understand

Egg Freezing Treatment

Egg freezing is a method of fertility preservation. People are becoming more aware of the opportunity of starting a family later in life and may consider doing egg freezing.

With the option of egg freezing, women are empowered to overcome the biological limitations of their reproductive system, enabling them to align their family planning choices with their individual preferences, goals, and circumstances.

who

Who is Egg Freezing for?

Individuals with ovaries are born with a limited number of eggs that decreases over time, especially in the mid-30s, when the percentage of eggs with genetic abnormalities increases. Freezing eggs is a personal decision that one may make for various reasons. Some factors that may influence the decision to freeze eggs include:
  • Having the option to delay pregnancy until a more convenient or suitable time in one’s life
  • Finding the right partner, without feeling the pressure to have a baby or rushing into a relationship based on the desire to have a child
  • Preserve fertility for individuals with endometriosis, a condition that can greatly impact one’s ability to conceive
  • Potential early onset of menopause, if there is a family history of early menopause, which may have genetic basis
  • To safeguard against the potential negative effects of treatments such as immunosuppressants or other medications that may negatively impact fertility and therefore shorten one’s fertility window
  • Oncofertility preservation – egg freezing or embryo freezing prior to undergoing cancer treatment
  • Preserve fertility for trans men (assigned female at birth) undergoing hormonal treatments who may want to have genetic or biological children in the future.
  • Fertility preservation is funded for individuals getting treatment for a medical condition that may cause infertility. This includes freezing sperm or egg samples that will be used later in either IUI or IVF.

process

The Egg Freezing Process

Egg freezing involves retrieving the eggs from your ovaries, assessing them, and selecting the mature ones to be frozen using a technique called vitrification. Your eggs will be stored until you are ready to use them.



Using vitrification, we expect approximately 85 to 90 % of the eggs to survive after thaw.



The goal for the egg freezing cycle is to safely stimulate and develop 15 to 20 eggs rather than the usual 1 mature egg in each month. The more eggs you freeze the more likely you are to develop an embryo leading to a pregnancy.



Your fertility potential or ovarian reserve is assessed based on hormones as anti-mullerian hormone (AMH) levels, and counting your antral follicles on ultrasound or how many eggs you have during that cycle.



While we can predict the number of eggs you are likely to achieve during an egg freezing cycle, there are no tests that can measure the egg quality.



We do use AI tools such as VIOLET to generate a probability score using images from your frozen eggs.


Violet™ is a new tool developed by futurefertility.com that offers new scientific insight and transparency about the quality of frozen eggs.

Violet™ is a non-invasive, AI-based software that assesses and analyzes images of a patient’s eggs to predict the chances for each egg to successfully fertilize and reach the blastocyst stage. Patients doing social egg freezing at TRIO Fertility Mississauga will receive a complete report on each of their frozen eggs, along with an analysis of the quality of each egg and its likelihood to become a blastocyst when fertilized.

Age at the time of the egg retrieval is the best indicator as age affects both egg quantity and egg quality. Ideally, we prefer patients to freeze before the age of 35, however we will freeze eggs up to the age of 40 depending on your ovarian reserve.

Regardless, we will talk about your likelihood of achieving a pregnancy and discuss your options.

Once the egg freezing cycle is complete, you will have a follow-up appointment to determine if additional egg freezing cycles are recommended or possible. It is important to consider the possibility that you may require more than one egg freezing cycle to generate the number of mature eggs recommended.

Once you are ready to use your eggs, you can plan for egg thaw and fertilization, followed by an embryo transfer.

Once thawed, the eggs that survive will be injected with sperm through a process called ICSI.

Approximately 80% of the eggs will be successfully fertilized this way.

After thaw and fertilization, your fertilized eggs will be incubated for 3 to 5 days. If an embryo grows, embryo transfer will occur. During this procedure, a physician places the embryo into your uterus.

As with any procedure, there are certain chances of success and risks involved.

Even though the procedure goes smoothly, there is no guarantee of viable eggs or embryos to transfer, nor is pregnancy guaranteed.

Currently the chances for pregnancy per egg is approximately 6.4% and the pregnancy rates per cycle are 25 % on average. But the range is greater than 60% to less than 5 % depending on how old you are at the time when the eggs were frozen and the number of eggs frozen.

It is also important to be aware that there are associated risks with pregnancy by IVF and ICSI. They include a slightly increased chance for birth defects. You may have a higher risk for HTN, premature delivery, C-section delivery and low birth weight, ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage.

You should consider that carrying a pregnancy at a later time can increase these risks.

There is also a chance that you may not need to use your frozen eggs because you’ve achieved a pregnancy without intervention.

If egg freezing is right for you, you’re welcome to contact the clinic to arrange a consultation.