Putting Their Eggs, and Hopes, on Ice

Why is this article in the style section? I am constantly miffed that the NYT style section = anything to do with women section. This sounds more like a science or lifestyle piece to me ... not in the same league as what Serena wore to the U.S. Open or what is going on with Michael Jackson's Thriller suit. If we were talking about men's fertility this would never be dropped into the style section. Stop belittling us! Women's fertility has nothing to do with style!

A woman without a partner who wants a family is far more likely to be successful using a sperm donor at age 38 than freezing eggs in her 20s. If you look at the odds of IVF success, they are around 50% at the best clinics. And that's without having to have a viable egg after thawing.

Unless I missed it, what about statistics on the success rate of thawing the frozen egg, inserting the sperm, implanting the fertilized egg and then carrying the egg and finally giving birth to a baby?

No one has DNA that is so important that it needs to be perpetrated in an overpopulated world. This egg freezing for nonmedical reasons is nothing more than another exercise in Millenial ego.

Oh my! 31 now and so very glad I decided to not have children. It is amazing to me that people wold go through all of this for procreation when we clearly have enough people on our planet. Just enjoy your life!

Fertility actually declines significantly at 36. this is all preying on women's fears. Very expensive, not covered by insurance. Necessary in cases of cancer chemotherapy or maybe certain unusual endocrine autoimmunities, but otherwise, certainly not until your mid 30's. Get real, folks. It's a moneymaker but not medically necessary. The next thing you know, we will be telling every fat aging male in their 40's and 50's that they need testosterone to treat their fatigue and big belly! Or that thyroid therapy is necessary for people with normal pituitary TSH tests. Or that adrenal extracts (which actually supress adrenal gland output) are necessary to treat "adrenal fatigue". Starting to see a pattern?

Men are preyed on too, and it's just as demeaning. To be fair, men don't have to go through the painful process and physical side effects that women go through, but men get paid a pittance in comparison to what women get paid. Any calls to break that glass ceiling?

All of the women in this article are in their late 20s and early 30s. If they want children, they should be having them now. The article makes the slightest reference to the "lack of available partners" but, really, that's what the entire article should be about. I'm tired of hearing about what young women are doing to take control of their lives. What I really want to know is what is wrong with young men that they don't know how to step up and be men, husbands and fathers. These young women think they're empowered, that feminism has served them because they have this option to "extend" their fertility. What a joke! The only option they seem to truly feel that they have is to torture their bodies with experimental procedures, then continue to run around trying to appear carefree for the next 5-10 years in the hopes that some man, likely older than them, will eventually decide to settle down with them before their beauty fades, at which point they will continue to earn most of the household income while also doing almost all of the domestic work, raising children into their 60s. Doesn't sound like liberation to me.

The scary thing is that most of these women probably think their frozen eggs almost guarantee them a child later in life. This is SO false. The success rates of frozen embryo transfers are so low! Also, these are frozen eggs - NOT frozen embryos. I wonder sometimes if people are even aware of the difference. Who is to say the eggs will be thawed and mixed with their "future" donor/father of choice and result in an embryo that is even viable to implant? Freezing 5 or even 15 eggs is absolutely nothing when you consider that the egg then has to be fertilized, then you have to wait until it matures, before even moving onto transfer.

Having done EF myself this month at 32, I find most of the responses thus far against it to be patronizing and condescending, and hypocritically operating from a place of instilling fear in women that this science will likely hurt them in some way - physically or emotionally. I am smart, organized, professionally successful, and have saved my money. I did my homework before deciding to do this and choosing a clinic. Will only speak on what I know - 10 years in NYC. If you haven't recently been single in your 20s or 30s here, then WADR you have no clue how difficult it is for hetero women to date here, let alone find a partner to marry and have a family with. That recent article about why women choose to freeze is 100% spot on. And most of us are not too picky; if anything, not picky enough. Also, the technology is good and rapidly advancing. Consider IVF stats; EF is basically the first half of that process, including freezing. By the time my future husband and I might need to use these eggs, there will be even more success creating healthy babies from this process. Whether or not this insurance is used, I will be forever grateful to CCRM and Freedom Fertility for their absolutely outstanding medical care and support. Egg freezing has given me renewed dating optimism, and a sense of freedom from the clock akin to what men experience, but with purpose. Now and later, I have more options and power to make the best life planning choices for myself - not out of fear.

