Egg Freezing (Oocyte Cryopreservation)

Medically reviewed by Dr Manjushree Boob, MD, DNB, FICMCH, FICOG - Infertility & IVF Consultant

What it is

Egg freezing, or oocyte cryopreservation, means collecting a woman’s own unfertilised eggs, freezing them at a temperature where biology stops entirely, and storing them until she wants to use them. Years later the eggs are thawed, fertilised with sperm in the laboratory, and an embryo is transferred to her uterus.

The reason it exists is simple. A woman is born with every egg she will ever have. Both the number and the quality of those eggs decline with age - gently through the twenties, more steeply after the mid-thirties. Sperm is manufactured fresh every few months; eggs are not. Freezing eggs at thirty and using them at thirty-eight means working with thirty-year-old eggs rather than thirty-eight-year-old ones.

What made this practical is vitrification - ultra-rapid cooling that turns the water inside the egg glassy instead of crystalline. Ice crystals were what wrecked eggs under the older slow-freeze methods. With vitrification, survival after thawing became reliable enough that egg freezing moved out of the experimental category altogether.

Who needs it

• Women who are not ready to have a child yet but are aware that their fertility is not waiting for them - because of studies, work, not having found the right partner, or simply not wanting a baby right now.
• Women facing cancer treatment, where chemotherapy or radiotherapy is likely to damage the ovaries. This is the oldest and least debatable indication, and it is usually urgent.
• Women with a low ovarian reserve for their age, picked up on an AMH test or an antral follicle count, who want to bank eggs before the number falls further.
• Women with endometriosis, especially those with ovarian endometriomas or facing surgery that may reduce ovarian tissue.
• A family history of early menopause, which is one of the better predictors of your own.
• Women with autoimmune disease needing treatment that is toxic to the ovaries.
• Couples in an IVF cycle where sperm is unexpectedly unavailable on the collection day, and the eggs are frozen rather than wasted.
• Transgender men planning gender-affirming treatment who may want biological children later.

“Am I being unrealistic? I am thirty-seven and single and this feels like a very expensive way to buy hope.” You are not being unrealistic, but you deserve accurate numbers rather than reassurance. At thirty-seven the eggs we collect will be thirty-seven-year-old eggs, and there will probably be fewer of them than at thirty. That does not make freezing pointless - it makes it a calculated decision with known odds. Come in, let us check your AMH and do a scan, and then you will be choosing based on your own ovaries instead of on an average.

How it is done

An egg freezing cycle is, up to the point of collection, identical to the first half of an IVF cycle.

Assessment first. A scan to count antral follicles, an AMH blood test, thyroid and prolactin levels, and routine infection screening. This tells us what to expect and what protocol suits you.

Stimulation. From around day 2 of your period you begin daily hormone injections - the same FSH your body already makes, given at a higher dose so that instead of ripening one egg this month, the ovaries ripen many. The injections are subcutaneous, given at home, usually for nine to twelve days.

Monitoring. Every few days a short vaginal ultrasound measures how many follicles are growing and how fast, sometimes with a blood oestradiol level. Doses are adjusted as we go. A second medicine is added partway through to stop you ovulating before we are ready.

The trigger. When enough follicles have reached the right size, a final injection is given at a precisely specified time - usually late evening. This matures the eggs. The timing is not approximate; the collection is booked exactly 34 to 36 hours later.

Egg collection. Under short general anaesthesia or sedation, a fine needle is passed through the vaginal wall under ultrasound guidance into each follicle, and the fluid is drawn off. There is no cut and no stitch. The embryologist checks each drop of fluid under a microscope and finds the eggs.

Freezing. The eggs are stripped of their surrounding cells, assessed for maturity - only mature eggs freeze well - and vitrified within hours. They are then stored in labelled, sealed straws in liquid nitrogen.

Anaesthesia, duration and hospital stay

The stimulation phase involves no anaesthesia at all - you carry on with normal life while giving yourself injections at home.

The egg collection is done under short general anaesthesia or deep sedation and takes about fifteen to thirty minutes. You will be asked not to eat or drink for six hours beforehand.

There is no overnight admission in an ordinary cycle. You come in the morning, are observed for three to four hours afterwards, and go home the same day with someone to accompany you. You must not drive yourself.

Recovery

Day 1. Grogginess from the anaesthetic wears off within a few hours. Expect period-like cramping, a bloated abdomen and possibly a little spotting. Eat lightly, drink well, and rest. Simple painkillers are enough for most women.

The first week. Bloating usually peaks two or three days after collection and then settles. Most women are back at desk work within one to two days. Avoid strenuous exercise, heavy lifting and intercourse for about a week - the ovaries are temporarily enlarged and are best left undisturbed.

Weeks 2 to 4. Your next period arrives, sometimes a few days early or late and sometimes heavier than usual. Ovaries return to their normal size. You can exercise normally again.

By 6 weeks. Everything should be entirely back to baseline. If you plan a second freezing cycle, we would usually start after one normal period.

