Benefits:

• Fertility preservation: Social egg freezing enables women to safeguard their reproductive potential by freezing eggs when they are of optimal quality, reducing the impact of age-related fertility decline.
• Reproductive autonomy: It provides women with greater control over the timing of motherhood, allowing for a more deliberate family planning approach.
• Reduced time pressure: By preserving eggs at a younger age, women can alleviate the pressure associated with the biological clock and focus on other life goals.

The social egg freezing process involves several key steps:

• Ovarian Stimulation: The woman undergoes hormone injections for about 8-12 days to stimulate the ovaries to produce multiple eggs in one cycle, maximizing the efficiency of egg collection.
• Monitoring: During Stimulation, one or two ultrasounds (and sometimes blood tests) monitor the growth and development of the ovarian follicles which contain the eggs.
• Egg Collection (Retrieval): Once the follicles reach maturity, the eggs are retrieved through a minor surgical procedure called transvaginal ultrasound-guided aspiration. The procedure is done under sedation, where a needle is used to collect the eggs from the ovaries.
• Freezing (Cryopreservation): The retrieved eggs are then evaluated for quality and frozen through a process called vitrification, a rapid freezing technique that prevents ice crystals from forming and damaging the eggs.

The frozen eggs can be stored for several years and later thawed for use in fertility treatments, such as intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), when the woman is ready to pursue pregnancy.

Chance of pregnancy after egg thawing:
The live birth rate following egg thawing is primarily influenced by the woman's age at the time of freezing. A scientific study from the esteemed journal Fertility and Sterility illustrated the association between a woman's age, the number of eggs collected, and the likelihood of achieving one, two, or three live births (see the figure below). As a result, multiple eggs may need to be frozen to optimize the likelihood of achieving a successful pregnancy in the future. Advances in freezing techniques, such as vitrification, have improved egg survival rates, but individual outcomes can vary based on several factors, including egg quality and the number of eggs retrieved.

Reference: Fertil Steril. 2016 Feb;105(2):459-66