Will Egg Freezing Really Work?

I assume that, like me, most women who freeze their eggs hope they never have to use them. I certainly hope that I find a wonderful husband soon and that we will be able to conceive children naturally. But I also think there’s a very real possibility that I won’t find a husband soon enough and that I’ll have to use my frozen eggs. So I really hope this technology works!

There are no guarantees in egg freezing. Although the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) removed the “experimental” label from egg freezing in 2012, it does not recommend egg freezing for elective purposes. Little is known about the success of egg freezing for elective purposes. It seems very promising, but there is a lack of both studies and anecdotal success stories. I have only run across four stories of women actually using their frozen eggs, and of those, only one was successful.

NYU has one one the most established egg freezing programs, but even there the success numbers don’t look that great. According to the “Oocyte Cryopreservation Program and Success Rates” portion of the NYU website:

• over 80 cycles have been performed where both freezing and thawing have been completed
• 26 women have delivered live babies
• there are 4 healthy ongoing pregnancies

That means that only 30 out of 80 cycles led to actual live babies, assuming the 4 healthy pregnancies continue successfully. About a 38% chance of success--and this is at a clinic that is particularly known for making babies out of frozen eggs!

On the other hand, my doctor at Stanford is pretty optimistic about my chances. She thinks that I could get 6 or 7 embryos out of the 11 eggs I already have frozen. That would be enough for at least 3 embryo transfers, since we would not be transferring more than 2 embryos on each try (no Octomom for me!)

Even though I know intellectually that there are no guarantees, I desperately want to believe that egg freezing will indeed work if only I can get enough eggs. In “Essential elements of informed consent for elective oocyte cryopreservation,” ASRM states that, “In the absence of clinic-specific outcome data, the following estimates based on published peer-reviewed medical literature should be used: a) An approximate overall 2% live-birth rate per oocyte thawed for cryopreservation using slow-freeze methods. b) An approximate overall 4% live-birth rate per oocyte thawed for cryopreservation using vitrification.”

That gives me hope that if I can get 25 eggs preserved through vitrification, that I would have a very high chance of having a live birth.