Showing posts with label Egg Freezing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Egg Freezing. Show all posts
LGBTQ Family- Egg Freezing for Lesbian
10/14/2020 09:22:00 PM
In the early days, Taiwan wasn’t open to the idea of forming LGBT families, so same-married families did not have any expectations for having babies. However, in recent years, more and more LGBT friends have gone overseas to seek children and share their successful experiences, which has triggered more friends to consider "freezing eggs" so that they can retain the eggs for the future.
Y is a successful woman. Because she likes girls, she never thought about having children in the future. Until she met her girlfriend C, the two knew each other and loved each other. Before the passage of the Taiwan Same Marriage Law, they had decided to go hand in hand for the rest of life, and gave birth to their children.
Helplessly, Taiwan’s Artificial Reproduction Law has not yet opened LGBT families or single friends to borrow sperm, so they decided to complete this difficult task. They frozen eggs in Taiwan and exported them to foreign countries for sperm borrowing, and they tried to get pregnant together.
However, things didn't go through well. They thought that freezing eggs in Taiwan could be done very quickly, but when they came to the Stork, they were both over 40 years old. Not only the ovarian inventory has declined, but the egg quality has also declined. Not as expected. In order to increase the probability of obtaining a good blastocyst after export, they decided to collect more than 30 eggs each. After discussing with the doctor, they have done the operation of egg retrieval more than 5 times.
After a couple months of treatment for egg collection, and applying for permission from the two governments to export eggs, not only the time is lengthy and the procedures are cumbersome, but also the risk of damage to the eggs during the export process. Fortunately, C finally successfully got pregnant with a baby implanted overseas; while Y started the treatment late and is still in the process of exporting.
Treatment of Y & C
After reading their story, we can't help thinking, if the bill of marriage can pass earlier, or if they can freeze their eggs at an earlier time, can their result be a little different? The surrogacy bill passed on first reading in Taiwan! We believe that the introduction of Artificial Reproduction Law to LGBT families should be close too. But time and eggs are not waiting for others, should we freeze younger and healthier eggs first?
Procedure of Egg Freezing
Eggs can be frozen for 10 years in Taiwan, and extension can be applied for if necessary.
After the eggs are frozen, they will be pregnant after the subsequent passage of relevant regulations in Taiwan.
We assist LGBTQ families to have their own children.
If a Lesbian couple wants to become pregnant, they need to be accompanied by a "sperm recipient" treatment. When you find an overseas reproductive center that can perform the treatment, we can provide you and your partner with relevant assessments, examinations, and medications to help you master the best time for treatment.
At present, the relevant laws and regulations in Taiwan allow the removal of your own germ cells outside of Taiwan. We can assist you to complete the egg retrieval operation in Taiwan and then transfer the eggs to the selected center for subsequent treatment.
Lesbian couples can have two childbearing options after they have finished sperm recipient program, both of which are currently only available at overseas reproductive centers:
Artificial insemination (IUI)：
IUI is the use of a syringe and a thin tube through the cervix during ovulation to inject sperm into your or your partner's uterus.
In Vitro Fertilization(IVF)：
The eggs are provided by you or your partner, and the blastocyst is formed through IVF, and then replanted into your or partner's body to achieve the purpose of pregnancy.
If subsequent artificial reproduction laws are open to Lesbian couples, please refer to the following procedures for sperm recipient in Taiwan.
Procedure of Sperm Recipient
- Register：Oversea Form
- E-mail：en_service@icryobank.com
- WhatsApp：+886-905-737-501
Hesitate no more, Freeze you future now!
9/30/2020 03:16:00 AM
What would you do if you come upon a huge fortune? It is easy to plan how to spend. But what if we are forced to take leave from work for two whole a month with no salary? That is a conundrum.
2019, like the virus, spreads all over the world, countries locking down one by one. The world seems to be frozen. The pandemic has had a significant impact on the aviation industry. With this much free time, what do you want to do the most?
On the morning of 6th March 2020, 3 special patients came into the Doctor’s room. They were besties and visited Stork Fertility Center looking for egg freeze. One of them is a flight attendant, another is a pilot! Wow! At such a young age, so impressive.
