Love Island’s India Reynolds, 33, opens up on ’emotionally difficult’ egg freezing journey as she reveals her desire to start a family: ‘Why am I having to do this’
What does it mean?
An initial evaluation with a fertility specialist will likely include blood tests, a pelvic ultrasound, and a discussion of your medical history.
Continuing to freeze eggs begins the first phase of the process, known as ‘ovarian stimulation’.
This includes hormone injections to stimulate the ovaries to produce multiple eggs instead of the one egg that is normally released naturally each month.
This treatment consists of several visits to the fertility clinic over a few weeks, during which your blood hormone levels and ovaries are monitored regularly.
When the time is right to come out, a medical professional will use an ultrasound-guided needle and use a suction device to remove the eggs – an average of seven to 14 for women under 38 – from the ovarian follicles.
The extracted eggs are transported to the laboratory, evaluated and flash frozen by an embryologist – using an ultra-fast procedure called vitrification – and then typically placed in a bottle of liquid nitrogen.
By storing at very low temperatures, below -150C (-238F), the eggs remain viable for use at a later date.
If you want to use them, the eggs are thawed and the eggs that remain intact are injected with the sperm of your partner or donor.
How long can eggs be stored?
Women in Britain can now keep their frozen eggs for up to 55 years.
This rule, which also applies to sperm and embryos, has applied since July 2022, when the duration increased from the previous limit of ten years.
However, women will have to renew their consent every ten years for a clinic where their eggs are stored.
And those who have frozen their eggs before July 2022 and want them stored for longer than ten years should contact their clinic to see if this is possible.
How much does it cost?
The whole process, from freezing eggs to thawing, costs an average of £7,000 to £8,000 in Britain.
While If you have your eggs collected and frozen you will be billed around €3,350, this is just part of the process.
Hormonal medication to be taken to stimulate egg production before the procedure costs approximately £500-£1,500 in addition.
Storage costs are extra and vary by clinic, but are between £125 and £350 per year according to HFEA and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
Thawing eggs and transferring them to the womb costs an average of £2,500.
Which clinics offer egg freezing?
The HFEA is responsible for licensing and inspecting UK fertility clinics, and they publish scores for each fertility clinic inspected.
Available licensed UK clinics can be found on the HFEA website by entering a postcode.
How safe is the procedure?
According to the HFEA, IVF is ‘usually very safe’.
However, some women experience side effects from their fertility drugs.
These are usually mild, but in extreme cases women can develop ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS), a potentially serious complication of fertility treatment.
It can range from mild to severe, says the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Mild OHSS is common and usually gets better with time. More severe cases require specialist care and hospitalization.
The main symptoms of OHSS to be aware of are mild abdominal swelling, discomfort and nausea in mild cases. Severe OHSS symptoms include extreme thirst and dehydration. A serious but rare complication is also the formation of a blood clot (thrombosis) in the legs or lungs.
How successful is it?
According to embryologists, egg freezing should be viewed as an insurance policy rather than a guarantee.
Success rates depend largely on the age of the woman when frozen, but experts say what also matters is the total number of eggs available for use.
As with using fresh eggs, not every egg will fertilize, not every fertilized egg will result in a viable embryo, and not every viable embryo will result in a live birth.
An American study found that the chance of a live birth among women who used their own frozen eggs was 39 percent overall.
This rose to 51 percent among those who were under 38 when they froze their eggs.