What You Need to Know About Egg Freezing

Egg freezing, also known as mature oocyte preservation, is a medical process in which a woman’s eggs are extracted, frozen, and stored to preserve her fertility for the future.

As more women pursue higher education, build careers, and lead active, demanding lives, finding the right time to start a family can be challenging.

Balancing personal, professional, and family goals often means delaying pregnancy, and that’s where egg freezing can offer peace of mind and flexibility.

Women choose to freeze their eggs for many reasons, from preparing for future parenthood to protecting fertility before undergoing medical treatments that may affect egg quality.

Whatever your motivation, this guide will walk you through eight key things to know about egg freezing, including how the process works, what it costs, and the many benefits it can offer.

You Can Freeze Eggs at Any Age

Age plays a significant role in the egg freezing process, but you can technically freeze your eggs at any age.

Once frozen, your eggs do not age or decline in quality like your body or ovarian reserve. This means that your chances of having a child later depend on the age you were when the eggs were frozen, not your age when you use them. In essence, egg freezing allows you to pause your biological clock.

Research shows that the highest probability of live birth occurs when eggs are frozen before age 34 .

However, many people don’t consider egg freezing until later in life. Encouragingly, studies also show significant benefits for older women. In one large study, freezing eggs at age 37 more than doubled the probability of live birth to 51.6% compared to just 21.9% without fertility preservation.

If you’re approaching 40, there’s still a strong possibility of producing viable eggs.

Women in their late 30s who freeze their eggs before 40 typically retain a relatively high percentage of genetically normal eggs and an estimated ovarian reserve of about 13,000.

While egg quality and quantity do decline after 40, these are averages—each person’s fertility should be evaluated individually.

If you’re considering egg freezing, it’s best to schedule an evaluation soon to understand your unique fertility potential and maximize your chances of success.

When it comes to getting pregnant with frozen eggs, research shows that women in their 40s can successfully conceive using eggs they froze earlier in life. Studies demonstrate that pregnancy is achievable well into the 40s using previously frozen eggs .

Fertility experts widely agree that a woman over 40 has a higher chance of achieving a healthy pregnancy with eggs frozen in her mid-30s than through IVF or ICSI using fresh eggs retrieved after 40 .

There Are Many Reasons to Freeze Eggs

Egg freezing is an empowering option for single women who want to preserve their fertility for the future, and many couples also choose to freeze both eggs and sperm as part of their family planning journey.

Beyond elective fertility preservation, oocyte cryopreservation is also recommended for women facing medical conditions that could compromise their reproductive potential, such as cancer or premature ovarian failure.

Research shows that fertility preservation is a major concern for young women diagnosed with cancer . Life-saving treatments like chemotherapy, radiation, and certain surgeries can unfortunately damage the ovaries and affect long-term hormonal and reproductive health.

Egg freezing is also a proactive option for women diagnosed with endometriosis or other fertility-threatening conditions. Studies confirm that egg freezing is an effective fertility preservation method for endometriosis patients .

Because it is minimally invasive and has little to no negative impact on future ovarian reserve , egg freezing offers a safe and reliable way to secure future family-building options.

Since endometriosis can decrease ovarian reserve and reduce egg quality, many fertility specialists recommend freezing eggs soon after diagnosis. Acting early helps preserve the healthiest eggs possible and maximizes the likelihood of future success.

Reasons to freeze eggs include:

• You are diagnosed with a condition or discover a circumstance that can affect your fertility, i.e. premature ovarian failure due to chromosomal abnormalities (e.g. Turner syndrome, Fragile X syndrome), or a family history of early menopause.
• You need treatment for cancer or another illness that may affect your future ability to conceive.
• You are undergoing surgery that may affect your ovaries or you have a genetic disorder that requires your ovaries to be removed altogether.  
• You are undergoing IVF and prefer to freeze eggs instead of embryos.
• You are transitioning genders and you want to maintain your reproductive potential.
• You are looking to save younger eggs for future use

The Egg Freezing Process

The egg freezing process starts with a consultation with a fertility specialist. 

During your consultation, you will share your fertility and family planning goals with your physician.  They will review your medical history, fertility history, and recent bloodwork and ultrasound results to recommend the appropriate treatment. 

If it is indicated, they make recommend additional fertility testing, and if you have a male partner, they will likely be sent for some male fertility testing as well. If you decide to move forward with egg freezing, they will make medication recommendations, and together you will establish your treatment protocol.

Ovarian Stimulation

Your egg freezing cycle will start with ovarian stimulation via hormone injections.  These hormones will stimulate your ovaries to produce multiple eggs, rather than the single egg that typically develops each cycle.

