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Extend Fertility > Egg Harvesting Services
Female Egg Harvesting
As women, we
lead rich and demanding lives - obtaining advanced degrees,
pursuing successful careers, and taking better care of
ourselves. We have an astounding number of opportunities and as
a result, many of us choose to start our families later than our
mothers and grandmothers.
But in waiting longer to have children, many women face the real
challenge of having successful, healthy pregnancies later in
life. While we have made great strides in other areas, our
fertility is still limited by basic biology – the “biological
clock” generally stops ticking in our late 30’s or early 40’s.
Our opportunities are endless, but our egg supply and egg
quality are not.
Egg Harvesting offers women planning to have children after the
age of 35 the opportunity to effectively slow down their
biological clocks. Extend Fertility’s Egg Harvesting services
gives women the unprecedented chance to store their eggs during
their reproductive prime for use when they wish to start or
expand their families.
Extend Fertility takes great pride in helping to empower women
to feel more in control of their bodies and lives. Read what our
egg harvesting clients are saying about freezing their eggs and
working with Extend Fertility.
The ability to
postpone motherhood by egg harvesting was made possible by the
discovery that the age of a woman's eggs is more important than
her biological age. In the last two decades, even
post-menopausal women have become pregnant and delivered babies
by using donor eggs from much younger women. Those developments
created the incentive to preserve a woman's own eggs by egg
harvesting while the women are still young. Female fertility
peaks at age 27 and by age 40, the chance of getting pregnant is
less than 10%. Egg Harvesting and egg freezing enable women to
break free from the stressful drumbeat of their biological
clock.
Eventually, egg harvesting is expected to have an effect on egg
donation by allowing one donor to store eggs that could be used
by several recipients. Still, perhaps the most compelling
current use of egg harvesting is to benefit women with diseases
that could interfere with fertility.
How egg harvesting works
- Extract
eggs
Woman receives drugs to produce multiple eggs.
Ultrasound-guided needle is used to harvest eggs from the
ovary.
- Identify
The eggs, which are in fluid when extracted, are poured onto
a flat dish. Individual eggs are identified with a
microscope and withdrawn for freezing.
- Prepare for
freezing Because ice crystals can form within the eggs
and damage them, technicians remove the water from the eggs
and bathe them in an 'antifreeze' solution before freezing.
Laboratories vary in how they freeze the eggs. Some prefer a
slow freezing technique, while others use a flash-freezing
process called vitrification.
- Freeze
Eggs are stored in tubes in a liquid nitrogen storage tank.
- Thaw and
fertilize
Each egg is thawed and injected with a needle containing a
single sperm--a procedure called ICSI. Eggs begin to develop
into embryos.
- Implant
Embryos are implanted into the uterus using a catheter.
Egg Harvesting Client
Profiles
Megan (Woman age 36),
Classical Acupuncturist
Seattle, Washington WA (USA)
On why she decided to freeze her eggs:
“I was starting to feel that my desire to have children was
putting pressure on my current relationship… deciding to freeze
my eggs helped me to separate the issues – yes, I want to have
children, yes, I am in a relationship, but my desire to have
children shouldn't cloud whether we should be having children
together. I don’t want to have children until I feel emotionally
and financially prepared.”
On how she feels now:
“Egg Harvesting and Egg Freezing are very empowering processes.
I know there are no guarantees in this world, but it is a
fantastic feeling to know I've done what I can to preserve my
fertility along the way. Somehow egg harvesting was really
affirming of what I want in my life, even though I am not having
children right this minute. I know I want to be a mother more
strongly than when I began… It has removed some of the judgment
of myself and self-criticism of wishing I had done this or that
differently, or some blame I've placed on myself for not having
children yet. I feel far less anxious about the future, no
matter what the outcome - whether I get pregnant naturally at
some point, whether I use these eggs, whether I adopt. Now it’s
just more about becoming a mother eventually than judging my
body for being not the "perfect" age biologically.”
On working with Extend Fertility in Egg
Harvesting:
“I felt very supported by the women at Extend Fertility - like
they were truly my partners in this adventure, their egg
harvesting services help me and women like me to have more
choices in the future. The women at Extend are smart, capable,
kind women, there to help me achieve this thing I want. Working
with Extend Fertility was so refreshing compared with trying to
explain to others, even doctors, why I was worried about my
fertility, and not having them get it or just give trite answers
(like, “why make a such a big deal about this?”, “you're plenty
young”, etc.). I really liked having these women support me in
making the possibility of egg preservation and egg harvesting
real.”
On advice for women considering egg
harvesting with Extend Fertility:
“Listen to yourself. Consider what is most important to you, and
don't worry about what other people have to say about it. Nobody
can know but you what is truly important to you and how you want
to make that happen. When I decided on egg harvesting and that I
was going to do it, and was in the process of it, I talked very
openly to people about it as it was happening... At the coffee
shop...how are you today? I'm great! I'm freezing my eggs!
Because I found the experience totally empowering.”
Alexandra (Woman age 34),
Pharmaceutical Sales
Boston, Massachusetts MA (USA)
On why she decided to freeze her eggs by egg harvesting:
“Having a family has always been incredibly important to me and
working in the medical community made me all too aware of the
fact that my aging eggs could potentially jeopardize that dream.
I also didn’t want to rush into a marriage that wasn’t right
solely to have children. Egg harvesting has removed the
pressure.”
On how she feels now:
“I feel truly amazing…Relieved! I work in the women’s health
care arena so I’m constantly bombarded with the scary biological
clock story. I realized last week that I was listening to yet
another horrifying presentation on the perils facing future
mothers over 30 and for the first time I didn’t having a panic
attack! I realized that I had taken control and done what I
could to ensure the best chance of having a healthy and happy
baby in the future by freezing my eggs. It’s also really nice
that now thinking about having a family brings a sense of
excitement because it just seems like much more of a reality and
not a deadline that I am terrified of missing.”
On working with the Extend Fertility
Egg Harvesting Professionals:
“I did a lot of research on egg harvesting programs and several
of the fertility clinics I contacted that advertised egg
freezing and egg harvesting just didn’t seem to know much about
it - I often felt like they were reading from a script. They
also made me feel like I would be a peripheral patient because I
wasn’t doing IVF – freezing eggs was just not what they
specialized in. Then I contacted Extend and it was totally
different. It was amazing and reassuring to work with women who
had actually frozen their eggs themselves! I didn’t have to
justify why I was pursuing egg freezing…they totally got me. The
best part of the egg harvesting process was that they had
actually taken the medications and had their own eggs frozen so
they really knew what they were talking about and what I could
expect. I can’t say enough about the confidence they instilled
in me and the emotional support they provided me at every step
in the egg harvesting process .”
On advice for other women considering
egg harvesting:
“If you’re over 33 and single or involved in a fast track career
you must consider egg harvesting now. I promise it will change
your life. The women at Extend will absolutely help you. You
will NEVER regret having frozen eggs…but you could very
seriously regret not having preserved your eggs or participating
in an egg harvesting program when you had the chance.”
To request additional information on egg harvesting please:
Call Extend Fertility at: 800-841-7197 or email:
info@extendfertility.com
Extend Fertility, Inc.
329 Washington Street | Suite 200 | Woburn, Massachusetts MA
(USA) 01801
Phone: (800) 841-7197 | Outside U.S.: (617) 987-0506 |
Fax: (617) 987-2137
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"I felt very
supported by the women at Extend. They were my partners
in this adventure and gave me the power to have more
choices in the future."
— Megan, Age 36
Extend Fertility Client
Seattle, WA
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