Freezing technology enables maximisation of treatment as well providing options for medical and social reasons. At Repromed we offer the following treatments.
If you’d like to start a family but you’re not quite at that stage in your life yet, egg freezing is a great way to protect your future family plans.
Egg freezing is a decision that’s often made to future-proof against naturally occurring, age-related fertility decline.
Essentially, you’re born with your lifetime supply of eggs and the quality reduces over time. Fertility usually peaks in your 20s, by mid-30s, the number of normal eggs has reduced by half. Egg freezing provides a potential safeguard for the future.
Similar to the beginning stages of IVF treatment, egg freezing involves daily injections throughout the first 9-12 days of your cycle to encourage multiple eggs to mature. Once the follicles have grown to the optimal size, a ‘trigger’ injection will start the egg maturation process. The eggs are then collected from the ovaries about 36 hours later and frozen using a process called vitrification.
During vitrification, the eggs are moved through a series of solutions that protect it during the cooling phase. The eggs are then stored in liquid nitrogen at -197°C.
At this temperature, the eggs are technically able to be stored indefinitely without any deterioration but, legally, the storage limit in Aotearoa is 10 years.
The number and quality of eggs collected and the overall success rate depends on the person’s age, the reason for the treatment and a few other factors. It’s possible that eggs may not be collected or suitable for freezing despite everyone’s best efforts.
Predicting your chance of having a baby based on age and number of eggs collected:
Each curve in this figure shows the percentage likelihood that a person of a given age will have at least one baby following a future thawing of their eggs.
Based on this table, for a 75% chance of having a baby, you will need an estimated minimum number of eggs at the following ages:
The good news is that research shows that using frozen eggs has the potential to give a similar result as using freshly collected eggs.
The earlier you freeze your eggs, the better your chance of conceiving when you decide to use them. The best time to freeze your eggs is when you have the best ovarian reserves — typically from your early 20s to your early 30s. Egg freezing after 35 years old is possible, but it may require multiple rounds of treatment.
The amount of eggs you need to freeze will depend on your age at the time of egg freezing, your ovarian reserve level (also known as your AMH level), and the size of family you want.
As an example, a 34 year old would need to freeze at least 12 eggs for a 75% chance of having a baby, whereas a 37 year old would need to freeze 20 eggs. It’s important to note that more than one cycle of treatment might be needed, depending on how many eggs are successfully collected.
Like any procedure, egg freezing does come with associated risks. Vitrification, a process of snap freezing, has been used for embryos for a longer time than for eggs. Egg freezing is a relatively new procedure and currently there is not a large number of studies to address long term implications of the process.
Eggs are naturally more fragile than embryos when they’re vitrified, which means that the survival rate of eggs is lower than what is expected for embryos.
Pregnancy and miscarriage rates are influenced by the age of the egg too.
The cost of egg freezing will depend on how many treatment cycles are required to obtain the optimal number of eggs. Note that there are two parts to our egg freezing process — the egg collection itself; then future thawing, insemination and embryo transfer to the uterus.
The cost of phase one, the egg collection and freezing process, includes:
The cost of phase two, the future egg thawing, insemination and embryo transfer, includes:
Please see the Repromed Cost Schedule Sheet for up-to-date costings for egg freezing.
For more information on egg freezing, you can view our ReproFact sheet. If you’re interested to learn about donor sperm too, click here for info.
To learn more about whether egg freezing is right for you, you can book a free 15 minute phone consultation with one of our Repromed fertility doctors to discuss your personal situation and help you make a decision.
Click to book online here or by calling 0800 483 105.
At Repromed our scientists will freeze any good quality embryos following your fresh embryo transfer. These embryos will remain in storage until you would like them thawed and transferred, a procedure known as a Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET). Due to higher survival rates we freeze all embryos at the blastocyst stage (day 5 and/or 6) using a fast freeze technique termed vitrification.
Vitrification is an ultra rapid freeze method that bypasses ice crystal formation. Vitrification is reported to be a superior method of freezing than conventional slow freezing where survival rates range from 70-80% giving rise to increased rates in pregnancy outcome.
FET stands for Frozen Embryo Transfer. Following egg collection in an IVF cycle, the team in the lab will freeze any surplus high quality embryos. These embryos remain frozen in storage until the woman or couple are ready to have the embryos thawed and replaced.
Preparation for this involves either ovulation monitoring of a natural cycle, or a programmed cycle with the addition of oestrogen and progesterone hormones.
The embryo is thawed when the uterus is predicted to be at its most receptive phase for implantation. The embryo is then placed in a very fine catheter and inserted through the cervix, in a procedure which is similar to having a smear test.
Like most aspects of fertility, the likelihood of a successful pregnancy from an FET cycle is dependent on the age of the woman when her embryos were created. The graph shows the most current results from Australasian clinics and you can see that the FET cycles in blue declines at a similar rate to the Fresh embryo transfer cycles.
Frozen transfers have a higher rate of pregnancy for women over 35 years old. This can be due to a) the embryos are frozen when the women were slightly younger, and b) they are transferred in an unstimulated cycle where the hormone levels are more natural.
All semi-surgical procedures are carried out in affiliation with Repromed’s DAA accredited surgical unit ACSS (Auckland City Surgical Services) within the same building and using our Repromed doctors.
For some women, a ‘freeze-only’ IVF cycle may be recommended if their doctor is concerned about the effect of high hormone levels on their health or uterine lining. The beauty of waiting to transfer these embryos in a thaw cycle is it gives the body time to return to a natural state when the uterus is more receptive to an implanting embryo. Only high quality embryos are frozen and their survival rate is almost 100% which can often translate into higher pregnancy rates than fresh IVF transfers. Learn more about the benefits of a freeze-only cycle here.
And finally, FET cycles do have the benefit of requiring no injections and less blood tests.
Transferring frozen embryos between clinics is a very simple process. If you have embryos stored at a different clinic but would like treatment at Repromed please get in touch with us.
Reasons for sperm storage can range due to a number of factors. Sperm can be frozen prior to treatment and used as ‘back-up’ if decreased sperm parameters are noted or anxiety surrounding performance on the day of treatment is predicted.
Sperm freeze is also useful for couples where the male partner is likely to be away from home at time of female ovulation, having frozen sperm in storage enables the treatment to go ahead at any time.
If you would like to discuss your personal situation please get in touch with us. For new clients, we offer a free 15 minute phone consultation with a fertility doctor. Take the first step today.
Book a free 15 minute phone consultation with a fertility doctor.
DipNurs
Megan leads the nursing team through the continually changing face of IVF. She works in a multidisciplinary team, providing the essential organization between the doctors and laboratory and ensuring communication between all departments.
Megan started her IVF nursing career in the United Kingdom, working in two large London clinic’s before returning to New Zealand. She is also the Secretary of Fertility Nurses of Australasia.
I love working with people and see nursing as a vocation, not a job. I usually spend my downtime absorbed in a good book and planning my next travel adventure.