PRESERVE YOUR FERTILITYCryopreservation is one of our most popular services for many different reasons. Young women may wish to freeze their healthy eggs if they plan to have children later in life. Clients who have undergone successful IVF treatments may wish to freeze the additional embryos created during the process to use for future children. Men and women with cancer diagnoses may wish to preserve their sperm or eggs prior to undergoing radiation or chemotherapy. Whatever the reason, Dr. Dan’s office offers a number of state of the art cryopreservation services, and we’re happy to discuss all of your options with you to find the best path for preserving your fertility.
EGG FREEZINGThere are many reasons to freeze your eggs. For both personal and financial reasons, more women today are choosing to have children later in life. However, a woman’s eggs are healthiest in her early twenties, and their viability drops off significantly as she ages. By using egg freezing while your eggs are young and healthy, you can greatly improve your chances of a successful pregnancy later in life, when you are ready to be a mom.
Many cancer treatments, including chemotherapy and radiation, can injure or destroy a healthy egg supply. Certain cancers may require surgical removal of a fallopian tube, the ovary, or the entire uterus. If you have been diagnosed with cancer and would like to have children in the future, egg freezing is a terrific option. The procedure is essentially the same as the beginning stages of IVF: stimulating egg production, inducing ovulation, and retrieving the eggs, which are then flash-frozen to hold them in stasis and prevent any damage. Whether the reasons to freeze your eggs are personal or medical, many women find that fertility preservation provides them peace of mind and the ability to control their future family plans without leaving anything behind. SPERM FREEZINGWhile male fertility does not experience the same drop-off associated with age as female fertility, some life events may lead an individual to freeze their semen. As with eggs, cancer treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery may destroy the ability to produce healthy sperm. Others may choose to preserve their sperm prior to military deployment or other occupational risks. Freezing sperm ahead of time allows you to choose when the moment is right to start your family, regardless of other life circumstances.
EMBRYO FREEZINGIn addition to our egg and sperm cryopreservation services, which clients usually choose to do well in advance of any intended pregnancies, we also offer embryo freezing. The IVF process can result in many embryos, of which only a few are implanted each cycle. There are often several high quality embryos left after successful implantation. By freezing these embryos, you can save them until you are ready for your next pregnancy, at which point they are thawed and implanted. This way, you skip past the initial steps of the IVF cycle and can go right to implantation and, hopefully, another successful pregnancy. Freezing highly viable embryos from a previous IVF cycle also means you don’t have to worry about egg health decreasing over time between pregnancy attempts.
If the idea of freezing embryos for future use seems like something out of science fiction, don’t worry! Cryopreservation technology has been around for almost 30 years, and has become increasingly common. Today, the pregnancy success rates using frozen and thawed embryos are almost the same as fresh embryo transfers. And the frozen embryos remain viable for years - theoretically forever - making embryo freezing an excellent option for women looking to get pregnant again after their first IVF experience. |
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