I always ask egg-freezing patients three questions,” How do you know us?”, “Why do you want to do egg freeze?” How many babies would you plan to have?” These questions helped me to understand the motive and purpose of the patients. And during the talk, I realized one of the patients are friends with our employee. And she gets into the aviation industry from the medical industry after 4-5 years of strict pilot training. She wanted to focus on her career in the next few years before starting her own family. Freeze your eggs first, so that in the future, you can borrow eggs form yourself! What an awesome idea!
To save more time for them, we arranged a blood test “AMH” right the way, the results came in 45mins after. Surprisingly, even they were at the same age, their AMH result is distinct. One is 5.6ng/mL, one is 3.3ng/mL, and the other didn’t take the test, so we didn’t know the result. AMH is an irreversible index, the best way the face it is to accept the fact. And try to find a way to preserve our fertility.
With AMH data, we can design a precise treatment for the patient. Most of the patients answered the question ambiguously to the question of the birth plan. One, or maybe two. My suggestion is two so that you won’t regret it. The quantity of ovum is revealed by the AMH, but the quality, at this age, how many eggs do you need to take a baby home with IVF treatment.
At this very moment, I use another question to answer their question. “Do you know the name of our Taipei branch?” Sadly, not many of them can give the right answer. Taipei branch is named Stork 11 Fertility Center. Indicated that for women under age 35, freeze 11 mature eggs, we promise 90% chances are going home with a healthy baby.
Then comes with the question:” How many can I have at each surgery? How many surgeries do I need to have 2 babies?” We’ve been performing precise medication treatment for the last decade. Let the data speak, patients with AMH 5.6ng/mL can retrieve over 20 eggs at a time. 22 mature eggs are the goal for 2 babies, so the patient can finish the egg freezing with one retrieval surgery. As for the second patient, with AMH 3.3ng/mL, each retrieval can obtain 15-20 eggs. We might need two surgery, or one if we increase the dosage of the injections. The last patient didn’t test for AMH, there are 10% chances that her AMH is below 2ng/mL. She might need multiple egg retrieval surgery or IVF with donated oocytes to form a family if she didn’t plan for her future now.
Patients worry about returning to the clinic frequently, perform injections every day, and the fee… Their AMH are both above 2ng/mL, I showed them the unique NS( no-ultrasound) treatment at Stork. With only 5-6 injections throughout the treatment, and 1-2 return visit. It is more convenient compared to traditional IVF treatments.
They are both in the aviation industry, can they work after the treatment starts? When can they get back to work after the surgery? I suggested no flying at around cycle day 8, as at that time the follicles in the ovary are growing. Which will lead to bloating to a certain extent. And some will experience nausea due to the increase of hormone. Menstruation will come a week after the surgery. By that time, the patient is fully recovered, so going back to work is not a problem at all.
To maximize the value of each egg, I make sure that they were reminded to go with IVF3.0+ when they thaw eggs in the future. To achieve the highest pregnancy rate.
Can we control our future? The answer is positive! With the pandemic spreading, we can make our spare time meaningful. Most of us might be watching Netflix at home during vacation. But some of us are actively planning for their future.
After reading their story, you can borrow from them, you can have a hold of your future. With two “A”, age and AMH, and refer to the form below. Hesitate no more, Just do it!
（Stork Lai 200316）
Dr. Hsin-Hwa Lai, MD
1. Comparison
with age and AMH : AMH reflects the amount of ovarian storage.
|
Age |
25 or below |
35 |
38 |
40 |
43 or above |
|
AMH |
>6 |
4 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
|
Reminder |
Age lies：For women under 30, up to 8%
are with AMH<2.5ng/mL |
||||
2.Number of
oocytes that you need for 1 baby with IVF at different age:
|
Age |
31~34 |
35~37 |
38~40 |
|
No. of mature egg |
11 |
15 |
20 |
|
Note |
Statistics From Stork
Fertility Center |
||
3. Inspiration : Age can not 100% imply your ovarian storage. Those two in the story are higher than average. But there are many that a lot lower than average. For women over 30, I suggest that monitor AMH result annually.
