Once your eggs or embryos are frozen, where do they go for “long-term” storage?
We’ve partnered with New England Cryogenic Center, cryostorage specialists and industry leaders.
Your frozen eggs or embryos will be stored at New England Cryogenic Center (NECC) in Marlborough, MA, the industry leader in cryopreservation storage and shipping. The facility is in a secure business park and employs 24/7 security and monitoring.
Why NECC? Simply put: they’re the best in the egg/embryo freezing storage biz. For more than 40 years, NECC has provided cryopreservation services to clients and medical professionals around the world for human tissue: eggs, sperm, embryos—even stem cells and bone marrow—without a single storage failure.
NECC is registered and governed by the FDA, licensed with appropriate regulatory agencies, and is regularly inspected by several entities. They use a highly tested, fail-safe inventory and storage system.
Your frozen eggs or embryos will be safe, come hail or high water.
In fact, NECC is the safest and most secure environment possible for egg/embryo freezing storage. First, the security: the site is monitored 24/7 and staff are on site 365 days a year. The facility has video surveillance, an ADT alarm system, and motion detectors. All visitors must be identified and buzzed in.
And with regard to safety: each tank has its own separate monitor and multiple monitoring systems in place to ensure proper tank temperature and liquid nitrogen levels. Tanks are visually inspected daily. NECC is protected from power failures by backup generators and a 9,000-gallon gravity-fed liquid nitrogen tank.
Learn more about how NECC keeps frozen eggs and embryo safe.
Your frozen eggs/embryos will be transferred from our lab by NECC itself.
We do not use a third-party transport company. NECC brings specialized travel tanks called “cryo-movers” to Extend Fertility, fills them, and then takes the filled tanks to their facility. This trip typically takes less than five hours, and the liquid nitrogen vapor in the shipping tanks can keep the eggs at the proper temperature for at least seven days.
There’s no evidence that moving your eggs or embryos from one lab to another affects their health or ability to become fertilized later. A review of over 1,200 donor egg cycle outcomes at Reproductive Biology Associates in Atlanta, Georgia, demonstrated that there’s no evidence of a decrease in survival rate, fertilization rate, blastocyst rate, implantation rate, or clinical pregnancy rate for shipped frozen eggs when compared to frozen eggs that have not been transported.
We offer a low annual rate for frozen egg and embryo storage.
*Note all pricing is reflective of 2020 rates. Please refer to the link below for the most up to date pricing.*
Thanks to our partnership with NECC, storage for frozen eggs or embryos is just $600 per year for our patients, compared to a regional average of $1,000 per year (a 40% discount). And we offer additional discounts to patients who purchase 5- or 10-year storage plans.
Learn more about egg or embryo freezing costs.
Eggs and embryos can be frozen until you’re ready for them.
There’s no evidence that the health or viability of frozen eggs or embryos decreases over time. That’s because the low temperatures required for egg or embryo freezing (-196ºC) stop all biological activity.
There have been numerous healthy babies born from eggs and embryos frozen for 5–10 years. One study reported that a woman used her own eggs, frozen as a teenager, to give birth 14 years later. In another case, an adopted embryo frozen and stored for 24 years resulted in a healthy birth. So don’t stress—you’ve got time.
Learn more about how long eggs can stay frozen.