During the stimulation phase, you will need to have a number of monitoring appointments to ensure your body is responding well to the medications. 

During these office visits, you will undergo transvaginal ultrasounds and bloodwork.  Most women require 3-5 monitoring appointments during the stimulation phase.  Your doctor will use the information collected from these appointments to refine your medication, treatment protocol, and schedule.  

The Retrieval

After the stimulation phase is complete it is time for your egg retrieval procedure. 

The egg retrieval is a fairly simple surgical procedure that takes between 5 and 15 minutes.  Prior to the start of the procedure, an anesthesiologist will administer light anesthesia.  The anesthesiologist will stand by and monitor you throughout the procedure. 

After the anesthetic has taken effect, your fertility doctor will use a small needle to drain the ovarian follicles of their fluid containing the mature eggs. 

The follicular fluid is then taken to the embryology lab to search for and isolate your eggs in preparation for freezing. 

Our state-of-the-art embryology labs are located steps from our operating rooms.  The procedure is minimally invasive and does not require any cutting or stitching.  Although we recommend resting, many women are comfortable returning to work the next day.

Freezing the Eggs

After the lab isolates and preps your eggs, they are frozen.  At CNY Fertility, we use a flash-freezing technique called vitrification, which dehydrates and freezes the eggs instantaneously, providing the best survival rate upon thawing.  After freezing, the eggs are moved to our in-house long-term storage tanks.  The eggs are available for your use whenever you’re ready.

It May Take More Than One Cycle

The number of egg freezing cycles needed can vary based on several factors, including your age, ovarian reserve, and hormone levels.

While there’s no strict limit on how many eggs you can freeze, fertility specialists typically recommend preserving 10–15 eggs per planned pregnancy attempt. This number serves as a general guideline—your physician will help determine the ideal number of eggs to freeze based on your individual fertility profile.

Some patients respond very well to ovarian stimulation and can retrieve enough eggs in a single cycle to meet their family-building goals. Others may need multiple cycles, especially if they plan to have more than one child or if their ovaries produce fewer eggs.

Women with endometriosis, diminished ovarian reserve, or other conditions affecting egg quantity and quality often benefit from multiple cycles to maximize their chances of future success.

In certain situations, multiple egg freezing cycles aren’t possible. For example, women who need to begin cancer treatment immediately may only have time for one cycle. In these cases, even a single egg freezing cycle can make a profound difference—providing an opportunity for future pregnancy that might otherwise be lost.

Insurance Coverage for Egg Freezing

Coverage for fertility treatment and preservation varies according to your insurance plan and what state you live in.  It is important to check the regulations for the state you live in and your specific insurance plan.  Insurance providers offer many plans and some cover treatment while others do not. 

New York State passed an infertility mandate on January 1, 2020.   The policy requires large group insurance providers to cover medically necessary IVF and Fertility preservation treatment.  New York State’s website has a page dedicated to the IVF and Fertility Preservation Law the provides frequently asked questions and guidance.  

At CNY Fertility, prior to your consultation, you will have the opportunity to upload your insurance information and speak with our financial team.  You may not be afforded this opportunity and service at other clinics, so it is important to call your insurance company and see what’s covered.  At CNY, we also offer in-house financing for fertility preservation that allows you to split the cost of treatment into more manageable payments over two years.

Egg Freezing Can Be Affordable

According to Fertility IQ, the average cost of egg freezing ranges between $15,000 and $20,000 per cycle, and that does not even include additional fees such as yearly storage. Many clinics charge up to $1,200 per year just to store frozen eggs.

Let’s break down what goes into these costs and how egg freezing can actually be made more affordable.

Each egg freezing cycle begins with ovarian stimulation, which requires fertility medications. The cost of these medications varies based on your individual response and dosage but typically ranges from $2,000 to $6,000 per cycle.

At most clinics, your physician will order these medications through a local or specialty pharmacy. At CNY Fertility, our financial team helps patients find the most affordable medication options available.

Next comes the cost of clinical treatment, which includes monitoring, egg retrieval, and anesthesia. Nationally, these services average around $11,000 per cycle.

At CNY Fertility, the cost for retrieval, anesthesia, cryopreservation, and one year of storage is just $2,995, with monitoring available for $995. Combined, this brings your total to $3,990, more than $7,000 less than the national average. CNY Fertility also offers flexible financing options to make egg freezing even more accessible.

Finally, there is storage. While many clinics charge between $500 and $1,200 per year, CNY Fertility includes the first year of storage for free, with subsequent years costing only $450 annually.

By offering transparent pricing, bundled services, and in-house financing, CNY Fertility makes egg freezing both affordable and stress-free, empowering you to plan your family on your own timeline.

