Thinking About Freezing Your Fertility? 5 Things to Consider

Perhaps it’s not a good time to have kids and you are getting older. Or maybe you’re facing treatments for cancer or other medical issues that will impact your ability to have kids in the future. Egg, embryo, or ovarian tissue freezing may be the right reproductive health intervention for you. These procedures fall under the umbrella of fertility preservation, the effort to preserve one’s ability to have a genetically related child.  

As the Clinical Director for the UW Center for Reproductive Health and Fertility, I see many patients who are pursuing either planned (for age-related issues) or medically indicated fertility preservation. Here is what I think people need to know about the process.

Why would you need to consider fertility preservation?

For some time, fertility preservation has been an important option for the increasing number of young people who are diagnosed with cancer and need to consider the steps they can take to build a family as they prepare to undergo chemotherapy, radiation or surgical treatments which can damage reproductive tissues.

Other medical treatments, diseases and reproductive health conditions can also affect fertility, making fertility preservation an important option. These are all examples of medically indicated fertility preservation.  

More recently, an increasing number of women are delaying having children to pursue career or education goals, the right partner, a stable economic situation or for other important non-medical reasons.  A 2025 report from the National Vital Statistics System, for instance, found that women ages 40 and older had 96,809 more births in 2023 than in 1990, a 193% increase. 

Since aging affects fertility, fertility preservation can increase the chances of having a successful pregnancy later in life. This is called planned fertility preservation.

Fertility Preservation Methods  

One of the most common fertility preservation methods is freezing eggs or embryos. These methods are used by people pursuing both planned and medically indicated fertility preservation. Here’s how it works:  

Consultation: Prior to pursuing egg or embryo freezing, you’ll meet with your fertility specialist to discuss your goals and assess your fertility. Your care team might take into account various factors, like:

• Your age
• Your reproductive history, such as any previous attempts to conceive, how long it took you to conceive, and the number of pregnancies and miscarriages you’ve had.

• Tests to help predict the number of eggs you may be able to retrieve for freezing, including:

   

  • The level of Anti Müllerian Hormone (AMH) in your blood, which can give doctors a helpful if incomplete sense of your fertility.  
  • The volume of your ovaries, which can correspond with the number of eggs you have remaining.
  • An antral follicle count. Follicles are small, fluid-filled sacs in your ovaries. Each follicle contains an immature egg.  

Procedure: To harvest eggs for freezing, you’ll give yourself hormone injections one to three times per day for about two weeks to stimulate your ovaries to produce multiple eggs. During that window, you’ll have multiple visits with your care team to monitor how your ovaries are responding to the medications. You’ll then receive a trigger shot to prepare your eggs for retrieval. The retrieval is performed under anesthesia.  

Storage: Once the eggs are retrieved, your care team freezes them using a process called vitrification and stores them in liquid nitrogen. If you’re freezing embryos, your care team inseminates your eggs with sperm, monitors the eggs for fertilization and incubates the embryos for about a week. The embryos are then frozen, with or without prior genetic testing. One round of this process, from injections to freezing, typically takes two to six weeks.

What to consider before freezing eggs or embryos  

Although freezing eggs or embryos is a good option for some, it isn’t a guarantee that you’ll be able to get pregnant later, and the process requires time and resources. Here are some important things to consider:  

Fertility

It’s a good idea to have a heart-to-heart with your care team about your medical history, fertility goals and the time and resources you’re willing to invest in the fertility preservation process. One round of egg retrieval may not be enough — you may have to undergo multiple rounds to have enough eggs to give yourself the best chance of getting pregnant later. In talking with your doctor, you can come up with a plan that feels right for you.  

Cost  

It can cost up to $11,000 to freeze one’s eggs and up to $20,000 to freeze embryos. Although the hormone medications are sometimes covered by insurance or available through nonprofits for patients meeting certain criteria, they can cost an additional $1,000 or more.

Following egg or embryo freezing, you must pay for storage, which costs about $600 per year. Cancer patients may be eligible for lower rates.  

Time

It can take nine to 14 days to reach the stage when your eggs can be retrieved. The process is unpredictable, and some patients choose to take time off work. Due to the multiple daily hormone injections and frequent doctor appointments, some patients even feel like the egg or embryo freezing process takes over their lives for a short time.  

Physical Discomfort  

The procedures come along with physical discomfort. Some women feel uncomfortable as their ovaries grow larger. The egg retrieval itself, although performed under anesthesia, can cause pain, which is typically treated with oral medications like ibuprofen and acetaminophen. Some women feel nauseated from the anesthesia.  

Emotional Investment 

Taking hormones can cause some women to feel more emotional. You might also feel discouraged if you do not obtain the number of eggs you’d hoped to collect during a first or subsequent round of stimulation and retrieval.  

Outcomes

Success rates for future pregnancy vary widely, mostly based on the person’s age at the time of freezing. Eggs survive freezing and thawing about 70-90% of the time, and each egg gives you a 5-12% chance of pregnancy. Embryos survive freezing and thawing about 99% of the time and each embryo gives you a 40-60% chance of pregnancy.

Other forms of fertility preservation  

Egg and embryo freezing isn’t the only way to preserve someone’s ability to have children. Men can use sperm freezing to preserve fertility, too. People who travel frequently for work might cryopreserve their sperm to use later, or so that their partners can pursue their family’s fertility goals while they are away. Transgender people sometimes choose to cryopreserve eggs or sperm prior to receiving gender-affirming hormonal or surgical care.

Ovarian tissue freezing is an option for some patients — for example, cancer patients who can’t wait for the two weeks to undergo egg or embryo freezing, prepubescent girls undergoing cancer treatment and trans men who are pursuing gender-affirming care. Testicular tissue freezing is also possible, most commonly to preserve the fertility of prepubescent boys preparing for cancer treatment who are not yet able to produce sperm through ejaculation. 

When to talk to your care provider  

There are many different scenarios that may lead you to consider fertility preservation. If you are a cancer patient, your care team should speak with you about your options to preserve your ability to have children. The same is true with autoimmune diseases and other illnesses that can affect fertility, like Turner’s syndrome and Lupus.

If you just have questions about it or think it’s something you might want to pursue for personal reasons, reach out to your primary care doctor and have a conversation about what makes sense for you. 

Ginny Ryan, MD, is board-certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology and in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility. She is the division chief and fellowship program director for reproductive endocrinology and infertility in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Her clinical interests include bioethics, pediatric and adolescent gynecology, reproductive surgery, transgender care and healthcare for women veterans.