Getting pregnant after freezing eggs

‍Should I do another egg freezing cycle?

So you froze your eggs, what is going to happen after. After you recover from the procedure, you can schedule a visit with your doctor to discuss the results and decide on whether you need to do an additional cycle. The decision to do another cycle could be based on the number of eggs you retrieved, your budget, family plans etc.

Where will the eggs be stored?

Let’s assume you are happy with your cycle. Then your eggs would stay in the storage facility or clinic of your choice till the moment you decide to use them. You can store your eggs at the clinic if you decide to proceed with IVF soon in the same clinic, but it is a normal practice to send your eggs to another storage facility.

How are frozen egg and sperm mixed?

Whether you choose donor sperm or your partner sperm the process would be similar. The thawed eggs are going to be fertilized most commonly using ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection) method - when a single selected sperm is injected into the egg.

Fertilized eggs then grow for 5-6 days till blastocyst stage, when they could be frozen for further use, transferred into the uterus or tested for genetic abnormalities with PGT (preimplantation genetic test). If you decide to test your embryos, they would be frozen after the test to allow for receiving the test results before the transfer.

Before the transfer you may have to take several hormonal treatments to prepare your body and uterus to accept the embryo.

How many frozen eggs will I need to thaw/use?

When deciding how many embryos are going to be thawed for the procedure doctors are taking into account your age, quality of eggs, the risk that not all embryos will survive the thaw and and the decision on how many embryos will be transferred. Best practice is to have a single embryo transferred to prevent different complications.

What to do with the remaining eggs/embryos you don’t want

Maybe after a while you decide that you don’t want to have kids and/or don’t need your eggs anymore. In that case you can use several options (they also can be decided at the beginning in the agreement with a clinic).

You may choose to:

1. discard your eggs
2. donate to research
3. donate them to another couple.

If you have any questions about egg or embryo freezing, we are here to help.