Egg Freezing. Also known as Oocyte Cryopreservation, egg freezing is a fertility technology process in which a woman’s eggs are extracted, frozen and stored. This makes it possible for the woman to use these eggs later in life when she is ready to become pregnant. All that has to happen at that time is that the eggs will need to be thawed, fertilized with sperm, and then transferred to the uterus. Easy as that! Claim Your 20 Free Pregnancy Tests – Click Here
Egg freezing has long been considered an experimental technology, but no more! It is becoming a more common procedure. This is due to more and more women taking advantage of the technology. As more and more women decide to wait until later in life to have children, egg freezing is gaining popularity fast! If a woman decides that she doesn’t want to have children until her late 30’s or even early 40’s, egg freezing is a great option to ensure that those eggs are there and ready when she needs them.
Egg freezing can be a great option for women who are choosing to wait until later in life to get pregnant, but it can also be helpful for other women as well. If a woman is diagnosed with cancer and has not yet begun chemo or radiation treatments, she might choose to have her eggs frozen as well. Chemo and radiation can leave behind few, if any, viable eggs for getting pregnant. By freezing eggs before beginning treatment, women who have been diagnosed with cancer can ensure their options for getting pregnant in the future.
While it might sound complex and a little bit daunting, the egg freezing process is really not that difficult to understand or hard to do. The eggs are first retrieved from the uterus, after the woman has taken fertility drugs that will cause her to produce multiple eggs. The individual eggs are identified with a microscope and then withdrawn for freezing. Ice crystals can sometimes form within the eggs and damage them during freezing, so the scientists that remove the eggs will have to bathe them in a (very safe) sort of “antifreeze” solution to protect the eggs during freezing. After that, the frozen eggs are stored in tubes inside a liquid nitrogen storage tank. They can be stored there as long as need be.
When they are ready to be used, the eggs are removed and thawed. Next, they are fertilized with a needle containing a single sperm in each egg. After that, the eggs will develop into embryos, and the embryos will be implanted in the uterus via a catheter. Simple as that! As you can see, egg freezing has really revolutionized the way that women think about their future fertility and is something many women should give consideration to.