This is the wrong answer. Women should be encouraged to marry younger. It's not just a matter of fertility. It's also a matter of when men they find "worthy" of them will be willing to marry them. The idea of marrying a woman after the "bloom has left the rose" is sad and, in a way, insulting. What guys was she getting with in her prime? Why am I left with seconds? Offended? Reality is rough.

As part of the first wave of egg freezers (I froze at age 35 more than four years ago, when vitrification was just beginning to be widespread and costs had begun falling), I have a lot of mixed emotions about the process and my decision to do so. I'm now 40 and pregnant with my first (did not have to use the frozen eggs) and while my pregnancy has been relatively easy, I have gestational diabetes (in part b/c of age and in part b/c of family history - I was otherwise at a healthy weight and relatively fit pre-pregnancy) and am worried about other complications facing older moms, like preeclampsia and an increased rate of stillbirths. I of course wish I had found the right partner earlier in life, but things didn't work out that way, and I was not sure that being a single mother was the right choice for me or my unborn child. As a woman who froze at an "older" age, what I would tell these younger women is: go ahead and freeze, but then devote as much time and energy as possible to finding the right mate so that you won't ever need those eggs. They are absolutely not a guarantee, and you should not treat them as such. That quote from the woman comparing it to flood insurance isn't accurate, because frozen eggs do not offer that kind of security.

Wow am I glad this wasn't around when I was young. I didn’t met my husband until I was 32. I worried about fertility but couldn’t do anything about it. I would have been very tempted to freeze my eggs. I ended up having 3 children at ages 33, 36 and 40. All conceived naturally and all normal, healthy children (now adults).

A woman's fertility is a large factor for many men in choosing a mate. I see nothing wrong with this. I'd probably be more apt to consider a woman in her late 30s for marriage if she had such a backup plan. Later stage eggs in any case tend to produce less robust children.

The entire fertility industry is long overdue a federal investigation. All women should be very skeptical of anyone making money off the exploitation of their vulnerabilities. I am a married 42-year-old woman who has not had any children. My husband and I have no medical reason why we can't conceive. Yes, we would have liked to have children, but it hasn't happened. I never froze my eggs despite being pressured to do so ten years ago and I do not regret it. I have accepted that them's the breaks and that's the hand I was dealt. It's not a bad hand. I have a loving husband and extended family, that's good enough for me.

Turning medical procedures into a consumer good is fraught with problems. From my experience, doctors were far more interested in talking about talking about how cutting edge their procedures were and how I can finance their services than they were in describing the statistical success of these procedures which were abismal. Millenial women, whose age at time of marriage continues to increase and a quarter of whom are predicted to be unmarried when their fertility ends, are banking on the promise that they will be fertile forever thanks to the “miracle” of technology when the reality is that IVF should not be your plan for starting a family. It should be your “hail mary pass” when all else has failed. I fear that these young woman are banking on misinformation and hype and will end up heartbroken 20 years down the line when the medical professionals who sold them on this snake oil are happily retired. I have a friend who froze her eggs and was quite confident in her decision until at age 43 she went through all of her eggs with not a single pregnancy much less live birth. Do your research and ask the tough questions.

Another thing not discussed is the fact that if a woman is waiting until her 40s to have a child, chances are high that she will be taking care of elderly parents at the same time as she is caring for an infant. Think of it as two sets of diapers and caretakers, potentially. It can be very stressful taking care of both a baby and a feeble parent with possible dementia all day who both can't walk, can't talk, and don't understand what you are saying. There are many of us with parents in their 80s who are healthy or who died a quick, and painless death, but at the same time, I have many friends in exactly this other situation.

