Egg Versus Embryo Freezing At Our North Houston IVF Clinic

At our North Houston fertility clinic, which is located in Kingwood and The Woodlands, we offer a variety of different fertility treatments and therapies. Among our services, we offer egg freezing as well as embryo freezing. Many of our patients inquire about how these treatments compare, so in this fertility blog, we will explain how both treatments work.

Egg Freezing At Our Kingwood Fertility Clinic

When it comes to egg freezing, we will stimulate your ovaries to produce eggs and then retrieve them. We start this process with hormone injections, which is the same method we utilize with our patients who are undergoing North Houston IVF.

To extract the eggs, we will perform a transvaginal ultrasound-guided needle aspiration. This procedure is painless. Once the eggs have been retrieved, we will immediately dehydrate them and freeze them to be used at a later date. By dehydrating your eggs, we prevent them from destruction due to ice crystals that form from the high water content that women's eggs have.

Embryo Freezing At Our North Houston IVF Clinic

Though embryo freezing is much like egg freezing, these treatments differ in that eggs are retrieved and then frozen until you are ready to get pregnant in the future, at which point you will undergo North Houston IVF to fertilize the egg. Embryo freezing, on the other hand, consists of retrieving the eggs, immediately fertilizing them with sperm through IVF, and then freezing them once an embryo develops.

Which Method Is Better?

In truth, one is not necessarily better than the other. Preference plays a big role in this. Note that it will take several eggs before one embryo is formed, regardless of which method you opt for. Egg freezing allows for more flexibility for a few reasons:

• You can wait until you meet the right partner
• If you’re a single woman, you can always opt for donor sperm when you’re ready
• You can choose not to use frozen eggs and discard them if you get pregnant without them

Embryo freezing has a couple of limitations, but these limitations might be favorable for someone else:

• You need to fertilize the egg with sperm right away, and many women prefer to use their current partner’s
• Discarding embryos is a harder decision to make, and many faiths and/or moral beliefs don’t allow this

The Fertility Specialists At Our IVF Clinic In The Woodlands And Kingwood Are Here To Support Your Decision

Whether you decide on freezing your eggs or freezing your embryos, both methods are great ways to preserve your fertility. Regardless of your decision, our IVF doctors are here to support you the entire way, so if you’re planning to make a decision soon, please request an appointment so we can offer some guidance, so you can make the best decision for yourself.