Grab your future, Now!
Register：Oversea Form
Facebook：e-Stork FB PageE-mail：en_service@icryobank.comWhatsApp：+886-905-737-501
Oocyte Freezing – A Friend from Shanghai
11/29/2019 08:32:00 PM
Oocyte Freezing – A Friend from Shanghai
Becoming a bride and becoming a mother are two important life events for women. However we cannot predict future. When will we fulfill our dream? When can we meet Mr. Right? Why not embrace the freedom of uncertainty? Oocyte freezing is a good choice for us to free ourselves.
By Dr. Stork Lai
Engagement is a promise to get married.
Oocyte freezing is insurance for having a baby in the future. Becoming a bride
and becoming a mother are two important life events for women. To whom will you
reach out your hand for such important events?
We have a lot of clients from oversea. Clients
from Mainland China are lesser. But it’s increasing these two years. Most of
them are “high difficulty” cases. For example, primary ovarian insufficiency, habitual abortion, genetic disease
and fail for a lot of times. However, there was no one from Mainland China came
for oocyte freezing program. And she became the first one.
I met her
last March. She came with her friend. They met each other when they studied in
Europe. This Taiwanese friend froze her eggs few months earlier, because she
had goals to reach at the time. After freezing, her future seems to be full of
hope, which made her felt great and wanted to share with her friend and leaded
to our first oocyte freezing client from Mainland China.
It’s easier
when you have a friend accompany with you. After first consultation, she
brought back all the injections needed in the program. I designed the simplest
stimulated protocol for her. Which not only can minimize the time she came to
Taiwan but also retrieve more oocytes. Moreover, in order to avoid ovarian hyper
stimulation syndrome, I choose to use GnRHa as trigger injection.
We met
for the second time on the ninth day of her period. She came for ultrasound and
blood test and get total 19 follicles. Two of them are large, six in medium
size. The others are small ones. Because the growing speed of the follicles
were faster than expected, we do oocyte retrieval two days earlier than my
original plan. We got 22 oocytes in total. Exclude one bad quality oocyte and
two immature
ones, 19 mature oocytes were frozen.
Life is full of uncertainty. When will we
fulfill our dream? When can we meet Mr. Right? Why not embrace the freedom of uncertainty?
And try to do what you can do for your future self. She only came to Taiwan two
times and stay for about a week. Except came for following check up shortly,
she was traveling Taiwan for most of her time. Experience beauty of nature and
exotic culture.
Can oocyte freezing bring blessing and good
luck? I received a box of delicate wedding cake a few days before. The familiar name printed on the card
surprised me. She studied in America and had a great job after graduate.
However, she hadn't get married. And came for oocyte freezing around 40 years
old. And after two years, she finally met the one she wanted to walk down the
aisle with. She is the first one who get married after oocyte freezing. I'm so
happy for her.
Before
oocyte freezing, there are three questions I will ask. "Do you have a
boyfriend that you are considering marry him?","Will you get married
within 2 to 3 years?", "How many children do you want after you get
married?". I've ask her before. Although the answer was no, she finally
found the one, which makes me very happy.
Register：Oversea Form
Facebook：e-Stork FB PageContorl you feutre, Beyond Eggs and IVF 3.0+ plus
8/31/2019 08:52:00 AM
she didn't want to fly over for ERA, so we transfer 1 normal embryo with the traditional format. Unfortunately, we failed. She did ERA at the next month, found that.....
Can we control our future ? What if we can make plans for our life, what will your future like?
Miss F from Nanjing, China, had followed her plan of life, came to Stork at the age of 32, with a high AMH data, 3.81ng/ml. Been through 2 oocyte-pick up surgery, froze and stored 25 mature eggs.
Two years later, Miss F meet her Mr.Right and got married. Tried to have a baby for a year but life is not what she expected. Did a test of her AMH again, only 0.8 left. At age 35, she thawed the eggs started IVF treatment. 20 out 25 mature eggs survived, after insemination, culture for 6 days, we created 9 embryos, and 5 of them graded 5BB and the other 4 were BC grade. Implantation fails or success, it really depends on whether the chromosome is normal or not, even if the gradings are good.
