When a woman is struggling to conceive, it can feel like every move she makes is monumental.
Failures can feel like missteps, leaving women to wonder whether they’ll ever find success.
After years of failing to get pregnant with other fertility treatment methods like IUI or traditional IVF, many women might fear they’ve exhausted all their options. On the contrary, there’s still another solution available—donor egg IVF.
While egg donation is an excellent option, one must choose between fresh or frozen donor eggs when considering it.
If your next logical step is using donor eggs, examining the differences between the two different types of eggs will allow you to decide what’s best for you and your family.
Do Fresh and Frozen Donor Eggs Cost the Same Amount?
Given the high price tags accompanying most fertility treatments, women trying to conceive are usually concerned about finding the best ways to spend their money. With that in mind, it’s important to know one of the most significant differences between fresh and frozen eggs is the cost.
In comparison to their fresh alternative, frozen donor eggs cost approximately half as much. When a woman has already spent a significant amount on infertility treatments, this difference in price is an alluring benefit of frozen donor egg IVF.
Are Fresh Egg Donors a Safer Option?
One of the main benefits many women appreciate about fresh egg donors is the chance to develop a personal connection with them. While this may be nice, it doesn’t necessarily mean fresh eggs are the better option.
For starters, when choosing a fresh egg donor, your selection pool is significantly smaller because potential candidates are generally limited to your local area. This constraint can make it hard to find a woman who meets every item on your ‘want list.’
Conversely, the pool for frozen egg donors is a much wider one. When you elect to use frozen donor eggs, you’ll be able to work with large-scale networks and storage facilities which receive donations from women from all over the country. While you may never have the chance to meet candidates face-to-face, you’ll be able to peruse donor profiles featuring a variety of information, including:
- The donor’s educational and professional work history
- The donor’s general health information
- The donor’s family background and medical history
- The donor’s genetic screening results
- A description of the donor’s physical and personality characteristics
- Childhood and adult photos of the donor
Are Fresh Donor Egg Cycles Easier than Frozen?
If you’re wondering whether a frozen donor egg cycle is more complicated than fresh, the short answer is a resounding no.
While frozen eggs must be shipped and thawed, that’s as complicated as it gets. With fresh donor eggs, the recipient and donor’s reproductive cycles must be perfectly synced to ensure the timing is right for the embryo transfer.
In the unfortunate event a fresh donor doesn’t take her medications or show up for necessary doctors’ appointments, it can lead to the cancellation of the entire cycle.
Since frozen eggs have already been successfully retrieved, women who elect to use frozen eggs need only be concerned with their own reproductive timeline, taking a lot of the worry out of the process.
Do Fresh and Frozen Donor Eggs Have Different Chances of Success?
One of the main concerns about using frozen donor eggs is whether their quality is as good as fresh eggs. Thanks to an innovative flash-freezing process called vitrification, successful results from frozen donor egg usage are virtually equal to those using fresh.
Vitrification eliminates the possibility of ice crystal formation during storage and prevents degeneration of the eggs over time. When you receive a donor egg frozen using this method, it’ll be in the same condition it was on the day it was collected.
Fresh or Frozen Donor Eggs: What’s Right for You?
There are many benefits to both fresh and frozen donor eggs. With the help of revolutionary fertility science, frozen eggs are helping women become mothers in a much simpler – and more affordable – way.
When you’ve tried everything to no avail, the time will come to explore alternative reproductive therapies. Frozen donor egg IVF is a preferred option amongst many struggling women and couples.
No matter what you choose, remember this: it doesn’t matter how your child comes into the world. When you look down at his or her sweet little face, all you’ll think about is the love you share and the lifetime of memories ahead of you.