Embryo Freezing is Another Option

Embryo freezing is another fertility preservation option for couples or women who have already identified a sperm donor. 

Embryo freezing follows the same path as egg freezing up through the retrieval process, but then instead of freezing the eggs, the mature oocytes are fertilized in an IVF/ embryology lab.  The resulting embryos are then frozen. 

Similar to egg freezing, embryo freezing can be done electively or out of medical necessity.  Studies have shown that freezing embryos and storing them for later usage is significantly associated with improved pregnancy rates for patients over the age of 35 .  Embryo freezing has also shown effective in providing good chances for future fertility in endometriosis and cancer patients . 

Embryo freezing is a more involved process that does require either a partner’s or donor’s sperm at the time of the procedure.  For this reason, many single women choose egg freezing over embryo freezing.   

Split Cycle Freezing

Since the egg and embryo retrieval processes are so similar, and because they follow the same steps all the way up through the retrieval, some women choose to fertilize only a portion of their eggs and freeze the rest.  This is known as a split cycle. 

Split cycles allow women to preserve their fertility with a known donor or partner’s sperm while also saving some of their own biological eggs to be fertilized later. This gives women the benefit of higher live birth rates of embryos (should they not find a partner later in life), but still allows for the flexibility to fertilize eggs with partner sperm should they find a partner.

Some women also go into their retrieval with a set number of embryos they would like to create.  After they achieve that number, they may choose to freeze and donate the rest of their eggs. 

There are Many Benefits of Egg Freezing

• Egg quality diminishes with age – As women get older, the percentage of chromosomally abnormal eggs increases.  Eggs do not age after they are frozen, they stay the same age as when they were retrieved.  Freezing eggs at a younger age ensures a larger portion of eggs are normal when you are ready to have your family.
• Egg supply is finite – Women are born with all of the eggs they will ever have.  Egg supply can be affected by many factors including early menopause, premature ovarian failure, endometriosis, and more.  Egg supply is also greatly affected by age.  Egg freezing helps to ensure you can use your own eggs to have biologically related children.  
• Egg freezing allows women more time to focus on themselves – For many women having a career or pursuing advanced education is of equal importance to becoming a mother.  It doesn’t seem fair that women should have to choose one or the other.  Egg freezing allows women to take control and decide when they are ready to have children without worrying about age-related effects on egg quality.  It enables women to establish a secure relationship, focus on their professional goals, and ultimately gives them the choice to get pregnant when the time is right for them, not because their biological clock says so.  
• Egg freezing results in babies – Technology surrounding egg cryopreservation technology and ovarian stimulation protocols have advanced greatly in the past 5 years.  This has resulted in a significant increase in the number of eggs produced and the number of mature oocytes that survive the freezing process . At CNY Fertility, we use state of the art vitrification methods and we have invested over 1 billion dollars to ensure our laboratories are state of the art.  Advances in the egg freezing process and invitro fertilization (IVF) process are resulting in more successful pregnancies every year.
• It provides peace of mind and puts you in control – Egg freezing can provide you with a feeling of comfort, especially for single women.  There’s nothing worse than being pestered by family or friends to find a spouse or have a baby.  While we can’t guarantee that egg freezing will stop your mom from calling and asking when she can expect her first grandchild, it can provide you with a feeling of control and peace of mind.  When you’re ready to get pregnant, your eggs will be there waiting.  
• It can preserve your fertility before surgery or treatment – Being diagnosed with a serious disease like cancer can be difficult and stressful enough without having to consider your future fertility.  With egg freezing, you can focus 100% on beating your cancer instead of worry about how your treatment may affect your fertility.  
• It allows transgender patients the opportunity to have biologically related children in the future – The transitioning process offers hope for many patients, but it can also be hard, very very hard.  Many patients don’t consider the effects their treatment will have on their future fertility, and it is often the furthest thing from their minds.  Instead, when they decide they want to have children later in life, it may be impossible for them to have a biological child.  That is why we are working with transgender clinics and specialists across the U.S. to raise awareness about the importance of fertility preservation for transgender patients.

Egg Freezing: The Bottom Line 

Egg freezing is a wonderful option for women to take control and preserve their future fertility.  Egg freezing can be affordable, and we encourage you to shop around before making any decisions. 

Pricing can vary greatly from city to city and most patients still end up saving thousands of dollars when they travel and freeze their eggs at our clinics instead of completing the process with their local clinic.  We hope this article has helped clear up some of your questions on egg freezing! 

If interested, we encourage you to learn more about the cost of egg freezing along with considering setting up a consultation with one of our fertility specialists.