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“He’s going to ruin my life,” my friend wailed. “He’s going to waste another 10 years, and I’ll be childless and single,” she said furiously, practically spitting the words through the phone. She’s deep in the trough of an “off” phase with her on-and-off boyfriend of 13 years, who also happens to be the love of her life and—a very tired cliché, I know—terrified of committing to her, despite the fact they’ve dated for almost all of their adult lives, are now in their 30s, and have lived all over the world together. Let’s call my friend Cara (fake name, obvious reason).
We’ve had this conversation before, Cara and me, so I know there’s no point in telling her to swear off him and move on—she probably won’t, not for good anyway. Instead, I offer up what I consider to be helpful, practical, solid advice: “Why don’t you get your eggs frozen, and buy yourself some time?” My suggestion was met with a curt click as Cara, offended, disconnected our call.
I understand it’s a sensitive topic, but egg freezing for women with medical issues, such as cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, has been available for decades–then four years ago the American Society for Reproductive Medicine gave the go-ahead for all women anywhere to have their eggs frozen in a procedure called oocyte cryopreservation, and that changed everything. According to the fertility clinics I spoke with, more than 8,000 babies have been born from eggs that were retrieved, frozen, and fertilized. Now—as long as you have around $7,000 to $10,000 cash—putting your fertility on ice is a literal option for millennial women who aren’t quite ready to have kids for reasons that include career, social lives, or the fact they haven’t found the right person to reproduce with yet. Or you know, happen to be dating a guy who refuses to grow up.
Specialized clinics are popping up all over the country that focus on just this, like Shady Grove Fertility in Washington D.C. and Genesis Fertility in New York—and practitioners are reporting an increase in the number of young women choosing to have their eggs frozen. “We have seen a significant increase in the past two years,” Dr. Tomer Singer, Director of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York told me, citing improvements to the risks and side-effects of the procedure as reasons for the shift.
The procedure itself sounds pretty simple, less painful than some of the more out-there beauty treatments I’ve tried, even: Eggs are “retrieved” from your ovaries, quickly frozen in liquid nitrogen, and stored for years until you decide it’s time to swap happy hour margaritas with prenatal yoga and birth classes. There’s not even any downtime. Dr. Alan Copperman, Director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at Mount Sinai Medical Center (mouthful!), cautioned that there are some checklist items like hormone levels and pap smears, but the procedure itself is straightforward. “It involves taking a week or so of hormone injections and then a 10 minute procedure (done under sedation) to remove the eggs. During that week, the woman needs to come into the office several times for an ultrasound and blood test to monitor her progress,” he explained. “Most women are back to work the very next day after the egg retrieval, and then the eggs appear just as viable if they are frozen for a day, a week, or maybe even a decade.”
As you might expect, the earlier you have your eggs frozen, the better your chances of having a healthy baby with the same eggs down the line, information that Dr. Copperman says has motivated a wave of twentysomething women to undergo the procedure recently. “A women is born with all the eggs she is ever going to have, and oocyte decline can be seen in as early as a woman’s 20s, so we are seeing women come in to freeze their eggs at a younger and younger age,” he said. “When a woman is in her 40s, up to 90 percent of eggs can be abnormal, so we would need to freeze a lot of eggs in a 40+ year-old to have enough to have a high likelihood of having a normal egg that effectively freezes, thaws, fertilizes, and implants.”
One woman I spoke with—a patient of Dr. Copperman’s who wants to remain anonymous, so let’s call her Amanda—told me she had her eggs frozen at 34 years old after finding out her (now ex) boyfriend didn’t want kids. “That was a deal-breaker for me and also part of what inspired me to freeze my eggs. I knew I’d have to date again, build a relationship again. It’s an exhausting process for someone who just wants to be there already. Yet, while I don’t want to waste time, I also don’t want to rush into another relationship simply because I want children,” she told me.
After zoning in on building a killer career and finishing her master’s degree during her 20s and early 30s, she decided it was now time to invest her money and time into a different goal—to have children one day: “I pursued academics and career with everything I had, and somewhere in that pursuit lost focus on the pursuit of building my own family,” she told me. “But at 34, it came time to face reality that my fertility is not eternal.”
She doesn’t have plans to start a family alone using her frozen eggs, but opted for oocyte cryopreservation to buy some time until she meets the right guy. “I’m now in a place where I’m ready to build that family I’ve dreamed of, but I don’t want to do it alone. I’m willing to wait for the right partner—my fertility, however, might not wait, I decided to buy myself some time.”
She assured me the process itself is fairly painless and easy, and just like Dr Copperman said, she had no downtime: “When the eggs are just the right size—about seven to 10 days into the injections—you take a final shot to prep for retrieval. At this point, you may feel a little bloated and I was tired of injecting myself, but it wasn’t too bad. Retrieval is painless except for a little cramping—I even went out to brunch afterward.”
Rachel, a 36-year-old LA-based blogger I spoke with told me how she regrets not freezing her eggs earlier, despite being prompted by her gynecologist during her late 20s and early 30s. “When I was 30 she brought it up again, telling me how viability decreases with age, that I am getting older and that I don’t need a man. I didn’t do it, and I was mad at my doctor, like she was giving up on me,” she said, adding, “In retrospect, it was just the opposite. I wish I had done it then.”
Here’s why: Last year, at 36 years old, Rachel decided to go ahead and try for a baby on her own, using a sperm donor. The next year was filled with disappointing attempts at falling pregnant, and left her wishing she’d followed her doctor’s advice almost a decade earlier. “After nine failed IUIs (intra-uterine inseminations) with an anonymous sperm donor and my natural eggs, timed perfectly each cycle, I felt officially defeated to become pregnant in the most natural way I could in my situation. So I moved on to IVF,” she said.
IVF involves the same preparation and harvesting process needed to freeze your eggs, except instead of being stored, they’re fertilized. “My first round of IVF was unsuccessful, I had three eggs, out of which one fertilized, but it didn’t work in the end. It was utter heartbreak.” She then decided to invest time, money, and emotional effort into harvesting and freezing seven eggs while she took a break to let her body recover.
Now 40, Rachel is seven months pregnant using her frozen eggs, and has some advice for anyone considering having their eggs frozen: “If you can swing it financially, I say do it. And do it now, it’s worth it. Freezing your eggs doesn’t mean you are giving up on your daydreams or plans. It gives you the peace of mind and the power to make decisions later on, with no pressure of a ticking clock.” Did you hear that, Cara?
