Egg freezing can help you pause your biological clock and have a baby when you’re ready
At The Fertility Center of Las Vegas, we believe that everyone deserves the chance to have a family. Our Las Vegas fertility doctors also believe that everyone should be able to have a baby when the time is right for them. As a result, we proudly offer a variety of fertility preservation options, including egg freezing, sperm freezing and embryo freezing.
What is egg freezing and why is it important?
Fertility preservation for eggs is a medical process. It allows you to preserve your eggs for future family-building use. Because the eggs remain frozen in liquid nitrogen at a very low temperature, all cellular processes stop.
This means that the eggs do not age while they are frozen. As a result, when an embryologist thaws the frozen eggs, they will be of the same quality as they were at the time they were frozen.
Egg freezing is a huge benefit for women, especially as more people are waiting until later in life to start a family. Female fertility decreases with age, so most women start to see a decline in fertility around age 35. By the time a woman is in her early-40s, it is much more difficult to conceive and have a healthy baby.
By freezing eggs while you still have good egg quality and quantity, you can increase your chances of having a baby later.
How do you freeze your eggs?
Egg freezing involves stimulating the ovaries to produce ovarian follicles that contain individual eggs. To do this, you will take injectable fertility medications. While taking these medications, you’ll visit your doctor for regular monitoring appointments. The goal of these visits is to ensure your eggs are developing properly and identify when it’s time for the egg retrieval procedure.
When your eggs are mature, you will have a short, outpatient retrieval procedure. Your eggs will then go directly to the IVF lab. There, an experienced embryologist will freeze them before placing them safely into storage. Your eggs can remain in frozen storage for as long as you need.
When you are ready to conceive using your frozen eggs, an embryologist will retrieve your eggs from frozen storage and then thaw them. They will then fertilize your eggs with sperm from your partner or your chosen sperm donor. Finally, one of our Las Vegas fertility doctors will transfer one of the resulting embryos into your uterus.
Who should pursue this type of fertility preservation?
Egg freezing is a wonderful option for any woman who knows she wants to wait several years to have children. It can also be wise for medical reasons.
- Women might want to freeze their eggs to postpone motherhood while they focus on their education, career, relationships or travel.
- Patients who are preparing to have chemotherapy or radiation for cancer or any other condition may want to freeze eggs, as these treatments can damage fertility.
If freezing your eggs sounds like a great choice for you, we can help you start your fertility preservation journey. Contact us to schedule an appointment and learn more.