This article reminded me of an advert in the window of a cosmetics store for "Hope in a Jar", which was some sort of wrinkle-banishing face cream. We age. Our skin wrinkles, our flesh sags and we lose the ability to have children. Attempting to deny these facts in such a manipulative way is sad. These women, especially young women, that buy into the hard sell tactics for egg freezing, are misguided. Life unfolds and we don't always get what we want out of it. It's far healthier to make the absolute best of what we have.

Agree with the comments about the many ways that clinics prey on women —prioritizing profit over patient well-being. The lack of clinic regulation and accountability is appalling. Another significant risk associated with egg freezing is Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS). This condition is more prevalent when younger women undergo hormone stimulation. It can lead to serious complications. A first hand account of OHSS can be found here: https://reprotechtruths.org/ohss/

This is nothing more than fear-based exploitation of young women. Here are three facts they need to know: 1. Career demands don't decline as one ages. The vaunted "work-family balance" challenge doesn't disappear when one is in mid-career. Delaying family formation in order to get your career in order just means putting the problem off, not solving it. 2. Fertility begins to decline in both men and women in the third decade of life, not the second. As men age, they produce fewer sperm, and the sperm they do produce suffer from DNA fragmentation and changes in morphology (shape). That is why wives of older men are more likely to suffer miscarriages and birth defects. 2. Pregnancy is hard on the female body, and the older one gets, the harder it is. Women in their 40's are more likely to have difficult pregnancies and to suffer miscarriages. Why are we demanding that women change their fertility clocks rather than demanding that career expectations change instead? What we need is this: Dismantle the belief that careers should start in the 20's and follow an unbroken rising path until retirement. That is a 19th century belief that depended crucially on a sexual division of labor (mom at home raising the kids and running the household so that dad could focus exclusively on bread-winning.) Redefine what "full time permanent employment" means. It doesn't need to mean working 40-50 hours from graduation until retirement.

It’s curious that the anti-birth-controllers of the religious right (and Republican expediency) aren’t clamoring about the storage of sperm or eggs. If this isn’t birth control, I don’t know what is.

My advise is if you hit 30 and haven’t found the right guy then just have some one night stands when you are ovalating with good looking smart guys, and get pregnant ( loose their info). My first husband at 29 bailed within a year. I had my daughter at 33, her father didn’t want to marry he had hi son. I married again at 38 and had a daughter at 39. He thought I should support him, while he abused us. It is just easier having the kids by yourself the natural way. If the right guy comes around fine he will marry you with kids. Meantime, use the money to buy a condo or a house.

Scam, preying upon the insecurity and fears of young Women. Thirty something, maybe, IF you have thousands of dollars to spare. In your Twenties: ridiculous. Seriously.

The reality is most of the women freezing their eggs won't even need them. Most women who want kids want them during the time the body is still fertile, which means a large percentage of these women will just get pregnant naturally. Who wins? The freezing companies. Another thing - fresh eggs have a higher success rate than frozen, so if you're 35 and need IVF are you going to want to use those 10-yo eggs or just do a new retrieval?

Absent from this story, I think, is mention of the lack of ANY substantive research into possible long-term health effects of this procedure. I think often about the NYT story about the mother on a mission to find out whether there are risks to egg donation, since her daughter died (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/well/live/are-there-long-term-risks-t.... It just feels to irresponsible (but predictable) that these clinics would pop up, preying on women's insecurities while promising something nebulous and doing zero to help figure out whether there is any risk at all to the woman whose money they're gladly taking.

Part 2 - To the women in their 20's and 30's, ask yourself this - Would you buy a product with a 70% fail rate? You need to do YOUR OWN research. If I had, I would done things radically different. Do not believe all the hype on this process. Study the fail rates just as much as their glossy brochures. Most women do not get a baby for each process. If you have any Thyroid concerns - read up. No one else in the IVF factory will address or care about how to manage this potential complication. You have to do your own research or you're wasting THOUSANDS of dollars. Please think long and hard about what you would do if this process ultimately fails. For the doctors involved, they'll have another patient next Monday, for you, you'll still be childless.

