Fertility Preservation

The Ottawa Fertility Centre offers fertility preservation to patients for personal and medical reasons.

 

FERTILITY PRESERVATION FOR MEDICAL REASONS

The Ottawa Fertility Centre is keeping hope alive by offering the opportunity to freeze eggs and sperm before treatment. If you are facing a medical treatment that may affect your fertility, we may be able to help. In these circumstances, we often need to take action prior to the medical treatment. Therefore, we try to see all urgent cases within 24 hours of having received a referral from your physician. Here are some of the treatment options available:

Sperm Freezing

People that have reached puberty can freeze sperm prior to their medical treatments. Consultations with a physician prior to freezing are provided to offer counselling on the process of sperm freezing, and how these frozen samples can be used in the future. We also offer services for patients admitted to hospital to have their sperm samples brought to our facility for freezing.

Egg Freezing & Embryo Freezing

People of reproductive age can choose to freeze either their eggs or embryos. Both options require ovarian stimulation and egg retrieval. As this process takes time and requires coordination with the menstrual cycle, this should be discussed as early as possible to allow time to complete prior to starting their medical treatments.

Depot Lupron menstrual suppression

An injection of medications to suppress the menstrual cycle during chemotherapy may be an option, whether a patient is not a candidate for egg or embryo freezing, or in addition to this treatment. The benefits of this are discussed in detail at the time of consultation, and injections can be completed by one of our clinical team members while patients are going through their medical treatments.

Fertility Assessment

After medical treatments are completed, patients can have testing at our centre to determine if their fertility has been affected by the medical treatment.

POWER OF HOPE PROGRAM

If you have been diagnosed with cancer and are considering the option of fertility preservation, visit the web site for Fertile Future. Fertile Future is a Canadian national non-profit organization that provides fertility preservation information and support services to cancer patients and oncology professionals.

ELECTIVE FERTILITY PRESERVATION

Egg Freezing

The best chance of pregnancy is under the age of 35. However, more and more individuals and couples are postponing childbearing to later in life than was typical in previous generations. The reasons for this are personal and diverse.

Egg freezing involves a process similar to in-vitro fertilization (IVF), in terms of the hormonal medications required to stimulate the production of mature eggs, and the surgical retrieval of eggs from the ovaries. These eggs are frozen using a process called vitrification and then stored in liquid nitrogen until to pursue a pregnancy. These eggs may be fertilized with sperm from a partner or sperm from a donor. While patients aged 30 to 35 are ideal candidates for egg freezing, this treatment can be considered outside of this age group and should be discussed with your fertility specialist.

Ask your doctor for a referral to the Ottawa Fertility Centre, or visit our home page for other referral options. One of our reproductive specialists will talk to you about the pros and cons of egg freezing to increase the chance of having a genetic child later in life. We can review your options and at minimum, we can assess your current fertility potential so you can make informed decisions.

 

Sperm Freezing

There are circumstances whereby individuals may want to consider fertility preservation for non-medical reasons. For example, prior to vasectomy. Vasectomy reversals are costly and may have limited success whereas the cost of sperm freezing is modest. The reasons for wanting to freeze sperm are very personal. We will talk to you about your options.