What about freezing my eggs when I am young
Not all egg freezers are equal. Here’s how to provide yourself with the best resource possible, should you need fertility help as you age.
Will freezing my eggs when I am young guarantee a baby later when I am older?
The answer to this question is easy and unfortunately is NO. Nothing we can do in life can guarantee future success.
Like going to business school doesn’t guarantee your future rise to commercial success, freezing eggs cannot guarantee you a baby.
However, like is other areas of life, proactive reproductive planning, which for many women may involve freezing their eggs, is the best pathway to set yourself up for the highest probability of future success.
Not all egg freezers are equal. Here’s how to provide yourself with the best resource possible, should you need fertility help as you age.
Freeze young
Our peak fertility happens in our teens and continues into our 20’s. Fertility decline because of age starts around 30 and speeds up radically at 35.
Frozen eggs are a resource. Like any resource you want to bank, freezing eggs of high quality will yield better results (more babies).
Think of your eggs like buying a share. A good quality share will increase in value for you over time (young healthy eggs).
Freezing eggs when you are older is like banking shares with lower potential value. They may come through for you in the future or they may not.
Statistically, 90% of women aged under 35 who freeze between 20-30 eggs will be able to have at least 1 baby. That’s not perfect… but it is really cool.
Freeze many
Eggs are what they are. Eggs are single human cells. Biologically there are many steps in making a baby and many eggs will fail.
That’s right: many healthy young perfect eggs will make mistakes along the way and will fail to make a baby. If you are under 35 when you freeze, each individual egg has a 6-12% chance of resulting in a future birth.
This is true in your body. In IVF labs, scientists watch it happen every day under a microscope. Not every egg makes a baby. The older a woman is when she is freezing her eggs, the more eggs she will need to freeze. To achieve the same chance of pregnancy as your younger self, you will need to freeze more eggs.
Sort yourself out
The eggs you freeze should be healthy. While it’s true that women make all our eggs before birth, we can influence the environment in which eggs develop in the lead up to fertility treatment.
It’s an excellent incentive to clean up your act. Don’t smoke. Don’t take recreational drugs. Exercise. Drink water. Eat well. Take a pre-pregnancy vitamin. See a fertility doctor and take on their opinion on all the issues that might affect you planning a pregnancy, even if we are talking about “one day”.
Baby Guarantees
The only guarantee that a doctor can give you that you will one day have a baby is…. to help you have a baby. Are you ready to have a baby? Is the possibility of missing out on motherhood causing you extreme stress?
Are you actually coming to see a doctor to freeze eggs because you want to have a baby in the near future?
You are not alone. Many women feel this way if they are:
Single and have not thought about being a mum in a non-conventional way
In a relationship with a partner who won’t commit to family
We live in a world and happily in a society where you can have a baby if that’s what you want. You may need a little bit of help from your fertility doctor and the generous donation of sperm.
If you would like to conceive now, rather than freeze your eggs, let’s talk about it.
Egg freezing is best for young women who know what they want and are willing to make the effort to open future doors and create more options. The science is strong. The world (and our practice here at WHM) is seeing more and more healthy babies conceived from frozen eggs.
If you have been thinking about freezing your eggs, it’s safe to say, there can be no better time than the present.
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.