How it works and what you need to prepare to freeze your eggs 

SCHEDULE APPT: make sure you see a board certified reproductive endocrinologist/fertility clinic that
has experience freezing eggs. The consultation will be 30-60 minutes. Come prepared to answer questions about your reproductive goals. Bring along a member of your support system 🙂

GET TESTING: Our physicians will check markers of ovarian reserve, specifically an AMH and ultrasound antral follicle count to help set expectations and qualify how many eggs you might get with one cycle of egg freezing (more on that below). AMH is a blood test usually done that day and the US may be done that day or later depening on where you are in your menstrual cycle.

GET COUNSELING: Our physicians will review pros/cons of the egg freezing process and utilize the above test results to help you understand how many eggs are necessary to achieve 40-70% livebirth. This information will help you determine whether you might need to be prepared for more than one egg freeze cycle.

DECIDE: The decision to freeze eggs is highly personal. On one hand it will help extend one’s future fertility, but on the other, its not a guarantee for future livebirth and may incur significant cost. Some have used referred to a, so called “sweet spot” to freeze eggs, which is thought to be age 33-37.

MAKE PAYMENT: Egg freezing costs $5-10,000 per cycle. Very few employers provide coverage for this.

TWO WEEKS: A cycle of egg freezing requires about 2 weeks of time during which you are giving yourself 1-2 separate “bee sting” like injections daily for about 10 days. During those 10 days of daily injection, you will visit the fertility clinic 3-5 times for estrogen blood levels and vaginal ultrasounds to measure your response. After about 10 days, then you are triggered with a third injection (in the hip) and then 36 hours later – you undergo an egg retrieval, which is an outpatient surgical procedure.

FREEZE EGGS: Eggs are stored temporarily onsite and then moved to a long term storage facility. Annual fees for storage are about $300-400.

REPEAT MAYBE: some patients will elect to cycle again to retrieve more eggs. Steps 5-7 are then repeated and a month later more eggs are frozen.