Egg freezing: how many is enough?

[j3ffu]

Hello world,

I'm doing egg freezing for the first time. Can anyone kindly talk me through their thinking when deciding how many eggs was enough, and when to stop? Did you decide on a number that would make you feel 'secure'? How did you decide on the number?

I know it is a deeply personal choice and there are ample statistics (even calculators out there churning out all manner percentages...), but I just wonder if anyone can share a personal experience.

If relevant - I am 34, in a long-term relationship (we both want children but have only been together a year and are not quite ready), and am approaching egg-freezing as an insurance-but-not-insurance. I am on Day 10 of stims (currently have 8 follicles above 16mm, a bunch more hovering between 12-16mm). I'm told I will be triggered any day now.

The experience has been eye-opening. It may be that the nurses I have seen are not very communicative, but for the first time in my life I feel like I am going through a process over which I have very little control or say as to what happens when. I am just at a loss as to how I am mentally/emotionally supposed to approach the egg collection.

I've done many cycles of egg freezing as I have severely diminished ovarian reserve which I found out after first looking in to egg freezing 2 years ago. I usually only get 1 egg per cycle. For me, the money will run out (well...already has.. it's all interest free credit cards though and I'll be able to pay them back at least!) far before I'm happy with the amount of eggs!

This is the website I've used to sort of get an idea of how many eggs I need:

fertilityspace.io/blog/this-is-how-many-eggs-you-should-freeze-based-on-your-age

Honestly, for me, I plan on stopping at 10 eggs because I'm 36 now and I know the money I'm spending on it becomes less worthwhile if the eggs are probably less good quality. If I was under 35 then I expect I'd try and find more money for more cycles...

If I produced more eggs then I would probably have liked about 15-20 eggs. As it stands, I'm hoping to do 3 more cycles and get an egg per cycle bringing me up to 10. I want two children so I know the odds aren't in my favour if I do have to use them but you never know..

Best of luck

Thanks @Rosiestraws - that website is helpful.

I'm sorry to hear you have had to go through this many times. It's a lot to put your body through, not to mention the mental and emotional side of things. Good luck and fingers crossed for you!

Hello, I hope your procedure is going well 💐 First of all did you have a consultation with the clinic before the procedure? If yes, did they tell you how many you should aim for? I trust my consultant to tell me the number and explain the rationale to me, the reason is because they are experts in the field (I did google her profile beforehand though, to ensure she has the right level of experience). I think I paid about £200 for the consultation. It is expensive but it's miniscule when compared to the cost of each cycle. Plus, I was able to email the consultant to ask any questions afterwards, so I feel like it's worth the money.

I don't know anything about medicine, but I happen to work in a technical field and I often find internet articles, while good in giving general knowledge about the matter, are very poor in giving practical advice. The reason is because the advice has to be tailored to each situation, and often guided by technical textbooks which the general public won't have access to and/or don't have enough expertise to evaluate. I imagine it would be similar with medicine.

I am in a similar situation in a LTR but not ready for children. I froze eggs a few months ago at 35. I had a “number” of 15 and told myself I’d do however many cycles I needed to get there. In the end I was lucky and got 14 mature eggs on my first cycle so I left it at that. I asked my doctor about freezing more and he said at my age it’s more a personal choice than a medical one and they hope I’d have a good result with what is frozen. Good luck - if it helps I found the process easier than I had feared!

Thanks everyone!

I had my collection - they have frozen 7.

I know that I should be very grateful for what I have, but I have to say I am a little disappointed. I was told that I had very good numbers (AMH over 40) and I can't help but think that I was under-stimulated and they could have been more aggressive. I had no side effects, so probably my body could have handled more stimulation. I think this means I will have to have another cycle, but I may leave it for another year or so.

Thanks @Okigen - I have had consultations and will have my debrief with the consultant next week, and hopefully that will shed some light. As you say, I found the advice on the internet very generic. The calculators and statistics (which @Rosiestraws very kindly shared) say the "number" is at least 10 or 15, and at times I feel a little like a robot just marching (mentally) towards these numbers.

I have to say (I don't know if this is how you felt, @Onefortheroad1), going through the process has made me decide that I definitely want children, probably sooner than I had thought. When it occurred to me before the collection that one of the eggs could one day be my baby I turned into a big ball of maternal feeling - even started talking to my eggs!

Like you, I found the process physically easier than I feared but emotionally so much more difficult than I imagined. The saving grace for me was knowing that I am in a LTR with the person I ultimately will want to have children with. I tend to catastrophize and plan for the future obsessively, and knowing he was there took away some of the anxiety in the process. For anyone reading this and thinking of going for it, I would advise surrounding yourself with as many supportive people as possible who you can talk about this with.