Answer from: Maria José Mendiola, MD, MSc in Human Genetics, MSc in Science Communication, ObGyn
I have to say that egg freezing will not reduce your ovarian reserve since the eggs that were designed to be lost will be recovered and saved for the future. If required, then at the age of around 35 the quality of eggs begins to gradually decrease and at 40 years the decline is more marked. Also it will not reduce your chances of having a pregnancy naturally in the future.
Answer from: Saghar Kasiri, Clinical Embryologist
You certainly can get pregnant naturally after you’ve frozen your eggs.
Basically the eggs that you have frozen, the fertility preservation you’ve done is almost like an insurance in case you leave it too late to want to get pregnant or there is an underlying disease that might get worse through the years and therefore you have banked these eggs as an insurance for the future.
Certainly if you’re frozen your eggs in your late 20s or early 30s and you’ve decided now to get pregnant at the age of say for example 35 or 36 you certainly can get pregnant with your own eggs and may not need to use the eggs that you have frozen in the past.
Answer from: Melvin H. Thornton, Associate Professor
I’m laughing because of the question. Can you get pregnant after you freeze your eggs? The answer is yes, definitely. And that’s what we’re looking for. I always tell women that the egg freezing process is like what we call it here in the US a 401k, which means it’s a retiree plan. Hopefully, you never have to use it. They hope to get pregnant afterwards. I think the biggest question is “can you get pregnant after the egg freezing?” A lot of women are worried “well, if I undergo the IVF process, will that damage my ovaries in the future that I won’t be able to get pregnant?” The answer’s no. Hormonal treatment or the actual procedure to retrieve the eggs will not damage your fertility in the future. And we encourage women to try and get pregnant on their own, even though they have frozen their eggs in the past.
Answer from: Ahmed Amer, DipRCPath, MBA, MSc, MEng
Yes, you absolutely can.
Answer from: Ioannis Zervomanolakis, PhD
Of course, a woman could get pregnant naturally after freezing eggs. Since the ovarian reserve is not affected through this procedure.
And in case a woman gets pregnant and would not like to use her eggs, she can contact a clinic, and then we are able to discard these eggs or even decide to donate these eggs to a couple that could not achieve the pregnancy with their own eggs, and they decide to have egg donation.
Answer from: Jessica Subira, M.D. Consultant in Gynecology, Sub-specialist in Reproductive Medicine
Yes, the answer is yes. You can get pregnant naturally after egg freezing unless you have developed premature menopause as a result of chemotherapy treatment or something like that in which case of course your only option would be to use the frozen eggs or the ovarian tissue. We always recommend that when patients have frozen eggs with us that they come and have a chat with us when they decide to get pregnant. That can be maybe a few years after they froze the eggs and then we have to balance pros and cons of using eggs that have been frozen when you were for example 30 as supposed to try and get pregnant naturally when you are almost 40 and your miscarriage rate is going to be much higher so that’s why we always recommend patients to have a chat with us and at least to discuss it but of course yes you can get pregnant naturally after you freeze your eggs.
Answer from: Alicia Tio Castro
Fertility preservation does not impact natural pregnancy rates. Fertility preservation allows to preserve oocytes that would be eliminated naturally in the cycle because in each cycle, our body select certain number of eggs:one of them will be ovulated and others would be destroyed, so when we preserve fertility we use those eggs, so for a healthy women, the ovaries will keep their function after fertility preservation and natural pregnancy is possible. They can use those eggs in the future if natural pregnancy is not possible because of advanced age or any other reason. Different thing is in cases when we preserve fertility because of the health condition, so after the procedure maybe natural conception is not possible, for example, if we preserve the fertility in case of chemotherapy, after the procedure we won’t be able to use our own eggs but if women is healthy, can use own eggs.
