Understanding egg freezing
Sometimes the decision to do something this big for your future is more challenging than the process itself. Understanding exactly what’s involved can help you make an informed choice. Let us break it down for you, step by step.
If you’re considering freezing your eggs…
Sometimes the decision to do something this big for your future is more challenging than the process itself. Understanding exactly what’s involved can help you make an informed choice. Extend Fertility breaks it down for you – step by step.
Schedule a chat
There’s tons of info on our website to help you understand egg freezing—but we’re here to talk with you as well. Gather your questions and concerns and call 212-810-2828, or schedule a call.
Speak with one of our fertility advisors
During this conversation, you can get all the facts you wanted to know about egg freezing (but had no one to ask). Our fertility advisor will help clarify our process, and then schedule your fertility assessment.
Schedule a call with a fertility advisor.
Come in for a fertility assessment
Your first appointment! At this visit, the Extend Fertility Medical Practice team will gather info about your fertility and overall health through a simple blood test of your anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) to provide our doctors with an understanding of your fertility.
Meet your doctor
Your fertility advisor will schedule an appointment for you to come back and meet with a reproductive endocrinologist to discuss your fertility health, the egg freezing process, and how egg freezing might benefit you.
Ready to embark on your egg freezing journey?
We’ll be here to answer any medical, financial, or scheduling questions you might have as you make your decision.
We’ll schedule a logistics visit
The logistics visit will ensure everything is ready for you to start your cycle.
- All testing will be complete
- Medication will be ordered
- You’ll be trained and comfortable with administering your own medication
- Your payment made or payment plan will be in place
- Consent forms will be signed
And the cycle begins with medication and monitoring
Here’s where the magic happens! For 8-11 days, you’ll inject yourself with medication to stimulate your ovaries to produce multiple eggs. You’ll also make 5–7 brief visits to our office so the healthcare team can monitor your progress.
Next up: the trigger day
The healthcare team will let you know when to stop your medications and give you the exact time to take your trigger shot. This initiates the final maturation of your eggs in preparation for your egg retrieval.
The egg retrieval
Exactly 36 hours after the trigger shot, you’ll come to the office for a 15-minute outpatient surgical procedure. The doctor will retrieve the eggs from your ovaries. (You’ll be sedated and won’t feel a thing!)
Recover—and you’re done! But your eggs’ journey continues.
Nurses will monitor you as you wake up from the anesthesia. In about one hour, you’ll be out of our office. Plan to relax and take the rest of the day off.
To the lab for cryopreservation
Your eggs will be taken immediately to our lab, where they’ll be rinsed, incubated, and prepped for freezing.
We use vitrification, a state-of-the-art flash-freezing technique that cools cells very quickly to a temperature of -196° C. This process minimizes the chance that water inside the eggs will form damaging ice crystals.
Your eggs will go into deep-freeze storage
Your frozen eggs will be shipped to a highly specialized and secure facility, where they’ll be kept safe until you tell us you’re ready for them.
Move forward on a life path of your own choosing!
Freezing your eggs has given you the freedom to make choices without the pressure of your biological clock.
So what’s next for you?
Ready to get started?
Extend Fertility is the first service in the US focused exclusively on women who want to proactively preserve their eggs. And we’re making it affordable, so egg freezing can finally be a real option. If you’re ready to kick off your own egg freezing journey, give us a call at 212-810-2828 or schedule a call!