Embryo gradings are just for reference, Miss F choose to do IVF 3.0+, 5 BB grading embryos were all biopsied and 3 of them sent for PGS test. Two out of three are with normal chromosome, one is with partial abnormalities. With younger age group comes with lower chromosome abnormalities, she is very lucky that she had chosen to freeze eggs at a young age. According to statistics, the embryos that created by the 32-year-old group can have almost 60% normal chromosome rate. These 3 embryos are suitable for implantation, form our experience, transfer 1 embryo with normal chromosome can achieve 60~70% pregnancy rate.
As Miss F lives overseas, she didn't want to fly over for ERA, so we transfer 1 normal embryo with the traditional format. Unfortunately, we failed. She did ERA at the next month, found that the WOI(window of implantation) is different than others, intake progesterone for 96 hours, which is 24hours earlier than our traditional format, that might be the main reason why we failed the first time.
Two months later, Miss F took progesterone for 96 hours and with a normal embryo, we performed precise implantation. After two weeks, her ßHCG data reached 10,567! Three more weeks later, we have a heartbeat. She is now a happy mother-to-be.
What were the factors of a perfect ending? the answer is ’IVF 3.0+’. Without PGS, how can we know whether the embryos are normal or not? Without ERA how can we know the precise WOI for each one? It is a huge waste if we transfer a normal embryo at the wrong time. Also if we are at the right time transferring an untested embryo, is just gambling. Is not like we can depend on appearance only. With PP-IVF ( personalized precision IVF), we can make it work.
Life is full of uncertainty, we can not control our future, but we can freeze our eggs for our future. About egg freezing, some might not understand how it works or near heard of it, worrying about it is not useable in the future, or the thaw-egg pregnancy rate. Afraid of missing put the optimal age to conceive a child, at the age 35-37, the cost-performance ratio is the best. It is proofed by science, after age 38, the quality of egg drop rapidly, which made the coat of doing IVF a lot higher compared to use frozen egg at age 35-37.
Stork’s oocyte bank use thawed egg for egg recipients’ IVF treatment, at 2018, we thawed 7,604 eggs and 7,206 survived. The survival rate achieved by 95%. The following fertilization rate 77%, embryo rate 66%. It's much likely equal to fresh eggs. determine the technology level is not only by the freeze-thaw result. Appling polarized microscope to do insemination at the right time is also very important. As well as the embryo culture system, and can it apply PGS to determine whether the embryo is normal? If the answers are all YES, then transfer 1 normal embryo can reach 80% pregnancy rate. This is the most important criterion to choose to freeze " Beyond Egg". It is only worth it if we can use the Beyond egg to create the highest pregnancy rate!
[Patient Testimonial] I was sophomore, I chose freezing my eggs
6/10/2019 01:31:00 AM
On the third day of my period, I went
back to the center and took ultrasonic scanning. I told Dr. Wang, that I didn’t have any
confidence in my condition. However, I still remembered he encouraged me and
said “don’t worry and let’s work on it together.” I felt hopeful and believed no
matter how my treatment will be, Dr. Wang will be there for me. After seeing
Doctor, they arranged me to inject the first long-acting rFSH and needed to
take some luteal support in following days. Donna explained all the details
after then. My feeling was complicated, but happy for starting my first step of
my treatment. Additionally, the APP of from the Stork showing all the steps of
my treatment and the data is really convenient for me to track the status.
However, the app doesn't have English version right now. I believe it will come
out soon.
During the 9th
day of the period, I took the ultrasonic scanning again and then taking blood
testing. Dr. Wang checked my test result and had positive comment on it. He had
confidence to collect at least 10 eggs. Therefore, in order prompt my body to
produce multiple egg, I would be prescribed injection medications.
On 14th day of
my period, it's the day for eggs retrieval. I woke up early and went to Stork
for checking in. I was guided to surgery room. I was checked with ultrasound.
