Egg freezing – is right for me?

Do you wish to preserve your fertility for the future? Then freezing your eggs will be one of the best options. The decision of moving forward with elective eggs freezing is a huge one. Apart from all physical aspects of the entire process, you need to fix an appointment with your fertility expert, take medicines for stimulating the egg follicles and understand the process of retrieval. Also, you need to make a financial commitment for storing the eggs at some facility until you wish to use them. Thus timing is vital like other factors for determining if freezing your eggs is right for you. 

Risks associated with egg freezing

The process carries few risks such as:

• Conditions that are associated with fertility drugs usage:
• Rarely the injectable fertility medications such as Human Chorionic Gonadotropin that is used for inducing ovulation may sometimes cause ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. 
• In such a syndrome, ovaries become swollen and painful immediately after ovulation or egg retrieval.
• Few other related symptoms and signs of this syndrome are:

1. Nausea
2. Diarrhea
3. Vomiting
4. Bloating
5. Abdominal pains

• Complications during egg retrieval:
• Rarely, the egg retrieval with one aspirating fine needle may cause bleeding. Infections, damage to bowel or blood vessels, and urinary bladder.
• Emotional risk:
• Sometimes, the egg freezing process can give some false hopes to women.
• This process along with in-vitro fertilization may be giving a very limited rate of success.
• Sometimes, if a woman makes use of this technique for becoming pregnant or bearing her biological child, there can be a miscarriage risk that will be based on the woman’s age during egg retrieval time.
• After becoming conscious of the general anesthesia’s effect, some patients may be facing some of the problems like:

• Nausea
• Dizziness
• Vomiting
• Uneasiness
• A confusion state temporarily
• Cold feeling or shivering

Procedure 

• The doctor will insert a needle in the ovarian follicles for retrieving all ripe eggs.
• Ultrasound is done and if no egg is visible during it, the doctor may be performing abdominal surgery for removing them.
• Under sedation and pain drugs, a small incision is done in the abdomen, and a needle is inserted for extracting the egg.
• After egg retrieval, the freezing process should occur fast.
• For preventing the eggs from getting damaged, the doctor will insert one special solution in the eggs and then freeze them.
• If the woman wishes to make use of her eggs later, she can undergo IVF.
• Many fertility clinics try growing various embryos at one time for increasing a successful pregnancy’s chances.

Alternatives

• Like other medical treatments, there are some alternatives to egg freezing.
• Before going for egg freezing you need to become aware if it will be right for you.
• During a consultation with a physician, you will get to know about the available alternative such as foregoing fertility preservations, embryo freezing, and considering having a child at an early age.
• Embryo freezing comes with available long-term researches result data.
• For married couples, it is a more trustworthy method to preserve fertility compared to egg freezing.

The decision of freezing eggs may be a huge one, but it may be the perfect one for you.