Written by: Kate Morgan
When you’re exploring options to grow your family, it’s natural to assume that “fresh” eggs are better. After all, fresh often sounds more natural, more immediate, and more effective.
But in modern fertility care, that’s not always the case.
Thanks to major advances in egg freezing technology, frozen donor eggs have become not only a reliable option—but in many situations, a better one.
“In terms of scientific history, the embryology field is very young,” says Jennifer Hart, Director of Embryology Relations at Fairfax EggBank. “When egg freezing first started, the process wasn’t very reliable, and people were afraid of frozen eggs.”
Today, the technology of egg preservation has progressed leaps and bounds. Success rates with frozen eggs are on par with fresh donations, and the former offers a lot of advantages. Here are five reasons to choose donor eggs from Fairfax EggBank.
Today’s frozen eggs are preserved using a process called vitrification, which rapidly freezes eggs to prevent damage. This method has dramatically improved outcomes.
“The human oocyte is the largest cell in the human body. It’s the only singular cell that you can see with the naked eye,” says Dr. Wes Edmonds, Scientific Director of Fairfax EggBank. “That means the cell has a really large volume, and the vast majority of any cell’s volume is water.” For some time, egg freezing was made difficult because that water tended to form ice crystals, which can damage cellular tissue.
But in recent years, the process has fundamentally shifted to something called vitrification. It’s a rapid freezing process that uses incredibly cold liquid nitrogen to take the oocyte to a “glass state.” Ice crystals don’t have time to form, and the egg stays perfectly intact.
“We can put the cell into this metabolic slumber,” says Wayne Caswell, Vice President of Laboratory Services with Fairfax EggBank. “Then when it’s transitioned from frozen to warm, it becomes metabolically active again; in other words, we’re able to wake it up.”
Only high-quality eggs are chosen for the process. That standard, combined with the foremost cryopreservation methods, results in clinical outcomes that are comparable to – and sometimes even better than – fresh egg cycles.
Using fresh eggs requires a complicated process of syncing the donor and intended parents’ cycles with the clinic’s schedule. It’s not always straightforward, and it can lead to delays, cancellations, or last-minute changes – all of which can be extremely stressful.
“When you’re trying to coordinate and synchronize a fresh donation program, things don’t always go to plan,” Caswell says. “Those problems are all eliminated when you’re using a frozen donor egg.”
With frozen eggs, the process is much more flexible. Donor screenings are completed, and the eggs are already retrieved and stored, so your care team can move forward when you are ready – without waiting on anyone else’s cycle.
“If you go into a clinic for their fresh donor program, they may have a catalog of 20 active fresh egg donors for you to choose from, and you may look at the pictures of those donors, and none of them look like anybody in your family, and you just don’t really feel connected to any of them,” says Edmonds.
On the contrary, the Fairfax EggBank donor catalog has more than 300 profiles of donors from diverse genetic, geographic, and cultural backgrounds. The detailed donor profiles give you information on medical history, educationand background, plus photos and personal traits.
This gives you the ability to thoughtfully choose a donor who feels right for you, without the time pressure or small donor pool of a live cycle.
Fresh cycles can be unpredictable. If a donor’s response to medication is lower than expected, or if timing doesn’t align, the cycle may be canceled. “We’re talking about human biology,” Edmonds says. “There’s always uncertainty.”
Frozen eggs eliminate much of that uncertainty. The eggs are already retrieved and safely stored, so you can proceed with confidence that you’re getting the highest-quality eggs.
“You have no guarantee of quality when you work with a fresh egg donor,” adds Hart. The Fairfax EggBank Blastocyst Guarantee ensures that if a purchased cohort doesn’t yield a blastocyst embryo suitable for transfer, the patient will be given a replacement cohort of oocytes (from the same donor or a different donor of their choosing) at no additional cost.
Each cohort of frozen donor eggs contains between 6 and 8 eggs on average. When selecting a cohort, the intended parent has control over how many eggs they start with, depending on their family-building goals. While fresh donation may yield more eggs, that’s not always a good thing. “You can end up with a bunch of frozen embryos that you don’t know what to do with,” Hart adds. “Nobody needs 15 frozen embryos to have to make decisions about.”
Fresh egg cycles can involve variable costs depending on:
Frozen egg programs are typically more standardized, which can make financial planning easier and more transparent.
While fresh eggs were once the standard, frozen eggs have transformed fertility care. They offer comparable success rates, greater flexibility with less uncertainty, and more control and choice around your care.
For many intended parents, frozen donor eggs provide a smoother, more predictable path to building a family.
The short answer: yes. Advances in vitrification mean frozen eggs now offer success rates comparable to fresh eggs in many clinics.
Frozen eggs typically offer a much more financially-friendly path to assisted reproduction, with the added benefit of immediate availability. Fairfax EggBank also includes a guarantee of one blastocyst with each cohort of eggs purchased.
To put it simply, choice and control. Fairfax EggBank’s vast catalog means an opportunity to find a donor you feel connected to, and the ability to build your family on your terms and your timeline.
Kate Morgan is a science journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, Popular Science, and many other publications. She lives in rural Pennsylvania, and tends a large garden and small children.
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