Guide · What actually happens
Roughly two weeks of treatment, four to six weeks end to end, and one twenty minute procedure. Here is every stage in order, what each one involves, and the parts nobody explains properly until you are already in them.
Most people considering egg freezing are not put off by the idea of it. They are put off because nobody has told them plainly what the fortnight actually looks like, how much of their life it will take over, and whether they will be able to work through it.
So here is the whole thing, in order.
About two weeks of active treatment, and four to six weeks from your first conversation to eggs in storage. The active phase is ten to twelve days of daily injections you give yourself at home, three or four short monitoring scans, and a twenty minute retrieval under sedation.
The gap between four weeks and six is almost entirely waiting for your next period, because stimulation has to begin at the start of a cycle. If your period is two days away when you decide, you are on the short end. If it just finished, you are on the long end. Nothing about the medical side changes.
| Stage | When | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Consultation and tests | Any time before a cycle | One visit, results in 2 to 3 days |
| Baseline scan and bloods | Day 1 to 3 of your period | About 30 minutes |
| Stimulation injections | From day 2 or 3 | 10 to 12 days, at home |
| Monitoring scans | Every 2 to 3 days | 3 to 4 short visits |
| Trigger injection | When follicles are ready | One injection, timed to the hour |
| Egg retrieval | 36 hours after trigger | About 20 minutes, day procedure |
| Vitrification and storage | Same day as retrieval | Within hours |
| Back to normal | After retrieval | 1 to 2 days |
Nothing sensible can be planned until two numbers exist.
AMH, a blood test, and antral follicle count, a scan, together estimate your ovarian reserve. They are what make it possible to predict roughly how you will respond, choose a starting dose, and have an honest conversation about how many eggs one cycle is likely to yield. A hormone panel and routine infection screening are done alongside.
These tests can be done at any point in a cycle and do not commit you to proceeding. Plenty of people do them purely to know where they stand, which is a reasonable thing to want. Our guide to the best age to freeze eggs covers how to read the results.
You call on the first day of your period, and come in within the first three days. A short ultrasound confirms the ovaries are quiet with no cysts, and a blood test confirms hormone levels are where they should be to start. This appointment takes about half an hour and is the point at which the clock genuinely starts.
This is the part people worry about most and find easiest in practice.
In an ordinary month, one follicle matures and the rest are lost. Stimulation keeps that whole group growing together, so instead of one egg you retrieve many. It works by replacing the hormonal signal that would normally shut the others down.
Practically: one or two small subcutaneous injections a day, into the abdomen or thigh, using pre-filled pens. You do them yourself at home after being shown how, at roughly the same time each evening. Almost everyone who dreads this finds the first one is the only difficult one. A second medication is usually added after a few days to stop you ovulating early.
This runs for ten to twelve days, though it can be a little shorter or longer depending on how your follicles grow.
Bloating is the main one, and it builds through the phase as the ovaries enlarge. Fullness, mild pelvic heaviness, tenderness at injection sites, and some mood variability are all common. Most people work normally throughout. Towards the end, tight waistbands and high-impact exercise stop being appealing.
Three or four short scans during the phase, each about half an hour, measuring follicle size and checking hormone levels. They exist for two reasons: to adjust your dose as you go, and to time the trigger correctly. They are also the safeguard against overstimulation, which is why skipping them is not an option.
When the follicles reach the right size, a single trigger injection completes the final stage of egg maturation. It is given at a precise time, usually late evening, and retrieval follows exactly 36 hours later.
The timing genuinely matters to the hour. Too early and the eggs are immature; too late and ovulation may already have happened, which would mean the eggs are gone. You will be told the exact minute to do it, and that is the one instruction in this whole process worth setting an alarm for.
Start with a fertility check. It tells you what a cycle is likely to yield before you commit to anything, and there is no obligation attached.
Contact us →A day procedure, done under sedation, taking around twenty minutes.
A fine needle is guided by ultrasound through the vaginal wall to each follicle, and the fluid is drawn off and passed straight to the embryologist. There is no incision and no stitches. You are asleep and feel nothing. You will have fasted from the night before.
You rest for an hour or two afterwards and go home the same day. You cannot drive after sedation, so someone needs to collect you. Take the day off, and ideally the next one too.
Within minutes of retrieval, the embryologist identifies the eggs in the fluid and assesses which are mature. Only mature eggs are suitable for freezing, which is why the number frozen is usually a little lower than the number of follicles counted on your last scan. You are told the number the same day.
This is the stage that decides whether any of the preceding fortnight was worth it, and the one people ask the fewest questions about.
Eggs are around 80 percent water. Frozen slowly, that water forms ice crystals which destroy the internal structure, which is why egg freezing worked poorly for decades. Vitrification solves it by cooling so fast, with cryoprotectants in place, that the water passes into a glass-like state without ever crystallising. The eggs reach minus 196 degrees Celsius in seconds.
Done properly, survival rates after thaw are high. Done carelessly, the eggs are lost and nobody finds out until the day you come back for them, years later. The difference sits entirely in the hands and protocols of the lab doing it, which is the argument for choosing a lab on its cryopreservation record rather than on its waiting-room furniture.
