Egg Freezing in Manchester
Egg freezing is a way of storing your eggs at the age you are now, so that they can be used to try for a pregnancy later. The eggs are collected after a short course of hormone injections, frozen within hours using a rapid technique called vitrification and kept in liquid nitrogen until you are ready. Aurora Healthcare offers consultant-led egg freezing in Manchester, with eggs stored in an HFEA-licensed laboratory, for women freezing for personal reasons and for those who need to protect their fertility before medical treatment.
This page answers the questions people ask us most: how the process works, who it suits, the best age to do it, how many eggs you need, what the success rates really are, what it costs and how long eggs can be stored under UK law.
Sources: HFEA egg freezing guidance and Fertility Trends 2023. Egg numbers vary with age and ovarian reserve.
How does egg freezing work?
A cycle takes around two to three weeks from the first injection to egg collection, and most of it happens at home. The stages below are the same ones used in IVF, up to the point where the eggs are frozen rather than fertilised.
Consultation and testing
Your consultant reviews your history and arranges an AMH blood test and an ultrasound scan to count the follicles in your ovaries. Together these estimate how many eggs a cycle is likely to produce. Screening blood tests for HIV and hepatitis B and C are required by law before storage.
Ovarian stimulation
Daily hormone injections, which you give yourself with a fine pen needle, encourage a group of follicles to mature at once rather than the single one your body would release naturally. Two or three scans track their growth.
Trigger injection
When the follicles reach the right size, a final injection matures the eggs. Collection is timed 36 hours later.
Egg collection
A short procedure under sedation, in which the eggs are drawn from the ovaries with a fine needle guided by ultrasound. You go home the same day, and most women are back to normal within 48 hours.
Vitrification and storage
Mature eggs are frozen the same day by vitrification, which cools them so quickly that damaging ice crystals cannot form. They are then stored in liquid nitrogen at minus 196 degrees.
Using your eggs later
When you are ready, the eggs are thawed and fertilised with sperm by ICSI (a single sperm injected into each egg), and the best resulting embryo is transferred to the womb. This is the same process as IVF and ICSI.
Who is egg freezing for?
People freeze their eggs for two broad reasons, and the two groups tend to search, plan and feel very differently about it.
Social (elective) egg freezing
Social egg freezing means freezing for personal rather than medical reasons: you are not ready to have a child now, you have not met the partner you want to do it with, your career or finances are not where you want them, or you simply want to take some of the pressure off the decision. It is now the most common reason women in the UK freeze their eggs, and the HFEA’s latest figures show egg freezing cycles rose by 170 per cent between 2019 and 2023, with the biggest increases among women in their early and mid-thirties.
Freezing does not stop your fertility from changing over time, and it is not a guarantee. What it does is hold a set of eggs at their current quality, which is why timing matters so much. If you are weighing it up, a fertility profiling assessment gives you the two numbers that make the decision clearer: your AMH level and your antral follicle count.
Medical egg freezing
Medical egg freezing protects fertility before something that may damage it. The most common situations are:
- Chemotherapy or radiotherapy for cancer, where treatment can harm the eggs stored in the ovaries. Egg freezing can usually be fitted in before treatment starts, and NHS funding is often available.
- Surgery on the ovaries, for example for severe endometriosis or large cysts, where some ovarian tissue may be lost.
- A family history or genetic risk of early menopause, where the egg supply may run down sooner than average.
- Gender-affirming treatment, before hormone therapy begins.
- Couples going through IVF who prefer, for ethical or religious reasons, to freeze eggs rather than embryos.
What is the best age to freeze your eggs?
Before 35 if you can, and the earlier in your thirties the better. Egg numbers and egg quality both fall with age, and the quality decline is the one that drives results: an egg frozen at 32 has a much better chance of becoming a healthy embryo than one frozen at 40, however well it is stored.
That does not mean there is no point after 35. Between 35 and 37 results are still good, and many of our patients freeze in this window; it is the single biggest age group in the national data. From 38 onwards each cycle tends to produce fewer eggs and a smaller proportion of them will be chromosomally normal, so you may need more than one cycle to store a worthwhile number. Beyond 40 we will talk to you frankly about the odds before you commit, because the honest answer is sometimes that the money is better spent on trying now, or on considering egg donation later.
How many eggs should you freeze?
Most women under 38 have around 7 to 14 eggs collected in a single cycle, according to the HFEA, though not every egg will be mature enough to freeze and not every frozen egg will survive thawing. Published models suggest that storing around 15 to 20 mature eggs before the age of 35 gives a good chance of at least one baby, and that more are needed as age rises. Many women reach that number in one cycle; others choose to do two. Your scan and AMH result will give a reasonable prediction before you start, so you can plan for the number you want rather than hoping.
What are the success rates for egg freezing?
Honest answer: good, if you freeze young and freeze enough, and lower than most people assume if you do not. With modern vitrification, roughly 80 to 90 per cent of eggs survive thawing, around seven in ten of those fertilise with ICSI, and a proportion of the resulting embryos will be suitable for transfer. The chance of a live birth per thawed egg is in the low single figures for most age groups, which is why the number of eggs matters as much as their age.
The HFEA points out that, because relatively few women have yet come back to use their frozen eggs, national success statistics for frozen eggs are thin. Its advice is to look instead at fresh IVF birth rates for your age band, since a thawed egg from a 33-year-old behaves much like a fresh egg from a 33-year-old. You can compare verified results for any UK clinic on the HFEA website.
How much does egg freezing cost in the UK?
