Answering the question, “How many eggs should I freeze?”
Women considering fertility preservation need to understand everything about the process, including the answer to one commonly asked question: How many eggs should I freeze?
If you’re thinking “I want to freeze my eggs in California,” you’ll be glad to know that the West Coast is home to some of the best fertility preservation professionals in the world, and none are better equipped to preserve your fertility than the egg freezing experts at our Los Angeles fertility center, USC Fertility.
How many eggs should I freeze? Answers vary
When you choose to freeze your eggs, you will go through a process similar to IVF, in which ovarian stimulation medications are used to maximize the number of eggs that are retrieved and frozen for later use. If you’re wondering “How many eggs should I freeze?” the answer depends on three primary factors.
- How many children you’d like to have
- How old you are when you are freezing your eggs.
- How many eggs you able to retrieve from one cycle.
To ensure that you have enough frozen eggs available when the time comes to use them, we encourage you to freeze at least 10-15 eggs per planned pregnancy attempt. But these are very general numbers, and the recommendation will change with increasing age. As you get older you will need more eggs frozen as the chance that each egg could become a pregnancy will go down with advancing age. You need to speak with one of our physicians to discuss what they think is the best goal for you in terms of total number of eggs to freeze.
Some women respond very well to IVF medications and can freeze enough eggs to accomplish their family-building goals with just one cycle. For women who wish to have multiple children, or whose ovaries don’t produce as many eggs, it may take two or more cycles to retrieve enough.
If you don’t have any fertility issues and are younger than 38, you could be able to freeze between 10 and 20 eggs with each round of IVF. Of those, about 75% will likely survive the thaw, and 75% of those are likely to fertilize. Additionally, the quality of some of the resulting embryos may make them unsuitable for transfer.
Women with a reduced egg supply or other fertility concerns may retrieve fewer eggs and require additional cycles of IVF to achieve their family-building goals. A woman’s egg supply and egg quality, or ovarian reserve, naturally decline over time. The closer you are to menopause, the more likely it is that multiple egg retrieval cycles will be needed to ensure that you have enough eggs stored.
Fertility issues are not always age-related, so some younger women may also find that they need repeat egg freezing cycles to effectively preserve their fertility. For women who want a large family, several egg retrievals may also be recommended.
For many women, multiple egg freezing cycles is not an option, and that is perfectly fine. For those women, the eggs that they get from one cycle, even if that number does not reach their ideal number, still represent an opportunity to get pregnant and have a baby in the future. An opportunity that may not be there at all if they don’t undergo even one egg freezing cycle.
Get answers about egg freezing
To help you answer the question, “How many eggs should I freeze?” your fertility specialist will order several fertility tests to measure your ovarian reserve and predict your response to IVF medications. Based on this information, your fertility specialist can carefully calibrate your treatment plan to maximize the number of eggs you can produce now, to help you build your family later.
If you’re thinking, “I’m ready to freeze my eggs in California,” contact us to schedule a consultation at our Los Angeles egg freezing center.