Frequently asked questions

The right time to try to have a baby depends on your unique circumstances. It's an incredibly personal decision. You may be single, married, or in a LGBTQI+ relationship. If you're not in a position to try for a baby now, egg freezing may be an option to help preserve your fertility.

The Human Assisted Reproductive Technology (HART) Act limits storage of sperm, eggs or embryos to a maximum of ten years initially. The clinic can help you apply to the ethics committee if you want to extend storage before you reach the ten year limit. You can’t use sperm, eggs or embryos after a person’s death unless the person has made it clear in their consent form they want this to happen. You can choose to leave sperm or eggs to your partner for them to use, your partner can’t donate them to another person.

Frozen sperm and embryos are stored in thin plastic straws immersed in liquid nitrogen.

Cross-contamination of straws by viruses such as Hepatitis or HIV is a theoretical risk although it has never been reported. As a precaution we store sperm for men positive to Hepatitis B or C or to HIV in a separate bank. There is a very small risk that a liquid nitrogen bank will fail, causing the sperm, eggs or embryos stored in it to perish. Bank failure has been reported occasionally around the world. Straws containing sperm, eggs or embryos may be handled while stored for various reasons, such as when retiring a bank or moving samples to a different bank location.
There is a very small risk that handling could sometimes reduce the viability of frozen samples despite the care taken. Loss of samples during handling and moving has also been reported. We take reasonable precautions but cannot be held responsible for the loss of sperm, eggs or embryos from bank failure.

If you have frozen sperm, the type of treatment to use depends on the number and quality of the sperm stored. IVF and IUI pregnancy rates are the same using frozen sperm and fresh sperm. If you have embryos frozen, the chance of pregnancy is similar to that from using fresh embryos. About 95% of embryos survive freezing and thawing. Eggs are more prone to damage from freezing and thawing than embryos, and there is more variation in egg survival between individual women than there is for embryo survival. 

For some women 90% or more of their eggs survive, while for others the rate may be closer to 50-70%. If an egg survives,
then most people have normal embryo development, but for a few embryos' development may be poor. Unfortunately, there is no way to predict this. The most important factors influencing the chance of having a child is your age when the eggs were frozen and the number of eggs or embryos available. Fertility Associates has a discounted fee for women who want to do a second or third egg freezing cycle.

Several experts have calculated the chance based on the number of eggs stored and the age of the women when she stored her eggs – an example is shown in Figure 11, using data from a scientific publication by Doyle and coauthors in the journal Fertility & Sterility. For instance, a 36-year-old woman who has 8 eggs frozen is calculated to have a 45% chance of having a child using these frozen eggs.