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Egg Freezing
A Place for Modern Miracles! Over 20,000 Babies Born.
The Florida Institute for Reproductive Medicine (F.I.R.M.) offers egg freezing — also known as oocyte cryopreservation — for women in Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Tallahassee, and Valdosta, GA who want to preserve their fertility for the future. The process involves stimulating the ovaries to produce multiple eggs, retrieving those eggs, and freezing them using a technique called vitrification for storage until the patient is ready to use them. F.I.R.M.'s board-certified reproductive endocrinologists personalize every egg freezing cycle based on the patient's age, hormone levels, and ovarian reserve, and are recognized by Newsweek as one of America's Best Fertility Clinics.
The Florida Institute for Reproductive Medicine (F.I.R.M.) offers egg freezing and fertility preservation services for women in Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Tallahassee, and Valdosta, GA — providing a personalized, board-certified approach to protecting fertility on your timeline.
Reviewed by the Physicians of F.I.R.M. — The clinical content on this page reflects the expertise of F.I.R.M.'s board-certified reproductive endocrinologists, including Kevin Winslow, MD, Teresa Erb, MD, Adrienne Gentry, DO, and Viji Sundaram, MD. F.I.R.M. has been recognized by Newsweek as one of America's Best Fertility Clinics and has helped more than 20,000 families over 35+ years. F.I.R.M. offers egg freezing at clinics across North Florida and Southeast Georgia.
The ability to freeze a human egg offers at least two important options for women: fertility preservation for women faced with potentially sterilizing therapies and individuals postponing childbearing, as well as couples requiring in vitro fertilization (IVF) who are ethically opposed to freezing (pre)embryos. Being able to freeze eggs also allows for the establishment of egg banks, greatly improving the efficiency and lowering costs for donor egg IVF.
We have been able to freeze (pre)embryos since the early 80’s, a technique that is routinely performed in most reproductive medicine programs. Freezing an unfertilized egg is much more difficult because of the large size and water content, i.e. as the egg cools ice crystals develop which can damage the working components known as organelles. When a (pre)embryo is frozen, the essential task of these organelles has already been performed.
The first pregnancy from a frozen egg was achieved by Dr. Chen in 1986. Following this pregnancy there were no other pregnancies until the early 90’s. With the abolishment of (pre)embryo freezing by the Italian government there was a resurgence in egg freezing technology. Dr. Borini and others refined the protocols for egg freezing, and with the advent of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), whereby a single sperm could be injected into an egg the efficiency of egg freezing increased. Dr. Dunsong Yang, the head of embryology at the Florida Institute for Reproductive Medicine, was one of the early pioneers in refining the egg freezing protocol, greatly improving its efficiency.
The Florida Institute for Reproductive Medicine has one of the largest experiences with egg freezing in the nation with over 63 babies born, including the first baby born in the world to a cancer patient who froze her eggs prior to chemotherapy. Currently we are seeing pregnancy efficiencies of approximately 10 eggs equating with an ongoing pregnancy for egg donors 35 years or less and approximately 14 mature eggs for those 36-38 years of age. In general, we do not freeze eggs beyond 38 because of the high percentage of abnormal eggs. Our work on egg freezing has been chronicled in People, Self, Pink, Conceive, and Woman magazines as well as on CBS, NBC, BBC News, and the Today Show.
To date, in the world there are approximately 3,000 babies born from frozen eggs. Health data on these infants continues to be very reassuring. Until, however, high numbers of these children have reached adulthood and reproduced, the absolute safety of this technology cannot be asserted. For that reason egg cryopreservation is still recommended to be done under an IRB (institutional review board) approved protocol. At the Florida Institute for Reproductive Medicine we keep yearly surveys of our cryo egg births through annual questionnaires to parents and pediatricians. Costs for egg freezing at the Florida Institute for Reproductive Medicine mimic those of an IVF cycle, i.e. approximately $10,500.
We will store eggs at no charge for a period of five years, after that time there is an annual storage fee of $400. For our cancer patients seeking fertility preservation, we have been able to get medicines donated by the Ferring drug company, saving patients approximately $3500. The longest an individual has stored eggs to date and had a successful pregnancy is 6 ½ years. We do not believe there likely is a shelf life to frozen eggs.
Egg freezing, or oocyte cryopreservation, is a process in which a woman's eggs are retrieved, frozen, and stored for future use. At F.I.R.M., the process begins with ovarian stimulation — using injectable hormones to encourage the ovaries to produce multiple eggs. Once the eggs reach maturity, they are retrieved in a brief outpatient procedure and immediately frozen using vitrification, a flash-freezing technique that minimizes ice crystal formation and preserves egg quality.
Egg freezing is a good option for women who want to preserve their fertility before age-related decline, those facing medical treatments such as chemotherapy that may affect fertility, or women who are not yet ready to start a family but want to keep their options open. F.I.R.M.'s board-certified reproductive endocrinologists evaluate each patient individually to determine whether egg freezing is appropriate based on age, ovarian reserve, and personal goals.
The egg freezing process at F.I.R.M. typically involves an initial consultation and hormone testing, followed by approximately 10–14 days of ovarian stimulation with injectable medications. Monitoring appointments track follicle development via ultrasound and blood work. Once follicles reach the appropriate size, a trigger injection is given, and egg retrieval takes place approximately 36 hours later under light sedation. Retrieved eggs are then vitrified and stored.
The number of eggs needed to achieve a reasonable chance of a future live birth varies by age and individual ovarian reserve. Your F.I.R.M. physician will discuss realistic expectations based on your specific hormone levels and ovarian response during your consultation. Some patients complete multiple retrieval cycles to reach their target number.
Yes. F.I.R.M. offers egg freezing and fertility preservation services at its Jacksonville and Daytona Beach locations. To schedule a consultation, call (904) 399-5620 or request an appointment online.