Social egg freezing

What is social egg freezing?

Social egg freezing means that you want to store your healthy eggs because of non-medical reasons, like focusing on a career, further education, or finding the right partner. In terms of technology, there is no difference between the technology used in social egg freezing and medical egg freezing. Since women’s egg quality is at its best in their mid-twenties, social egg freezing should ideally be performed on women before the age of 35 years.

Read more about egg freezing and fertility preservation, by following the link.

3 reasons for social egg freezing

There are many different reasons to use social egg freezing. By using social egg freezing you extend your fertile period and thereby give yourself the chance to focus on parts of your life you want to accomplish or have sorted out, before starting to have children. Unlike egg freezing for medical reasons, you do not need to freeze your eggs to preserve the ability to conceive, it is just a possibility if you want to focus on other things before becoming a parent. Here below we have explained three of the most popular reasons behind social egg freezing.

• Waiting on the right partner: If you have not found the perfect partner yet, you might want to consider freezing your eggs to extend your fertile period and thereby make it easier for you and your future partner to become pregnant.
• Focus on career: In recent times, many women have focused on creating a career before starting their journey towards parenthood. Since age is the most defining factor in terms of egg quality, you may want to consider freezing some of your eggs, thereby making it easier for you to conceive once you have created the career you desired.
• Further Education is a priority: Having children often takes up much of your time, thereby making it difficult to focus on things, further education. If you know that you want to become a parent in the future, but for now want to focus on educating yourself, social egg freezing could be a solution for you. 

The process of egg freezing

If you are interested in using social egg freezing, you may want to learn more about the process behind it before deciding to do it or not. Here below, we have explained the process of egg freezing in 5 different steps:

Step 1: Ovarian suppression

This step lasts for 2-4 weeks. Normally, your body produces one mature egg each month, but when you are in the process of freezing your eggs, you want as many good-quality eggs as possible. Ovarian suppression means that your natural hormones are temporarily turned off using birth control pills, thereby preparing your system to mature more eggs than usual.

Step 2: Ovarian stimulation 

After the ovarian suppression is done, hormone therapy will begin. In hormone therapy, you receive hormones to help stimulate your ovaries and produce multiple mature eggs. Ovarian stimulation lasts between 10 to 14 days.

Step 3: Ovulation induction

When the ovarian follicles containing eggs have reached appropriate maturity, your ovulation will be triggered with a specific medication. At this point, timing is vital for the success of egg retrieval.

Step 4: Egg retrieval

35 to 36 hours after ovulation induction, egg retrieval will be performed. A fertility doctor will retrieve the eggs from your ovaries using an ultrasound to guide the small needle that performs the retrieval. In general, egg retrieval is painless, but some women might experience mild soreness after the procedure. You will be able to return home usually within couple of hours after the procedure and return to normal activities by the next day.

Step 5: Egg vitrification

Once the eggs are retrieved, an embryologist evaluates each egg to make sure they are high-quality. The eggs are frozen using a technique called vitrification and stored it in liquid nitrogen at -196 degrees.

The cost of egg freezing

At Cryos, we understand that the cost of egg freezing is an important part of deciding whether to freeze your eggs or not. The price of egg freezing consists of the factors below:

• Initial consultation: The price for the initial consultation is 500 EUR, which includes a consultation with one of our coordinators and three doctor appointments.
• The freezing of your eggs: One cycle of egg freezing costs 2500 EUR and includes one year of egg storage as well. If you decide to have more eggs frozen, a discount will be applied on each cycle.
• Annual storage egg fee: If you wish to have your eggs stored for more than one year, you must pay a storage fee of 300 EUR once every year.

If you think egg freezing sounds interesting, you can always contact our Customer Care Team, which will answer any questions you might have regarding the process of egg freezing.