Fertility Preservation

Egg Freezing Before Cancer Treatment Preserves Fertility

Receiving a cancer diagnosis is beyond difficult. You may feel afraid and overwhelmed, and wonder how you will cope in the short term and achieve your life goals in the long term. Fertility Answers is the area’s first certified facility dedicated to the field of reproductive endocrinology and infertility and can help you plan beyond your cancer treatment.

If you are considering future children and want to preserve your fertility, egg freezing is recommended before getting cancer treatments.

When to freeze eggs

Freezing your eggs before you start cancer treatments will give you better odds of getting pregnant in the future. While it’s possible you may still have viable eggs after cancer treatment, it’s certainly not assured because chemotherapy, radiation and other cancer treatments can destroy eggs and cause you to enter menopause prematurely. Your age, type of cancer and treatment approach are also factors that can affect fertility.

The physicians at Fertility Answers are happy to discuss these considerations. We will explain how egg freezing can help you proactively preserve your fertility. You can protect and retain your eggs and postpone pregnancy until your oncologist deems it safe and appropriate for you and you feel ready to take that step.

The egg freezing process

Egg freezing is a four- to six-week process that is similar in-vitro fertilization (IVF). Understanding that time is of the essence, we start with an expedited consultation to get you on your way to preserving your fertility before your cancer treatment begins. Through the use of hormones, we will stimulate your ovaries to produce mature eggs, harvest them and then immediately cryopreserve them.

Your frozen eggs will be viable for years. When you have medical approval and are ready for pregnancy, we will thaw some or all of your frozen eggs and fertilize them with your partner’s sperm for transfer to your uterus.

Our goal is to make the process easy for you. We know egg freezing is an emotional and financial decision, and we will work to make sure you feel comfortable in your choices. In addition, we can help cancer patients find egg freezing discounts and pre-retrieval medication discounts through the LIVESTRONG Fertility Discount Program.