Laura Hamilton: I Went on a Date with Shaggy—And Paid!
Laura Hamilton has revealed that she once went on a date with Shaggy – and he made her pay! The A Place In The Sun presenter, 43, who…
What does it involve?
An initial evaluation with a fertility specialist will likely involve blood tests, a pelvic ultrasound scan and a discussion of your medical history.
If you proceed with egg freezing, the first stage of the process, known as ‘ovarian stimulation’, will start.
This involves hormone injections to stimulate the ovaries to produce multiple eggs rather than the one egg that is typically and naturally released each month.
This treatment entails multiple visits to the fertility clinic over a few weeks, with your blood hormone levels and ovaries regularly monitored.
When the time is right for them to come out, a medical professional will use an ultrasound guided needle and, with a suction device, remove the eggs — seven to 14, on average, for women aged under 38 — from the ovarian follicles.
The extracted eggs will be transported into the laboratory, evaluated, and flash-frozen by an embryologist — using an ultra-rapid procedure called vitrification — and then typically placed into a flask containing liquid nitrogen.
Storage at very cold temperatures, below -150C (-238F), allows the eggs to remain viable for use at a later date.
When you want to use them, the eggs will be thawed and those that have survived intact will be injected with your partner’s or donor’s sperm.
How long can eggs be stored?
Women in the UK can now store their frozen eggs for up to 55 years.
This rule, which also applies to sperm and embryos, has been in place since July 2022, when the duration increased from the previous 10-year limit.
However, women will need to renew their consent for a clinic storing their eggs every 10 years.
And those who frozen their eggs before July 2022 and want them to be stored for longer than 10 years need to contact their clinic to see if it is possible.
How much does it cost?
The entire processes from freezing eggs to thawing in the UK costs £7,000 to £8,000, on average.
While having your eggs collected and frozen will clock up a bill of around £3,350, this is just one part of the process.
Hormonal medication that needs to be taken to stimulate egg production before the procedure costs approximately £500-£1,500 on top of that.
Storage costs are extra and vary between clinics but tend to be between £125 and £350 per year, according to HFEA and Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
Thawing eggs and transferring them to the womb costs an average of £2,500.
Which clinics offer egg freezing?
The HFEA is responsible for licensing and inspecting UK fertility clinics, and they publish scores for each fertility clinic inspected.
Available licensed UK clinics can be found on the HFEA website by entering a postcode.
How safe is the procedure?
According to the HFEA, IVF is ‘mostly very safe’.
Some women however do experience side effects from their fertility drugs.
These are usually mild, but in extreme cases women can develop ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS), a potentially serious complication of fertility treatment.
It can range from mild to severe, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists say.
Mild OHSS is common and usually gets better with time. More severe cases require specialist care and hospital admission.
Key symptoms of OHSS to be aware of include mild abdominal swelling, discomfort and nausea in mild cases. Severe OHSS signs involve extreme thirst and dehydration. A serious, but rare, complication is also formation of a blood clot – thrombosis – in the legs or lungs.
How successful is it?
Egg freezing should be considered an insurance policy rather than a guarantee, according to embryologists.
Success rates are largely dependent on the woman’s age when they are frozen, but experts say what also matters is the total number of eggs available for use.
Just like when utilising fresh eggs, not every egg will fertilise, not every fertilised egg will result in a viable embryo, and not every viable embryo will lead to a live birth.
One US study found that the chance of a live birth among women using their own frozen eggs was 39 per cent overall.
This rose to 51 per cent among those who were younger than 38 when they froze their eggs.
