Egg Freezing

In recent years, egg freezing has become highly successful due to development of the process called vitrification. Survival rates and subsequent pregnancy rates now come close to that of fresh in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycles. A woman can thus freeze her eggs before the detrimental effects of aging set in, or before her eggs are compromised by cancer treatments. The eggs can then be thawed and fertilized years later.

The major advantage of freezing eggs instead of embryos is that no sperm is necessary at the time of freezing, so a single woman has the option of having children with the partner of her choice at a later stage. This is especially valuable for young cancer patients as well as women who are concerned about aging before finding the right partner with whom to have children.  There is also the advantage of not ending up with a surplus of frozen embryos, an issue that can be problematic for moral and/or religious reasons for many people.

Once eggs are frozen, they can remain viable for several years. When a woman decides to proceed, the eggs are thawed and utilized to establish a pregnancy.  Thawed eggs are fertilized using the ICSI procedure, during which a single sperm is injected into each egg before they are cultured and the resulting embryos inserted into the uterus.