A growing number of women are waiting longer to start their families. Sometimes, if their biological clock has already started to tick, they have trouble conceiving a baby when they do want to start a family. Action News takes you to a reproductive clinic in Littleton, Colorado that could one day help women have babies later in life by putting eggs on ice.

Greg and Julie Roos are expecting their second baby. Like their first son, Josh, who's 2, heir next baby boy was also conceived through In Vitro Fertilization. Julie says, "This April we decided to do it again and we used a frozen cycle of embryos and we are due in February." Freezing embryos is one thing, but freezing a woman's eggs is quite another. When a woman gets older, it's the age of her eggs that often prevents her from conceiving. If she were able to freeze them when she's younger, some believe it could allow her to have babies later in life.

At Conceptions Reproductive Associates of Colorado, a study is underway to see if freezing a woman's eggs can really work. The egg is the biggest cell in the body and it has a lot of water. That makes it tough to freeze without being damaged. Dr. Michael Swanson with Conceptions Reproductive Associates says, "It seems if we can put a lot of antifreeze in the egg and if we can do it quickly, that there seems to be less risk to the integrity of the egg."

The process is called vitrification and it's still considered an experimental procedure. At Conceptions, four women have been approved for the study so far. All are egg donors who will give 10 eggs to recipients in need. Dr. Swanson says, "Any above that we're going to vitrify or freeze, thaw immediately, and fertilize, and if they develop into embryos, preferentially transfer those first." All of the technical aspects of the process take place in a lab at Conceptions. It starts with actually finding the eggs. Then those eggs are frozen and fertilized. Once that happens, they are then put into incubators which basically act as the human body. They keep the embryos at 98-point-6 degrees.

Right now, the study is not aimed at helping women who want to have babies later in life. Instead, the hope is that it can help women of child-bearing age who have cancer. Chemotherapy and radiation can often limit their chances of conceiving. Dr. Swanson says, "This preserves one of the most important things in life and that's the ability to procreate." Closer to home, Sanford's Advanced Reproductive Laboratory does offer egg freezing, but only for those battling cancer. Dr. John Brannian with Sanford says, "We've had approval to do this for a few months, maybe a year or so now, but we haven't had any patients come through that wanted to do it."

Back at  Conceptions in Colorado, Dr. Swanson isn't sure egg freezing should be used for those worried about their biological clocks. But he admits, it all comes down to timing. If you're a 31 year old woman who wants to have a baby at 35, you're probably still best going with your own eggs. But Dr. Swanson says, "If you're talking about someone that maybe is gonna donate their eggs at age 31 and not use them until age 41, yes, it may have an impact."

Julie Roos knows says medical breakthroughs have allowed them to have a family, and she supports the idea of egg freezing as well. Julie says, "I think it's excellent, it's great. I mean, just to be able to preserve fertility for later. It's an awesome opportunity." Conceptions has approval for 15 women in the study. They say they'll have initial results fairly quickly, and in a year will know how successful it was.