EGG FREEZING (OOCYTE CRYOPRESERVATION)
Oocyte Cryopreservation definition: method used to save women’s ability to get pregnant in the future.
Oocyte Cryopreservation, the scientific name for freezing your eggs, is the preservation of mature eggs following hormone stimulation to achieve pregnancy at a later time. This oocyte cryopreservation is currently offered to women who are interested in preserving their fertility or delaying a pregnancy electively. This procedure is also offered to women with a diagnosis of cancer who are at risk of losing their egg reserve and the potential to have a child due to surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation. Your egg reserve decreases significantly with the increasing reproductive age. Therefore, egg freezing is a smart option for women who want to have children later in life, but just can’t right now.
The process for egg preservation and freezing is quite simple actually.
- First, the patient will be given hormone treatments for 8-10 days.
- Next, the patient will go through aspiration of the eggs under anesthesia next door to the Red Rock Fertility Center at Sunset Surgery Center.
- Finally, eggs are frozen for fertility preservation purposes.
- *Eggs can be frozen for up to 12 years and will still be viable for implanting into the patient.
When the pregnancy is desired at a later time in life, eggs are then thawed and fertilized with sperm, and embryos are transferred into the uterus. This fertility process is called in vitro fertilization (IVF), a common type of treatment used for infertility patients.