The Sonographer told me "Did you see? You have many eggs in your belly
now." I felt relax and worthy. After surgery, I felt pain. But I heard we
had a great job from Dr. Wang. The surgery was successful and had a great
result. There were total 28 eggs with this retrieval that
was better than I expected. However, I got the bad news about my cysts were
back again. By freezing egg, I felt much power and courage to endure all myhealthconditions.I’m
glad I save my wishes in Stork Fertility Center. This was my biggest gift of my
24th birthday.
I went home and ate the food
that the center provided. While I was guessing how much eggs would be storaged
this time, and I got the call from them. They told me there were 20 eggs were
mature that could be frozen. I looked the
medicine what I brought from clinic, I knew it will be done after I finished
all the medicine. The detail information of my eggs
was shown on the APP I felt surprised again, due to I saw the details of
my eggs and the photos. It was to wonderful.
One day, I will get married
and have kids. I don't want anything stop my future life. I hope my story would
encourage those girls who face the same problem as me. Please don't ignore the body
signals as you are young. Don’t hesitate, believe yourself, be brave, no
regrets. Best wishes! Register：Oversea Form Facebook：e-Stork FB Page
E-mail：en_service@icryobank.com
WhatsApp：+886-905-737-501[Patient Testimonial] Egg Freezing: A single woman Turing to 39
2/20/2019 11:19:00 PM
I’ll be 39 in 2 months. Of course, my birthday wishes are meeting a perfect guy and having a happy family. Maybe it's not the time yet, my Mr. Right hasn’t showed up. In order to keep my egg fresh, I decided to contact one of my friends, Amber, who works in Stork Fertility Center. After knowing the cost and process of egg freezing, I shared this information to my close single friends. However, none of them was interested in it. Therefore, I held back from thinking this thought.March, 2018I think it is fate. In the Lunar New Year, my relatives mentioned the topic of egg freezing and asked me how’s my treatment going. My mom heard and also encouraged me to keep going my treatment. After that, I asked my close friends again. Finally, one of my close friends would like to join me. Thus, I called Amber right away and scheduled the following steps.Before treatment start, Amber scheduled me to do the Ovary check. The result showed my AMH was only 1.9 which was less than normal data. It strengthened my determination of freezing my eggs.On the Second day of my period, I went to Hsinchu for meeting my doctor. My doctor was Ms. Sophia. We have been through the conversation and checking my virginal. After that, the person from center helped me inject a long-action rFSH. Because I live in Taipei, which means I can't come back to Stork frequently. That's why they prepare a back-up injection for me.There are two office visits during the treatment; one office visit is on the 8th day of period, another is on the 10th day. These two visits were in their corporation clinic in Taipei, that's why I didn’t need to go to Hsinchu. On the 12th day of my period, I went to Hsinchu for egg retrieval. After going through whole process of egg freezing, it's not as complicated as I thought. It could be done in two weeks, and only return to Stork twice for body check-up and egg retrieval. And then I could just follow up at their corporation clinic in Taipei. In addition, the total cost of the treatment is only 110k which is affordable for me.Based on my experience, Egg freezing treatment is not difficult, just need to have confidence on Stork, have time, and fee ready. Following the instruction and steps that Stork provide. With Stork you could trust it, enjoy the professional service and lasted equipment.
The Key for Implantation - Endometrium Thickness
12/26/2018 12:25:00 AM
The Key for Implantation - Endometrium Thickness
Stork Fertility Center
Dr. Lee
In IVF, we’ve been discussing the ideal thickness of endometrium for implantation.
Besides, is the criteria the same for both fresh blastocysts and frozen-thaw blastocysts implantation? Will it be the same? We did not have many studies on the above issue.
This September(2018), Human Reproduction, a research team from Canada, using the database of local IVF treatment, analyzed over 40 thousand implantation cycles of both fresh blastocysts transfer(BT) and frozen-thaw blastocysts transfer (FBT).
A result had been found: Clinical pregnancy and live birth rates decline as the endometrial thickness decreases below 8 mm in BT and below 7 mm in FBT cycles.
As shown in the study,in the BT cycle, the pregnancy rate for endometrium thickness ≥8mm is 43.2%, the abortion rate is 22%, the live birth rate is 33.7%. Comparing to the statistics of thickness.
