Frozen Eggs

jenbabe · December 2010

If DH and I do IVF #2 we would again want to limit embryos b/c of religious reasons. I asked my RE if we could do a full stim cycle, only fertilize a few and freeze the rest of the eggs so we wouldn't have to go through a full IVF again in the future. Also even though I'm still young, I would feel good knowing I had eggs frozen. My RE said he would do it but that eggs didn't freeze very well and he wasn't sure if it would be worth it.

So has anyone frozen eggs or done any research on it? Anyone's RE have a different opinion about frozen eggs? Donor eggs are frozen right? My RE doesn't seem to have a problem with using donor eggs (though not applicable in my case). I'm just curious if this is a worthwhile option to pursue if we do go towards IVF #2.

Faith722 · December 2010

My RE also said that the egg freezing technology was not great yet. I have seen some clinics (SIRM) advertise that they use vitrification (super fast freezing) for eggs. I don't know if this technology is available to all RE's yet. There are a couple of ladies here who have done limited fertilization. I think hilaree was one of them. You may want to try paging her for more info.

wewannababy · December 2010

You should page Hillaree -- she uses limited fertilization with her IVF cycles and her RE has frozen eggs with her IVF cycles. GL!

SunMoon&Stars · December 2010

Donor eggs are frozen right? Not necessarily; they can also be freshly retrieved. Actually, I think this is the case in most donor egg procedures. Also, not all RE practices even have a frozen donor egg bank, even if they do have a DE program.

I had IVF #1 with fresh DE's - RE did not have a frozen DE bank. IVF #2 was at a different RE and I had a frozen DE cyclethis time.

One significant difference if that frozen eggs are more difficult to fertilize because the outer layer toughens from the freezing process. The standards at my RE's frozen DE program are tough. DH had to have varicocele surgery just so we could qualify for this.