Fertility Preservation & Egg Freezing Treatment

What is egg freezing?

Egg freezing is a way of preserving a woman’s fertility so she can have a biologically-related child in the future. The woman’s eggs are collected, frozen and stored so they can be made available at a time to suit.

Why might you want to consider egg freezing?

There are many reasons why a woman might want to consider egg freezing:

If a woman is soon to undergo medical treatment which might impact her fertility e.g cancer or endometriosis treatment, or gender re-assignment
Social reasons e.g not ready to start a family yet due to career ambitions, not with a suitable partner, financial reasons etc

When should women consider freezing their eggs?

The best age to freeze eggs for a woman is under the age of 35. This is because as women age, the quality and quantity of their eggs decline. It is still possible to freeze a woman’s eggs if they are older than 35 however the success rate of a live birth using frozen eggs is higher for eggs collected from a younger woman.

What is the procedure for egg freezing?

For women interested in egg freezing, they would first attend an initial consultation to discuss medical history in addition to the tests and scans required to assess their ovarian reserve.
If you feel egg freezing is the right option for you, you will be put on medication (daily injections) to stimulate your ovaries to produce a good quantity of eggs. During this time (a few days) you will be scanned and closely monitored to determine the best time for egg collection. Your consultant will fully explain the process to you and the fertility nurses will be on hand to support you and guide you through the medication.
You will then have an appointment for egg collection which will be done under sedation. This is a fairly quick procedure and involves passing a probe into the vagina under ultra sound and aspirating the eggs from the ovarian follicles. Once the eggs are collected they will be placed in a special preservation substance and those suitable will be frozen and stored.

What happens when a woman wants to use her frozen eggs?

When you are ready to use your eggs and start a family you will meet with your consultant and agree a treatment plan. A number of your eggs will be thawed and will be fertilised with either your partner’s or donor sperm using the agreed fertility treatment e.g IVF or ICSI. A few days after fertilisation, one or two of the fertilised eggs will be transferred into the woman’s womb. This is a simple procedure which does not require sedation. A pregnancy test can be carried out 14 days after embryo transfer.

How much does egg freezing cost?

Egg Freezing Costs (Oocyte cryopreservation) include:

Consultant-led care throughout treatment
Pre-Assessment Nurse Telephone Consultation and Medication Teaching Appointment
Blood Tests (Oestradiol and Progesterone)
All Monitoring Scans
One Counselling Appointment
Sedation and Egg Collection
HFEA Fee
Egg Freezing and First-Year Storage
One Follow Up Consultation Post Treatment

Price: £5,055

How successful is egg freezing?

Success rates are highly dependent on many factors including the quality of the frozen eggs. The younger the eggs, the higher number of live births.

According to the HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority), egg freezing is a rapidly changing field. The technology for egg freezing has also improved over the years which means older data is not comparable to current success rates. If you do decide to freeze your eggs, please contact us to find out our success rates for women your age.

I would highly recommend The Surrey Park Clinic. The way they dealt with us was great! We were nervous at the start and us being two women doing the process didn’t even phase them. We were just another couple looking for help to make a baby which made everything feel normal.

Helen – fertility nurse was wonderful and went above and beyond to help at every opportunity. Dr Kopeika – sympathetic, friendly, available by text at any time. Really felt as if she cared.

Helen (nurse) has been exceptional throughout. She always really cares about your case and always makes an effort to pop by and say hello. Emma has also been brilliant in scheduling medication and checking in on us. Dr Julia Kopeika has been wonderful – she’s so lovely on the text!!! I cannot remember the sonographers name (sorry!) but she had brown mid-length hair. She had the job of telling us the pregnancy hadn’t worked and that’s a horrendous position to be in but she was exceptionally professional and instantly arranged for all the follow up care we needed. Everyone at the clinic is an absolute asset – you’re an amazing team of people 🙂

Lillian, Rosemary and Helen were absolutely fantastic and an absolute delight to have helping me every step of the way. The sonographers were also excellent and polite and the entire team at Surrey Park Clinic made this an unforgettable experience.

Helen was AMAZING! She was so good in the way she spoke to us and was so friendly and caring! Really appreciated having her! Also Mr Kalu was a top man, without him making us have a second viability scan we wouldn’t have know there was a issue at our 12 week (nhs) scan! Both Helen and Mr Kalu made our experience spot on!

Fertility Preservation/Egg Freezing