Egg Freezing

Egg freezing is a newer fertility technology that Rocky Mountain Fertility Center provides which allows you to freeze and store your eggs when they are the most healthy.   The most optimal time to freeze your eggs is before age 32. Call now to get started before its too late. 

When you’re ready to become pregnant later in life, we can thaw your eggs, fertilize them, and place the embryos in your uterus to help you achieve a successful pregnancy. This increases the chance for pregnancy in women who wish to delay childbearing to later in life.

There are many reasons you might choose to freeze your eggs. Some common reasons include:

• You are undergoing chemotherapy or radiation retreatment in the near future
• You don’t plan to have children until your late 30s or 40s
• You aren't ready to have kids by the age of 32 and hoping to have kids in the future
• Are morally opposed to preserving embryos, or fertilized eggs
• There is a family history of early menopause

After age 35, it’s more difficult to get pregnant, and the risk of fetal abnormalities increases. For that reason, women who plan to have children later in life are often good candidates for egg freezing. The procedure doesn’t require that you have a male partner.

How do I get started?

Prior to egg freezing, your Rocky Mountain Fertility Center specialist will meet with you and review your health history and completes a pelvic ultrasound to look at your ovaries. 

We utilize hormonal egg quality tests, and the ultrasound to determine if you’re a good candidate for the egg freezing procedure. If you are, the process of egg freezing takes about 3 weeks of prep work and 2 weeks of hormone shots  before the egg retrieval.  There are three steps to freezing your eggs.

• Increasing egg production - To increase egg production, you take birth control pills, followed by two weeks of hormone injections to stimulate your ovaries to make multiple eggs. Throughout the process, your provider monitors your ovaries using vaginal ultrasounds.
• Egg retrieval - When your eggs are ready for retrieval, you return to Rocky Mountain Fertility Center. Your doctor sedates you, places an ultrasound probe in your vagina, and guides a needle through the vagina into a follicle that contains an egg.  The process takes 15-20 minutes at the most. The process causes minimal discomfort, though you might experience pressure and mild cramping.
• Egg freezing - Once the eggs are retrieved, your provider freezes and stores your eggs until you’re ready to become pregnant. They use in vitro fertilization (IVF) to implant fertilized eggs into your uterus when you’re ready.

The number of eggs your fertility specialist collects, and your chance of conceiving, is usually based on your age. If you’re under 35, your provider needs about 12 mature eggs to help you achieve a 50% chance of producing a live birth. If you’re 35-40, they usually need 16 viable eggs.

Your eggs can stay frozen for up to a decade or even longer , as there’s no evidence that the health or viability of frozen eggs decreases with time.

How Do you Know if You Are A Good Candidate for Egg Freezing?

Talk with your reproductive endocrinology and fertility specialist at Rocky Mountain Fertility Center to determine if you’re a good candidate for egg freezing. 

Egg quality varies from person to person, which is why Rocky Mountain Fertility Center uses anti-mullerian hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone, and estradiol hormone testing to assess your chance of a successful pregnancy with egg freezing. 

Because of concerns over egg quality, they don’t recommend egg retrieval and freezing if you’re older than 40.

If you’re ready to learn more about egg freezing and find out if the procedure is right for you, schedule an appointment with Rocky Mountain Fertility Center by phone or online today.