From there your eggs are logged into an ART-registered storage bank, in labelled, monitored, alarmed tanks, where they stay until you want them.
Get in touch promptly rather than waiting if you have severe pain, rapid abdominal swelling, significant weight gain over a day or two, breathlessness or reduced urination. These can indicate ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which is uncommon and very manageable when caught early. The monitoring scans are designed largely to prevent it.
Sometimes, and it depends mostly on your age and reserve. The target is a workable number of eggs in storage, not a completed cycle, so some people do a second round.
The useful point is that you do not have to decide this in advance. Your first cycle produces real data on how you respond, and any decision about a second is made with that in front of you rather than on a projection.
No, and this is worth being precise about because the confusion puts people off unnecessarily.
Egg freezing uses the first half of an IVF cycle, stimulation and retrieval, and then stops. Nothing is fertilised, no embryo is created, and no decision about a partner or donor is made or implied. What is stored is your eggs, unfertilised. We cover this properly in do you need IVF to freeze eggs and in egg freezing against embryo freezing.
Cell Mate does preservation and diagnostics. We do not do fertility treatment.
So across this process: your testing, counselling, vitrification and long-term storage are ours, and the retrieval is performed by a licensed ART partner clinic, because retrieval is a procedure. Your eggs come back to our ART-registered bank.
The reason this arrangement is worth understanding is what it removes. At a clinic that also sells IVF, the person advising you on whether to freeze, how many cycles to do and what to do next has an interest in the answer. We have no treatment to sell you at any point, and your eggs are not held hostage to a clinic relationship. They can be moved to any clinic in India or abroad, whenever you decide, without asking our permission. That is the whole point of being clinic-agnostic.
Prefer this in Hindi? Read egg freezing kya hota hai.
Cell Mate serves Delhi, New Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Ghaziabad. If you are weighing this up, the sensible first move is not to commit to a cycle. It is to get your AMH and antral follicle count done and find out what a cycle would realistically give you. For what it costs, see egg freezing cost in Delhi NCR, and for the service itself, egg freezing in Delhi NCR.
About two weeks of active treatment, and four to six weeks from your first conversation to eggs in storage. The active part is roughly ten to twelve days of injections followed by a twenty minute retrieval. Most of the remaining time is simply waiting for your next period, because stimulation has to begin at the start of a cycle.
The retrieval itself is done under sedation, so you do not feel it, and it takes around twenty minutes with no incision and no stitches. Afterwards most people describe cramping similar to a heavy period for a day or two, along with bloating. Discomfort during the injection phase is usually mild, with bloating being the most common complaint.
Usually one or two injections a day for ten to twelve days, plus a single trigger injection at the end. They are small subcutaneous injections into the abdomen or thigh, and almost everyone gives them to themselves at home after being shown how. They are timed to roughly the same hour each day.
Most people work normally throughout the injection phase, fitting monitoring scans around it, since each scan takes about half an hour. Plan to take the retrieval day off and ideally the day after. You should not drive yourself home after sedation, so arrange for someone to collect you.
It varies widely and depends mainly on your age and ovarian reserve. Your antral follicle count and AMH give a reasonable estimate before you start, which is why those tests come first. Not every follicle seen on a scan yields a mature egg, so the final number is usually somewhat lower than the follicle count.
Vitrification is ultra-rapid freezing that takes eggs to minus 196 degrees Celsius so quickly that ice crystals never get the chance to form. Ice crystals are what damaged eggs under the older slow freezing methods. It is the reason modern egg freezing works far better than it did two decades ago, and survival rates after thaw are now high.
Some people do, particularly those freezing later or with a lower ovarian reserve, because the aim is a workable number of eggs in storage rather than a single completed cycle. Your first cycle gives real information about how you respond, and any decision about a second one is made with that in hand rather than guessed at in advance.
Bloating, a feeling of fullness, mood changes, tenderness at the injection site and mild pelvic discomfort are all common and settle after retrieval. Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome is the complication to know about, but it is uncommon, and monitoring scans exist largely to catch and prevent it by adjusting your dose.
Yes. Egg freezing uses the first half of an IVF cycle, stimulation and retrieval, and stops there. Nothing is fertilised and no embryo is created. We cover this in detail in our guide on whether you need IVF to freeze eggs.
Cell Mate serves Delhi, New Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Ghaziabad. Your tests, counselling, vitrification and long-term storage are handled by Cell Mate, and the retrieval itself is performed by a licensed ART partner clinic, since retrieval is a procedure and we do not do fertility treatment. Your eggs stay in our ART-registered bank and can be moved to any clinic in India or abroad whenever you choose.
An AMH test and a follicle count tell you what a cycle would realistically give you. No commitment, and no treatment for us to sell you at the end of it.
Contact us →Cell Mate provides fertility preservation (egg and sperm freezing) and diagnostic testing only, not IVF or fertility treatment. Egg retrieval, where required, is performed by a licensed Level-2 ART/IVF partner. This page is general information, not medical advice. Cell Mate is a registered ART bank under the ART (Regulation) Act, 2021.
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