egg freezing for women at high risk of early menopause and premature ovarian failure, or for those who want to freeze their eggs for cancer treatments.
Are There Any Egg Freezing Risks?
In Egg freezing Process risks are incredibly rare, but they can still occur in patients, these risks are:
- Complications during procedure
- Developing rare fertility drug-related conditions
- Emotional difficulties
During the procedure, there is a possibility that a bowel, blood vessel, or bladder might be damaged or infected when the egg is retrieved. This can result in bleeding, which, in turn, can affect the procedure.
It’s also possible to develop rare conditions after using fertility drugs. The primary use of these hormonal medications is to stimulate the ovaries. However, they may result in Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS). This syndrome is extremely rare but could be fatal for patients. The symptom of OHSS includes ovarian and abdominal swelling, mild pain, nausea, vomiting, and shortness of breath.
Another problem is the emotional risks, and with a procedure such as this one, nothing guarantees success. This can take a toll on a patient’s emotional well-being.
What Is The Success Rate of Egg Freezing?
Egg freezing is not a 100% successful procedure, but it does significantly increase the chances of fertilization. The success rate often depends on the age of the individual that undergoes the procedure. Every egg retrieved from a woman younger than 30 years has around a 12% chance of resulting in a successful pregnancy. However, the older you are, the lower the chances of successful fertilization.
Egg Freezing could be the answer many women need who are not ready to start a family just yet. If you too are thinking about egg freezing, then call us at 949-726-0600 or book an appointment to know more about egg freezing process, cost, risks and success rate. Also, you can visit us at www.coastalfertility.com.
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