Thinking about growing your family? Frozen donor eggs at TFC can help

Frozen donor eggs are helping more women and men to become parents. In the past, fresh donor eggs were the only option. However, advances in egg freezing now allow us to safely freeze and thaw donor eggs. This opens a new world for both hopeful parents and egg donors who visit our Austin egg donation experts at Texas Fertility Center (TFC).

How does a frozen cycle work?

A frozen donor egg cycle begins after our Austin egg donation experts determine that a healthy, young woman meets our donor requirements. The woman must also pass a series of comprehensive screenings. These tests examine her physical, mental, genetic and reproductive health. Our goal is to ensure that the woman can safely produce many healthy eggs for hopeful parents.

Because our embryologists will freeze the donor eggs, the woman can begin her egg donation journey before hopeful parents even select her to be their donor. The first two steps in a frozen donor egg cycle are the same as a fresh one. However, the process differs after that.

• Ovulation induction. The egg donor will take medications for ovulation induction. One of our doctors will carefully monitor her to ensure that she is receiving the proper medication dosage. The doctor will also use bloodwork and ultrasounds to determine when her eggs are mature.
• Egg retrieval. When the donor’s eggs are ready, one of our Austin egg donation experts will perform egg retrieval. This is a short, outpatient procedure. Using transvaginal ultrasound guidance, the doctor will pass a needle through the top of the vagina and retrieve the eggs and fluid from the ovarian follicles.
• Egg Freezing. While the egg donor recovers, our team will take the eggs and fluid to our laboratory. Our embryologists will use a high-powered microscope to find and culture the eggs. Next, the embryologists will freeze the eggs using an advanced flash-freezing procedure called vitrification. This technique safely preserves the fragile donor eggs.

What happens after we freeze the eggs?

Once our Austin egg donation experts freeze the eggs, they can remain that way until hopeful parents select the donor. As women and men browse our egg donor database, they can view information about each woman who has provided frozen donor eggs. Once they find the right donor for their family, the hopeful parents can move forward with in vitro fertilization (IVF) with donor eggs.

What are the benefits of frozen donor eggs?

Both egg donors and hopeful parents find there are many benefits of frozen eggs from a donor. Here is a list of just some of the benefits.

• Less waiting. Unlike fresh donor cycles, there is no need to synchronize the cycles of the egg donor and hopeful mother. The egg donor has already provided her eggs, so the doctor can begin the rest of the IVF cycle whenever the mother is ready. Additionally, there is no need to wait for an egg donor to become available for a fresh cycle.
• Guaranteed availability. With fresh egg donors, hopeful parents may select an egg donor, but she may not be able to donate due to a poor response to medication, medication errors or noncompliance. These concerns don’t exist with frozen donor eggs because the eggs are already available.

If you would like to learn more about building your family using frozen donor eggs, our Austin egg donation experts can help. Contact us for an appointment to start on this exciting journey.