Better to freeze eggs or embroys?

[onlythelonely]

Hi Dr Potter I have just done my pre-testing and I have a very low ovarian reserve of 1.8. All my other results were normal. I am planning to cycle with you late this year but am really concerned with my chances.
I would like to know if it is better to freeze eggs or embryos.

Thank you

[zibibbogirl]

Hi onlythelonely

You and I think alike! I am hoping Dr Potter answers this question also. I am in Australia and posted a thread about freezing eggs and sperm and having them both shipped to the US to get around the gender selection ban here. A few people on here responded to my questions this week. Apparently it is just as expensive ($12,000-$20,000 or so) as an actual cycle in the US and while there are no travel expenses, there is a downside. Usually there is a decreased number of eggs as some of them don't make it through the thawing process, and those that do, may arrest (stop growing).

It is possible however to have your embryos frozen after an IVF/ICSI procedure in Australia. I am not sure if they can do GSN on thawed emrbyos, but it would be worth getting an answer to. If Dr Potter doesn't answer here, I will ask him at my consultation. It also may be difficult to get your Australian clinic to agree to send the frozen emrbyos to the US. But I thought it was worth a try too.

Zib.

[nuthinbutpink]

Hi onlythelonely

You and I think alike! I am hoping Dr Potter answers this question also. I am in Australia and posted a thread about freezing eggs and sperm and having them both shipped to the US to get around the gender selection ban here. A few people on here responded to my questions this week. Apparently it is just as expensive ($12,000-$20,000 or so) as an actual cycle in the US and while there are no travel expenses, there is a downside. Usually there is a decreased number of eggs as some of them don't make it through the thawing process, and those that do, may arrest (stop growing).

It is possible however to have your embryos frozen after an IVF/ICSI procedure in Australia. I am not sure if they can do GSN on thawed emrbyos, but it would be worth getting an answer to. If Dr Potter doesn't answer here, I will ask him at my consultation. It also may be difficult to get your Australian clinic to agree to send the frozen emrbyos to the US. But I thought it was worth a try too.

Zib.

They can definitely test embryos that have been frozen. I am just not sure if you can facilitate doing a cycle in Australia and being able to explain why you are freezing and then shipping to the US. If you can, that would be amazing for the other Aussies on here.

[onlythelonely]

I may be somewhat different to other as I have had my tubes tied so I would need IVF in order to have another baby therefore I will be able to complete a cycle here. I have decided that I will complete a cycle here and freeze my embroys, as much as I want a girl I realise that I still also just want another baby, but due to my test results I am not going to wait as my time is running out.

[zibibbogirl]

It would be wonderful for you if you could do that. Thanks NBP, I am very pleased to know you could do GSN on thawed embryos. If you have existing fertility issues, then that is definitely worth a shot. Most of us don't, so we would have a hard time trying to explain why we wanted to ship embryos overseas, but on the upside, we can always make a holiday out of it in the US!

[MatildaMai]

Hi - I'm not an expert on the testing side of things but I have looked into this issue with clinics in Australia. I was told by 2 clinics that the only way to get a clinic to release your embryos out of Australia is if you can prove you are moving offshore and will no longer be resident in Australia. So you'd need a letter of employment or something...

It would also mean double freezing which is suboptimal. As they'd freeze the embryo on day 3 here. I'm not sure how that would work with testing. If you could take them to a lab in the US that did day 5 testing with day 6 transfer you might be able to make that part of it work.

As for freezing eggs here, I was told its not something they encourage as the results are generally very poor. And with my pretesting I was told it would be a complete waste of time. I asked because I was worried about egg quality further declining while I waited in between cycles and they said I'd be much better off taking DHEA for an extended period if I was willing to do multiple cycles.

The other problem in Australia is that there is a medicare rule about 'hoarding' so if you have anything on ice (eggs/embies) then you can't do a fresh cycle to create more. Batching is not allowed. I asked if you wanted to pay out of pocket just so I could have a couple extra in case and the answer was no.

[onlythelonely]

Hi MM I have looked into exporting embryos and was told there was no issue the rules changed in 2007 to allow you to. I do not plan on doing more than 1 cycle here I am mostly doing it so I will know how I respond to the meds. I will ask Dr Potter about the freezing and testing when I have a consult with him soon. Thanks for the info