WHEN SHOULD YOU START THINKING ABOUT FREEZING YOUR EGGS?
Answer? Now.
Answer? Now.
If you’re in your mid-to-late twenties, the time to start thinking about egg freezing—is now.
Study and vocational training, a busy social life, and climbing an exciting career ladder are things a lot of women want and should celebrate. But unfortunately, modern life comes with modern problems.
Women take “the pill” for years, experiencing artificially reassuring clockwork monthly cycles. Meanwhile, the real biological clock ticks on.
When the time comes and you decide to try for a baby, depressingly you may stop the pill and find you actually are not as fertile as you thought.
A fertility paradigm shift has happened with the mainstream offerring of egg freezing. Break-though scientific research from the 90’s and 2000’s has made egg freezing technology hugely successful. Finally, by preserving your eggs, there is an option to put your biological clock on hold. But when is the right time to freeze your eggs?
Egg Freezing Facts
Eggs can now be flash frozen by “vitrification” and kept in a glass-like state preserved in liquid nitrogen.
When you freeze your eggs, aging of the egg stops completely, as if you had stopped time. Biologically, you can keep eggs frozen for more than 10 years. If they survive warming (80-90% of vitrified oocytes will survive intact) their potential for fertilization is completely retained.
Am I eligible for egg freezing?
To determine whether you’re eligible for egg freezing, the first step is to make an appointment at Women’s Health Melbourne for a fertility assessment. Amongst other investigations, we will ask you to take a blood test called AMH (anti-mullerian hormone) after at least a month off the pill.
The ideal candidate for egg freezing is a woman with a high egg count and with strong egg quality (which is best at younger ages – ideally around 30 years or younger). It is someone who is prepared to freeze more than 20-30 eggs. For people with a normal but below average egg count, it’s not unusual to require more than one cycle of treatment to achieve your goal.
An egg freeze treatment cycle lasts approximately two weeks, culminating in an egg collection procedure.
During the preparation phase, FSH hormone injections are given (needles are tiny, you do this yourself at home) to stimulate your ovaries. This process does not deplete your fertile egg supply.
During treatment, we rescue eggs that would not have been chosen to ovulate naturally, but that still would have been naturally produced and lost during the same month if you weren’t having an egg freezing treatment. A common misconception is that egg freezing uses up eggs from your egg reserve. No need to worry, this isn’t true.
Around day 10 of your cycle, we check the ovaries by ultrasound and make a plan for your egg collection day.
The egg collection procedure is painfree. In our practice, egg collections are performed safely in a hospital setting with sedation. The procedure lasts 20 to 30 minutes. It is normal to feel some bloating and tummy tenderness on the day of your egg collection, a bit like period pain. Most women feel comfortable almost straight away, only requiring one day off work.
How early is too early?
When it comes to freezing your eggs, the earlier the better. The younger you, are the better your egg quality. The younger you are, the more eggs you can produce per cycle. I would suggest that patients start considering freezing their eggs at the age of 25. It’s pretty normal to think about egg freezing for a while before taking action.
How late is too late?
I would support any woman wanting to freeze her eggs if she is in the age bracket where own egg IVF is supported. However the chance of having a baby from a frozen egg is proportional to the quality of the egg. After 35, one in two eggs is badly damaged. At 40, only one in ten eggs may be normal. Women over 35 need to be prepared to freeze a lot more eggs. Even when they do, older women need to understand they may be freezing infertile eggs. My patients will know that I talk to all women freezing their eggs later in life about all their fertility options very broadly. This includes speaking about donor conception options. At the end of the day, my belief is that it is your body and your choice. It’s my job to accurately inform and support you.
The Thaw
Amazingly 80-90% of eggs survive warming with modern methods. Your ultimate success in using frozen eggs to conceive will vary and depend on the quality of the egg itself and also of the sperm we use to fertilize your eggs. Regarding egg quality, what goes into the freezer is what comes out. The younger you were when you froze your eggs, the better your chance of having one or more babies using your eggs.
You need to freeze enough eggs in anticipation that the following statistics will hold true:
Some eggs will be lost to the warming process
50-70% of surviving eggs will fertilise with ICSI
Approx 50% of early embryos will make it to blastocyst (transfer) stage
At best 1 in 2 embryos will make a baby, if eggs were frozen around 30 years. If you were older when you froze your eggs, that statistic could be lower. At 35, it’s 1 in 3. At 40, it’s 1 in 4-5.
So how much are we talking?
The cost of egg freezing has come down considerably. Cost varies around Australia as does the treatment experience provided. Budget for $10,000 (1 treatment) – $40,000 (4 treatments) to freeze your eggs. In a career girl’s language, it costs anywhere from a classic Chanel suit to a Hermes Kelly bag.
The takeaway
If you’ve got the funds and having a baby is a must for you down the road – think about it now. Egg freezing is definitely something worth researching at the youngest age practical as it is definitely more cost-effective and successful for women in their twenties and early thirties. It’s easy to see why it can be far better to take pro-active action, rather find out there’s an obstacle standing in the way of your pregnancy.
My favorite part of my job? Helping women go from stressed about fertility to having to it all. The joy that motherhood brings is priceless. This generation of smart, proactive woman should no longer have to miss out on having a family if that’s what they want.
Interested in learning more about Egg Freeze and what it could mean for you? Women’s Health Melbourne is the Melbourne destination for best practice egg freezing, with a proven track record of helping a growing number of women have babies using their frozen eggs.
Written by Dr Raelia Lew
RANZCOG Board Certified CREI Fertility specialist, Gynaecologist and the Director of Women’s Health Melbourne.
Co-host of the Knocked Up Podcast, Co-founder of Lovers intimate wellness solutions. Raelia has a PhD in Preconception Health Promotion and Genetic Screening. Raelia is a leading Australian expert in IVF and egg freezing, pioneering a bespoke model of care.