Any experience with frozen eggs transportation?

[Justme7978]

Dear all,

I appreciate this community a lot with the care for one another. My question is about frozen egg transportation.

I have one failed ivf cycle with fresh eggs behind me. Now I am considering to use my frozen eggs. However not at the clinic where I froze them in Austria but I Would like to transfer them to a clinic in Switzerland. Does anyone have experience with the transport of frozen eggs? Is it possible? Is there a potential for damage? Is any freezing style appropriate for transport?

All the best and good luck to all! ❤️

[MrsSarahC]

My clinic in Greece told me it was not possible (I was trying to get over there during Covid lockdowns). Not sure about Austria though.

[mmmangos]

Hi, I haven't transported eggs, but I looked into transporting frozen embryos as an option for myself, and the system used is the same. It is possible and it is safe. There are special biocourier companies that you need to independently contact and hire. The service is that a person from the biocourier company will go to the lab where your eggs are held and put them in a specialised cryo portable carrier (a "dewar"), which pretty much looks like a very large thermos. It is double walled to protect the eggs and filled with liquid nitrogen, which goes through a slow release system to maintain the required temperature for the duration of transport (and many hours longer than required, just in case). The temperature is generally monitored every minute by an automatic monitor (possibly you or the new lab can even get a read out of the monitored temperatures afterwards?), so it's very stable. The courier person then personally carries this dewar with them the entire time to the airport and on the aeroplane as hand luggage, with them in their seat. Special forms mean that the dewar is exempt from normal airport checks, so it is never opened and never goes through an x-ray machine. Same thing on the other end for delivery to the new clinic. The eggs will be received by the new clinic and put straight in their cryo storage, ready for when you need them.

Just do a google search to find the companies in your area. From what I saw, if a company services Europe, it will cover all countries in Europe. They have a lot of info on their websites and some even have price ranges and the expected days it takes for transporting the eggs. I found the biocouriers very helpful when I emailed my questions.

The only problem you may come across is whether or not the new clinic will accept the frozen eggs. This is clinic policy rather than country policy. Apparently, it is more of an issue for genetic material coming from countries outside of Europe. All the paperwork will be done before even booking the transport of course, so it is not a situation where the package turns up and they refuse it. It is just something you need to ask the clinics first.

[Justme7978 in reply to mmmangos]

Dear mmmangos,

Thanks so much for the thorough answer! It helped me a lot. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻❤️❤️❤️

[mmmangos in reply to Justme7978]

You're welcome. Good luck 💖