Recent technological breakthroughs enable us to preserve female fertility for later use, through egg freezing.

Fertility is known to decline with age as the quality of the ovary and eggs decline. This means that freezing your eggs at an early reproductive age, ideally before the age of 38 years, will enhance your chances of a successful pregnancy in the future. By preserving younger eggs now, you increase your chances of starting a family later in life, using your own eggs.

Why do women consider freezing their eggs?

Women consider freezing their eggs for any condition/circumstance that might affect their fertility and family planning.

Egg freezing widens the fertility options available to women for a variety of reasons:

• Women who are not yet ready to start a family due to study/career demands, financial insecurity or single women who have not yet found a partner by the age of 35.

• Women due to undergo medical treatment, such as chemotherapy/radiotherapy or cancer-related surgery, that might put their fertility at risk.

• Women who have a family history of ovarian failure before the age of 40.

• Circumventing ethical-, religious- and legal issues associated with embryo freezing or the fertilisation of multiple eggs.

When should you freeze your eggs?

A woman in her prime reproductive years (20 -30 years) has the advantage of premium egg quality and quantity. It is best to preserve eggs while in your prime reproductive years, ideally before the age of 38 years. This being said, you are the youngest today that you will ever be. The older you are when you freeze your eggs, the more eggs you need to freeze to increase your chances of a successful pregnancy.

Treatment process

Before proceeding with egg preservation, your fertility specialist will advise basic fertility testing to assess your ovary’s ability to release high-quality eggs. The test results, together with the guidance of your fertility specialists, will assist you to make an informed decision on how to proceed with egg preservation.

To retrieve and freeze your eggs, you will self-administer a series of drugs and hormonal injections, for approximately 10 days, under the guidance of George Fertility physicians and nursing staff, until the ovaries are sufficiently stimulated to produce as many healthy, good-sized eggs as possible. During this stage, you will have to visit the clinic about three times for bloodwork and ultra-sound scans to be performed. Once egg development is satisfactory, ovulation is triggered by injection and retrieval is scheduled for 36 hours later.

Retrieval is performed under light sedation at George Surgical Centre day theatre. Using a needle attached to a catheter, the mature eggs are extracted. Your eggs are stored in tubes and freezing takes place by our highly skilled embryologists. The aim is to develop and harvest approximately 15 – 20 eggs.

The procedure of egg retrieval is not painful and takes 10 – 15 minutes. After the procedure, you will recover in our recovery room for an hour or two, before being discharged. From the start of administering medication to retrieval is approximately a two-week process.

Benefits of egg freezing 

George Fertility Clinic is FDA approved for oocyte retrieval, freezing and distribution. Our embryologists have been trained by the best in the world, to refine our laboratory techniques, as evident by our outstanding success rates.

What happens after I have frozen my eggs?

Eggs are stored in liquid nitrogen tanks and can be stored indefinitely. Gas mixtures, temperatures and liquid nitrogen levels are checked daily and emergency plans are in place in the case of equipment failures. Your eggs will be safe with us!

Once you are ready, you can return to our clinic to use your eggs. Your eggs will be thawed and fertilised through an IVF procedure. Alternatively, your eggs can be shipped to a clinic of your choice.