Freeze the eggs or not?- Thalia G.

I have finally finished reading the book!!! The whole book, Get me Out by Randi Hutter Epstein, was very interesting, and full of information. Towards the end, in chapter 14 ‘The Big Chill‘ it was talking about freezing your eggs. This caught my attention because  I am researching about this topic for a school project. And also it is very interesting to know more in depth what they do to get the eggs, and sperms and how they conserve it.

On page 234 they start to talk about vitrification,

“The newer rapid freeze is called vitrification because it forms a glass-like casing around the egg”(234).

The egg is not actually frozen but is converted into glass and stored. later on when they need it they will warm it up and will start to thaw. Most of the babies that are born from the eggs are from the slow-freezing technique. But most doctors are starting to rely more on vitrification because most of the embryos/eggs (etc..)  tend to survive after the post thaw. Which makes the percent of embryo/eggs that survive higher. In this chapter I learned that both methods create a hard shell around the egg that way the sperm can not break inside. That way they will not meet each other and “mate“.

Though both of these methods are advanced, it is not 100 percent sure your eggs will be good by the time you want to use them. It is really hard to tell which eggs are good or bad because you can not tell from under the microscope until they are thawed. It is technically a game of chance because you do not know if the eggs they got from you are developed or not ready at all.

“The embryologist siphoned away the bubbles surrounding the egg with what looked like a tiny turkey baster. They needed each egg solo to assess maturity–how many divisions it had accomplished”(229)

Overall this whole book was really good. I never imagined myself enjoying a book about pregnancy.Now that I have gathered all this information I can now memorize it and use it in class. I know that this is not the end though for obstetrics keeps growing everyday due to new discoveries or experiments (etc….) that are made.