Egg Freezing: How Many Should I Freeze?

When it comes to egg freezing, one of the most asked questions is: how many eggs should I freeze? The answer isn’t always so straightforward. How many eggs you *will* freeze (on average) has to do with your age, ovarian reserve, responsiveness to fertility medications, overall health, and biology. How many eggs you *should* ideally freeze is more related to your age (the best understanding of egg quality) and family-building goals (how many kids you're hoping to have). We can help provide answers to both, so you can know what to expect from your egg-freezing experience and how it may affect your future outcomes.

As with most things fertility, age matters. Freezing your eggs before 35 is ideal; it gives you the best shot to get a good number of healthy eggs. Both egg quality (how healthy) and quantity (how many) decline as we age. This means that, as you get older, not only does it often get harder to retrieve more eggs during an egg freezing cycle (because there are fewer available), but the ones that are retrieved may not mature if they aren’t healthy. On the flip side, freezing your eggs too young means that you may not need them—there's a good chance you'll conceive on your own when you're ready. (And while having an insurance policy is great, egg freezing can be costly, time-intensive, and stressful.) Most experts recommend freezing your eggs in your early thirties to balance egg quality with the likelihood you'll need to use your frozen eggs. 

Officially? No. If you haven’t gone through menopause, you still have eggs that can, theoretically, be retrieved. But many clinics will have their own age cut-offs and recommendations. The older you get, the more rounds of egg retrieval you may need to do to get the number of eggs recommended for freezing and the best odds of success. Make sure to check with prospective clinics ahead of time to make sure they'll accept you as a patient. 

When it comes to how many, more is better (since this gives you more opportunities for success). But it's important to remember that with every number or milestone, there's an expected drop off at the next step; just because you retrieve 10 eggs doesn't mean that all will mature enough to be frozen, and just because you freeze 5 eggs doesn't mean you'll have 5 healthy embryos, and so on. When talking to your doctor about your goals, you'll likely consider about the number of mature eggs you freeze and consider your age, uterine environment, sperm quality, and more to estimate your chances of a successful pregnancy. 

The ideal number of eggs to freeze is also related to your own goals. If you’re hoping to have one child, you and your doctor may be comfortable with fewer eggs retrieved and frozen. But if you’re unsure of how many kids you’d like, or want a larger family, having more eggs may be more important.

When it comes to making a baby—no matter how you do it—the odds aren’t always on your side. What increases your chances are time (more cycles) and egg and sperm health (higher quality). In spontaneous conception (trying to get pregnant at home, via intercourse), most couples (85%) will conceive within 1 year (that's 12 eggs if you have regular cycles). But keep in mind these numbers change based on age—the older you are, the more this number drops. When you’re freezing your eggs, having more eggs gives you more opportunity in the future.

Unfortunately, you can’t impact the number of eggs you have left (we’re born with all the eggs we’ll ever have, and this declines as we age). But, you can affect egg quality.