Across the UK, the HFEA puts the average cost of an egg collection and freezing cycle at around £3,350, with medication adding £500 to £1,500, annual storage between £125 and £350, and a later thaw, ICSI and embryo transfer cycle around £2,500. For the whole process, from freezing to using the eggs, that comes to roughly £7,000 to £8,000.
UK averages published by the HFEA, not Aurora prices.
At Aurora, egg freezing is priced as a package covering consultant care, monitoring scans, egg collection, laboratory work and the first period of storage, so there are no surprise additions, and our treatment funding options include plans that spread the cost. We will give you a written quote at your first consultation. Where egg freezing is for a medical reason such as cancer treatment, NHS funding may be available in your area and we can advise on how to access it.
How long can frozen eggs be stored?
Since 1 July 2022, UK law allows eggs, sperm and embryos to be stored for any period up to a maximum of 55 years from the date they first go into storage, whatever the reason for freezing. Before that date most women were limited to 10 years, and some older websites still quote that figure.
There is one condition: you must renew your consent every 10 years for storage to continue lawfully. The clinic will contact you when a renewal is due, so keeping your address and email up to date matters; if consent lapses, the law requires the eggs to be removed from storage. Your consent form also records what should happen to your eggs if you were to die or lose the capacity to decide, and whether unused eggs may be donated for someone else’s treatment or for research. We go through all of this with you before anything is frozen.
What are the risks of egg freezing?
The stimulation and collection stages are the same as in IVF, which has an excellent safety record. The main risks are:
- Side effects of the hormone injections, usually mild: bloating, tenderness, mood changes and tiredness for a week or two.
- Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS), where the ovaries over-respond. Mild OHSS is uncommon and self-limiting; severe OHSS is rare and is largely avoided by careful dosing and scan monitoring, which is standard in our cycles.
- Procedure risks at egg collection, such as bleeding or infection, which are very small.
- The risk that it does not work: that fewer eggs than hoped are collected, or that thawed eggs do not go on to produce a pregnancy.
Children born from vitrified eggs have been followed for well over a decade and the evidence to date shows no increase in birth abnormalities compared with conventional IVF. The HFEA notes there is not yet enough evidence to say whether very long storage affects egg viability, which is one more reason not to leave using them later than you need to.
Egg freezing or embryo freezing?
If you have a partner, you may be offered the choice of freezing embryos rather than eggs. The table shows the practical differences.
| Egg freezing | Embryo freezing | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it suits | Single women, and anyone who wants to keep their options open | Couples who are certain they want to use the embryos together |
| What is stored | Unfertilised eggs, yours alone | Embryos, which legally need both partners’ consent to use |
| Survival after thawing | Around 80 to 90 per cent with vitrification | Around 95 per cent |
| Information before freezing | You know how many eggs were mature | You know how many embryos developed, which is a better guide to future chances |
| Flexibility | Complete: you choose who to use them with, and when | Limited: if the relationship ends, either partner can withdraw consent |
Why freeze your eggs with Aurora in Manchester?
- Consultant-led throughout. Your cycle is planned and monitored by Dr Edmond Edi-Osagie, Consultant Gynaecologist and Medical Director, not handed between clinicians.
- HFEA-licensed storage. Vitrification and storage are carried out in the laboratory of our partner, one of the longest-established IVF units in the North West, under HFEA licence.
- A frank conversation first. We will tell you what your AMH and follicle count suggest, how many cycles you are likely to need and, if we think freezing is not the right use of your money, we will say so.
- Gynaecology under the same roof. If endometriosis, fibroids or PCOS are part of your picture, they are managed by the same team rather than referred elsewhere.
- Support built in. Fertility counselling is available to everyone considering egg freezing, free of charge, and we encourage you to use it.
- Easy to reach. Our clinic in Cheadle is a short drive from central Manchester and the airport, with patients travelling from across Cheshire, Lancashire and further afield. CQC registered.
Frequently asked questions
Can I freeze my eggs on the NHS?
Usually only for medical reasons, for example before chemotherapy, and even then it depends on your local integrated care board. Social egg freezing is not NHS funded anywhere in the UK, so most women pay privately.
Does egg freezing guarantee a baby later?
No. It improves your chances compared with using your own eggs at an older age, but a proportion of eggs do not survive thawing or fertilise, and not every embryo implants. Freezing before 35 and storing enough eggs are the two things that make the biggest difference.
Is egg freezing painful?
Most women describe it as uncomfortable rather than painful. The injections use very fine needles, scans take minutes, and egg collection is done under sedation so you are not aware of it. Expect to feel bloated and tired for a few days afterwards.
Can I freeze my eggs at 40?
You can, and some women do, but each cycle will produce fewer eggs and fewer of them will be chromosomally normal. We would want to see your AMH and scan results and talk through the realistic odds before you commit.
How much time off work do I need?
Very little. Scans are short morning appointments, and most women take one day off for egg collection and feel fine the next. The injections fit around a normal working day.
What happens to my eggs if I never use them?
That is your decision, and it is recorded on your consent form. You can allow them to be discarded, donate them to another woman’s treatment or donate them for research, and you can change that decision at any time.
About the reviewer
Dr Edmond Edi-Osagie is a Consultant Gynaecologist and the Medical Director of Aurora Healthcare, with more than 20 years’ experience in assisted conception and advanced laparoscopic surgery. He established and leads the BSGE-accredited endometriosis centre at Aurora and is a Senior Lecturer in Gynaecology at the University of Manchester.
Contact Aurora Healthcare
Talk to a consultant about freezing your eggs
A first consultation covers your AMH and scan results, how many eggs you could expect, what it would cost and whether now is the right time. No GP referral is needed. Book a consultation or call 0161 244 8623.