Call us straight away for severe or worsening abdominal pain, rapid abdominal swelling, breathlessness, vomiting that will not stop, reduced urine output, or fever.

Freezing eggs or freezing embryos - which is right

This is the comparison that matters most, and it is not a medical question so much as a life one.

• Frozen embryos generally survive and perform slightly better than frozen eggs, because an embryo has already proved it can fertilise and divide. If you have a partner you intend to have children with, embryos are usually the stronger option.
• Frozen eggs keep the decision in your hands alone. An embryo is created with someone else’s genetic material and carries joint consent. Relationships change; eggs belong to you.
• Eggs avoid the question of what to do with unused embryos, which some couples find ethically or emotionally difficult.
• Freezing both is possible where there are enough eggs and a partner, and some couples choose exactly that.

There is no universally correct answer. The right one depends on whether you have a partner now, how you feel about that being permanent, and what you would want if circumstances changed. If you want to see how the later half of the pathway works, our frozen embryo transfer page explains what happens when the time comes, and the ICSI page covers how frozen eggs are fertilised.

Risks and complications

Egg freezing is a safe procedure, but it is a medical one and deserves honesty.

• Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) - an exaggerated response to the stimulation causing swollen ovaries, fluid in the abdomen and, rarely, serious illness. Modern antagonist protocols and a different type of trigger injection have made severe OHSS uncommon, and since no embryo is being transferred the risk drops further.
• Bleeding from the needle track at collection, usually trivial, very occasionally needing intervention.
• Infection - uncommon, and the reason we screen and use antibiotics where appropriate.
• Injury to nearby structures such as bowel, bladder or a blood vessel. Rare, and ultrasound guidance is what keeps it rare.
• Anaesthetic risks, low in a healthy woman but never zero.
• A poor response - fewer eggs collected than hoped, or fewer mature ones. Disappointing, and one of the reasons we assess reserve before you commit.
• Egg loss at thaw, fertilisation or embryo development. Numbers fall at every stage. This is normal biology, not a failure of the laboratory.
• The emotional cost. Injections, scans, waiting and uncertainty are tiring, and it is fair to plan for that rather than be surprised by it.

Alternatives

Trying to conceive now, or sooner than planned, if that is genuinely possible for you. Nothing preserves fertility as reliably as using it.

Freezing embryos instead, if you have a partner or are willing to use donor sperm.

Freezing ovarian tissue, an option in specialised centres for girls before puberty or women needing cancer treatment too urgently to wait for a stimulation cycle.

Doing nothing for now and simply monitoring your ovarian reserve annually. For a woman in her late twenties with a good AMH, watchful waiting is a perfectly reasonable choice.

Planning for donor eggs later, which remains a successful route for many women and is worth knowing about rather than discovering under pressure.

Treating what is treatable - thyroid disease, endometriosis, weight, smoking - because these affect fertility now and later. Our IVF and fertility treatments page sets out the whole pathway, and you can see all the procedures we perform.

What it costs

We have not published a fixed figure for egg freezing, because the cost varies more between patients than almost anything else we do, and a single number would mislead you. What it depends on:

• The dose and brand of stimulation medicines, which is the largest single component and is driven by your ovarian reserve and age.
• How many days of stimulation your ovaries need.
• The number of monitoring scans and blood tests in your cycle.
• The type of anaesthesia used for collection.
• Laboratory and vitrification charges, which depend partly on how many eggs are frozen.
• Annual storage, billed separately for as long as the eggs are kept.
• Whether you need more than one cycle to reach a sensible number of eggs.
• Any procedure needed first, such as a hysteroscopy or treatment of a cyst.
• Insurance or employer cover, which occasionally applies, particularly for fertility preservation before cancer treatment.

And separately, the cost of using the eggs later - thawing, ICSI, embryo culture and transfer - which is not part of the freezing cycle at all.

Call us on +91-8668954915 and we will prepare a written, itemised estimate for your own situation before you commit to anything.

Preparing for your cycle

• Come for the assessment early in a period so the scan and AMH can be done together.
• Bring any previous reports - old scans, hormone tests, surgical notes.
• Tell us every medicine you take, including thyroid tablets, supplements and anything ayurvedic or homeopathic.
• Stop smoking, and stop it properly. It is the single largest modifiable factor in egg quality.
• Get your weight, thyroid and blood sugar into a reasonable range before starting, if there is time.
• Learn the injections with the nurse and keep the medicines refrigerated exactly as instructed.
• Block out the collection day and the day after in your calendar - not the whole cycle, just those two.
• Arrange someone to bring you home after collection. You will be drowsy and must not drive.
• Fast for six hours before collection, as instructed, including water.
• Set an alarm for the trigger injection. The timing is exact and the whole cycle depends on it.

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If you are weighing this up - whether because a diagnosis has forced the question or simply because you have realised you would rather have the option than not - the fertility team at Shubham Hi-Tech Hospital and Test Tube Baby Centre, Amravati, will go through the numbers with you honestly and without any pressure to proceed. Call +91-8668954915 or get in touch here.

Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult a qualified doctor for guidance specific to your situation.