12 May Next Steps When Ready You’re to Use Your Frozen Eggs

Years ago, in an effort to preserve fertility, you decided to freeze your eggs for a future baby. Now that day has arrived, it’s time to move forward with the exciting next steps in your family-building journey.

7 Steps When Ready to Conceive with Frozen Eggs

Here are steps for moving forward when you’re ready to conceive and have frozen eggs thawed.

1. Schedule a preconception appointment with your OB/GYN

Your general health is important as you are considering to embark on pregnancy.  It is always a good idea to see your general Ob/Gyn for an overall health check, make sure that your pap smear is up to date, and get a mammogram if needed, before you actively attempt pregnancy.  You can talk to your Ob/Gyn about topics like your current weight and goals for pregnancy, have your blood pressure checked as that can be a problem during pregnancy, and have labs drawn like your thyroid level, as that can be a concern while pregnant.

2. Using frozen eggs? Schedule a consult with your fertility specialist

Once you’ve decided to use your frozen eggs, it’s time to schedule a consult with your fertility specialist. Once you’re here, we’ll talk about any changes in your medical or reproductive history and begin moving forward with an IVF timeline that makes sense for you.

3. Schedule preconception genetic screening

If you’ve already completed genetic screening in the past, you should review those results to make sure you know if you carry any specific autosomal recessive conditions. If you have never done this type of testing, you should talk to your fertility specialist about preconception genetic screening. The currently available screening panels screen over 500 autosomal recessive genes that could cause future children to have chromosomal/genetic abnormalities if both partners happen to carry the exact same genetic condition. If you test positive, we’ll screen your partner or you can make sure that your sperm donor has been tested.

4. Consider the issue of sperm

If you have a male partner and you’re using his sperm for the IVF process, he should come with you to the consultation. In addition to reviewing his medical history, we’ll want to complete an in-house sperm analysis to make sure his sperm numbers are normal. If his sperm numbers are low, we will discuss whether or not he needs to be seen by a Male Fertility Urologist for further evaluation.

If your partner is female or you are single, then you will need to identify a sperm donor.  Donor sperm can be obtained from commercial sperm banks (make sure to check with the clinic to make sure that the bank you are considering is accepted by the lab) or from a known sperm donor.  You can talk to your infertility doctor about the testing that you should do before you order donor sperm.

5. Fertilize your eggs

You did most of the hard work during the egg-freezing process.  Since your eggs are already retrieved and frozen, we’ll thaw and fertilize them once you’ve chosen an IVF start date.

Once the eggs are fertilized, you can move forward with a fresh embryo transfer, you could have the embryos biopsied and tested for chromosomal abnormalities (preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy, or “PGT-A”), or you can freeze the embryos without testing them and thaw them when you’re ready to schedule the transfer day.

6. Sync your cycle for transfer day

Regardless of how regular your cycle is, most fertility specialists recommend using oral hormone supplements to carefully sync your menstrual cycle to ensure the endometrial lining is in optimal reception shape when we transfer the embryos. The combination of estrogen, which supports the development of the uterine lining, and progesterone, which primes the uterus for implantation, gives the embryo(s) the optimal chance of implantation success.

7. Begin the two-week wait (TWW)

Now, you’re in the same boat as so many other women using IVF to get pregnant. You get to settle into what we call the Two Week Wait (TWW), ready to see whether or not the pregnancy is successful.

Contact VA Fertility When You’re Ready to Use Frozen Eggs

Are you ready to use your frozen eggs for IVF? Contact Virginia Fertility & IVF to schedule your initial consultation. Are you from out of town and want to use Virginia Fertility & IVF as your IVF treatment provider? That’s no problem – we will schedule a consultation for you with one of our physicians to discuss whether or not your frozen eggs can be sent to our center here in Charlottesville, VA. We look forward to giving you the baby you’ve dreamed of all these years. Let’s get started!