For women
Women can preserve their fertility:
- Before cancer and other treatments that might impact fertility such as gender-affirming hormone treatment (GAHT). Eggs, embryos and ovarian tissue can be frozen for people who face losing their fertility because of cancer treatment or another reason. We can offer fertility preservation at short notice prior to cancer treatment.
- Or if they think their fertility may decline before they are ready to have children. As below:
Egg Freezing - Your fertility future
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 LGBTTQI+ 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. More
Embryo freezing
If a woman has a partner, it is better to freeze embryos than eggs. Embryo freezing has been around longer than egg freezing and clinics have a lot more experience with embryo freezing as it is part of routine IVF treatment.
Ovarian tissue freezing
This technique involves removing one or both ovaries surgically and freezing thin slices of ovarian tissue. The slices are transplanted back to the women once cancer treatment has finished.
Preparation
Most people facing fertility preservation won’t have enough time to make changes to lifestyle or to follow the tips for becoming ‘fertility fit’ If you do have time before egg freezing, the key messages are:
- stop smoking
- take folic acid
- reduce caffeine and alcohol
- discuss medications with your doctor
Seeing a counsellor
Our counsellors are here when you want to explore issues arising from storing sperm, eggs, or embryos, and when you need support.
Costs
- Before treatment: Access to publicly funded fertility preservation for the retrieval, freezing and long term storage of eggs is available for people whose fertility will be permanently impaired by publicly funded treatment for medical conditions, such as by cancer treatment or GAHT. Most of the usual rules for eligibility for publicly funded IVF treatment apply.
- Egg freezing for social reasons and ovarian tissue storage needs to be privately funded, these prices can be found on our treatment fee sheet.
Good to know:
- Storage time limit: 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. More info here
- Consent: You will need to sign a consent form as part of banking sperm, eggs or embryos.
- Keep you contact details up to date with the clinic: We will try to contact you each year to see if you still want to store your sperm, eggs or embryos. We may discard material if you become behind in paying storage fees, or we can’t contact you after 2 years. Update your contact details here.