The decision of when to start a family is a significant one and many people today are choosing to delay having a child until later in life.
If you know that one day you would like to start a family but today is not that day, preserving your fertility is a way of safeguarding your future, allowing you to try at a time that's right for you.
Perhaps you have career aspirations or personal goals you wish to achieve first, or you may not feel emotionally or financially ready for a child right now. It could be that you haven't met the right person to start a family with. Whatever your circumstances, your reasons for delaying parenthood are valid.
Fertility preservation for females or people with ovaries means having your eggs collected, frozen and stored for use in future fertility treatment. To do this, you’ll undergo a partial IVF cycle which involves a two-week course of hormone medication to stimulate egg growth followed by an egg retrieval procedure under mild sedation.
First, you’ll need to have a fertility assessment. For females this includes an AMH (anti-Mullerian hormone) blood test and AFC (antral follicle count) vaginal ultrasound scan. Together, these provide an accurate measure of your fertility health and your likely response to the medication used in fertility treatment.
The egg freezing process itself involves the following steps:
Medication will be administered at home via an injection to stop natural hormone production and control when your eggs are released.
Further medication will be given to stimulate egg production. This increases the chance of more eggs being collected.
A scan will be performed to check the development of the follicles that produce the eggs. This will determine when the eggs are collected.
Once the follicles have reached the correct size, an injection will be given to mature the eggs for collection. A needle is then gently guided through the vaginal wall to capture the eggs one by one. Don’t worry, you will be sedated for this part of the procedure to ensure no pain or discomfort.
Any viable eggs are then frozen using a method called vitrification and stored safely for use in future fertility treatments.
You’ll receive a detailed breakdown of your treatment costs during your consultation. However, the breakdown of a typical egg freezing cycle is as follows:
Step one: Fertility assessment
AMH blood test and ultrasound scan... £460
Step two: Egg freezing cycle
Egg freezing (including egg retrieval and egg freezing)... £4300
Step three: Storage
Annual storage... £350
The medication you require throughout the egg freezing process will be an additional cost.
You can find a detailed price list for all treatments and procedures on your chosen TFP Fertility clinic page.
Though less rapidly than female fertility, the quality of a man's sperm also decline with age. If you have concerns about what may happen in the future, freezing your sperm is an option that can offer you peace of mind.
If you don't end up needing to use, you have the option of donating your sperm to a family in need later on.
To freeze your sperm, you'll need to produce a few semen samples either at one of our clinics or at home.
First, you’ll need to have a fertility assessment. For males, the main type of fertility test is the semen analysis which assesses your sperm for density (the number of sperm in your semen sample), mobility (how well they swim) and morphology (the size and shape of the sperm).
You’ll need to provide a semen sample for the analysis to be carried out. If you experience anxiety and cannot produce a sample at the clinic, you can take the pot home for a less clinical environment. You must ensure that we receive your sample within one hour of it being produced.
If you are unable to produce a sample because of difficulties with ejaculation, we can extract a sample using a procedure called surgical sperm retrieval.
The sperm freezing process itself is fairly straightforward and involves the following steps:
Following your initial fertility assessment, you’ll need to provide a further semen sample that will be screened for any infectious diseases such as HIV or hepatits C.
You’ll then need to produce a fresh sample which will be mixed with a cryoprotectant to protect the sperm from damage during freezing.
Before the sperm is frozen, it will be divided into separate containers so that not all the sperm needs to be thawed at once and can be used in multiple treatments (if required).
Your samples are then rapidly cooled using a method called vitrification and stored in tanks of liquid nitrogen until you’re ready to use them.
You’ll receive a detailed breakdown of your treatment costs during your consultation. However, the breakdown of the cost of freezing your sperm is below:
Step one: Fertility assessment
Semen analysis... £195
Step two: Sperm freezing
Sperm freezing (including screening).. £650
Step three: Storage
Annual storage... £350
You can find a detailed price list for all treatments and procedures on your chosen TFP Fertility clinic page.