Start growing your family on your terms & when you’re ready with Egg Freezing Treatment
As an established Gynaecologist and Fertility specialist, I’ve seen extraordinary outcomes from egg freezing treatments. With the latest advancements in egg freezing technology over the past several years, getting pregnant later in life has become more achievable than ever before – especially in circumstances where the likelihood of natural conception is low or not possible.
The best time for women to undergo egg freezing is under the age of 35 (for non-medical reasons), since there are both higher quality and quantities of eggs that can be extracted for future pregnancy attempts. However, my team is here to assist you no matter how unique your circumstances may be.
With my specialist expertise in fertility treatments and support from the leading team at Melbourne IVF, we’re here to help you achieve the best chances of pregnancy later on in life with our egg freezing treatment process.
What is Egg Freezing?
Egg freezing is the process of extracting, freezing, and storing a woman’s unfertilised eggs for future pregnancies. When the woman is ready for pregnancy, the frozen eggs are thawed and fertilised by injecting the sperm, achieving fertilisation and the development of embryos for pregnancy attempts.
Over the past 5 years, egg freezing technology has been revolutionised for better outcomes of success. A new process called ‘vitrification’ in egg freezing procedures helps to avoid the formation of destructive ice crystals, which in the past, often developed during the stages when the extracted eggs are rapidly frozen from room temperature to minus 196 degrees Celsius.
There is no exact reason why you’d choose to freeze your eggs, but some common reasons include:
- Medical conditions or treatment that may affect your future fertility
- Establishing a career
- Not in a relationship
- Not ready nor have the financial resources
Guiding you through your Egg Freezing process
Throughout every stage of your egg freezing journey, my team and I will be here to ensure you’re well-informed, supported, and feel comfortable at all times. Although your egg freezing experience will be unique and tailored based on your preferences, here are the main stages in your egg freezing process that my team and I will guide you through.
Fertility Assessment
At your initial consultation at my clinic, we’ll take time to review your medical history and get to know more about your personal experiences with infertility – such as how long you have been going through infertility issues, any sources of pain or discomfort, your plans for pregnancy, etc. Following this, we will get you to undergo a few basic health assessments such as blood tests and ultrasounds to check your health and fertility markers.
Tailored Treatment Plan
Once your fertility assessment results have been received, we’ll review them together and outline what your tailored treatment plan will look like – including the medications you’ll be required to take, how many injections you may need, how many cycles may be involved, as well as timeframe, costs, and more.
Ovarian Stimulation Injections
You’ll then move onto the ovarian stimulation process. As your fertility doctor I will guide you through how to safely administer hormonal injections yourself, so that you can take the injections in your own time and in the comfort and privacy of your own home – this also saves you time from having to travel and visit our clinic each time.
Monitoring Your Response
After commencing the ovarian stimulation process, we will monitor how your body has responded to the injections through an ultrasound – which will be monitored by myself at all times. The results from the ultrasound will help indicate whether you’re ready to start the next stage of egg collection. Generally, 2-3 ultrasounds are needed before egg collection. At every ultrasound, I will be there to monitor your progress myself, and allow for plenty of face-to-face time and continuity of care to answer any questions, concerns, and/or provide reassurance at all stages of your egg freezing journey.
Egg Collection
Once your eggs have matured and are ready to be retrieved, we’ll commence with the egg collection process through a day surgery (under a light anaesthetic) at our leading facilities at Melbourne IVF.
Egg Assessment & Vitrification
From the egg retrieval surgery, we’ll assess the number of mature, good quality eggs that were successfully collected, and freeze them through a process called Vitrification at the Melbourne IVF laboratories for future pregnancy attempts. Ideally, we aim to collect and freeze anywhere from 20 mature eggs – the average being 8-10 eggs collected each cycle. Additional cycles may be required to collect a suitable number of eggs (which will increase the chances of successful pregnancy attempts in the future).
(Optional) Attempting Pregnancy
When the time has come and you know you’re ready to start growing a family, we begin by thawing your frozen eggs and preparing them for assisted pregnancy treatments such as IVF. Frozen eggs can be stored for several years and will not diminish in quality the longer they’re frozen for – so you can attempt to get pregnant later on when you’re more ready and confident to become a parent.