I'm connecting this article with the recent NYT piece on work and motherhood: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/17/upshot/motherhood-rising-costs-surpri... Conceiving and delivering a healthy baby is only the starting point of motherhood. I'm one of many women I know with PhDs or JDs who had children during or after our mid-30s, following completion of our graduate degrees, marriage to equally-well-educated partners and establishment of our careers. We are now well into our first decade of motherhood and are all exhausted and have significantly scaled back or reinvented our careers (to achieve more control over out time/flexibility at the expense of higher pay). Partner selection is THE single most important decision a women who plans to have children and a career will make. All of our partners do much more than their own fathers, yet fall far short of shouldering half the load of childcare with us. We compensate accordingly for the benefit our our children but to the detriment of our careers.

Thank-you for citing Inhorn's study which found the main reason is lack of a partner, not career ambitions. As a woman in Silicon Valley, without missing a beat I can name five other women I'm close with who froze their eggs in the last year or so and none did so to focus on their career at the expense of family. Rather the motivations were either lack of a partner or partner's reluctance to start a family, or an unstable relationship. Also many women think of frozen eggs as likely to be used to try and conceive a second child in the event their biological clock times out after their first, and don't pin their entire family planning hopes on frozen eggs. Finally, while it's good you mentioned possible side effects, these should not be exaggerated and haven't been an issue for women I know who all had excellent care from fertility doctors, who additionally, far from instilling false hope are experts in expectations management and will never guarantee to any patient their eggs will produce a live birth and should be wholly relied upon.

This article downplays the serious emotional and physical side effects of the hormone treatments, daily monitoring, and the overall toll of the process. It's not just depression, it's fatigue, insomnia, cramping, and nausea, and often heartbreak if you cannot produce the quality eggs required for freezing. I agree with other comments that it glosses over the myriad of factors that play into fertility, including fibroids, ovarian cysts, and sperm quality. The cost, though lower than in past, is still incredibly prohibitive to most women. This process deserves serious and thorough consideration.

In Biology class, we roll out the options of increasing the chances of getting pregnant for those who have difficulties getting to be. The presentation never gets to endorsing any of the state-of-the-ART that is available. The only hidden, but certainly unintended, message is there's some hope for women who have such problems. Still, the prevailing view, I think, is that lucky are the men whose partners, at any age, preferably the younger and wilder years though, are raring to do it, come what may. There's some sort of maxim my male cousin passed on to me many decades ago, when our testosterones were at their all-time highs: If the young only knew, if the old only could.

I’m in two minds about this. On the one hand, reproductive technologies are the future. I firmly believe that in a short time gene-editing technologies like CRISPR will enable us to have not just children but the children we want by eliminating negative traits and enhancing positive ones. On the other hand, this strikes me as an expensive and frankly joyless way to reproduce. I had two kids in my early 20s the old-fashioned way. I don’t think I would have gone along with injections and egg-harvesting just for the sake of having babies. Unfortunately the extended family and social support that enabled me to have kids and to go to college are not available to most young women in the US, so I guess this is the best of bad options. Hopefully these young women will also make sure that they get the highest quality embryos out of it.

Having unexpectedly gone through several rounds of fertility treatments in my early 30's while trying to conceive a second child, I can certainly understand the allure of egg freezing. I think the sense of assurance is a false one though. Fertility is a complicated process, more so than the clinics will initially admit. After harvesting and freezing the eggs, they have to be unthawed, then fertilized with sperm and hopefully grow to embryo or blastocyst. Then there's implantation, and hopefully a successful pregnancy. There is a significant attrition rate along the way in terms of eggs harvested - if young women think that they can do one round of egg freezing and never worry about fertility again, I think there is a real risk that these women will delay childbearing too long because they have a false sense of being guaranteed a pregnancy later on.

First of all, fertility peaks at 27 and the decline begins slowly in your early thirties. It's at around age 35 that the decline is really felt. There is no decline at age 22. If this is what these clinics are saying, then they are lying. Buyer beware. Secondly, no mention of sperm? Its quality declines as well, on top of the quantity. There have been many studies suggesting a strong correlation between the rise in children with autism and older fathers. Thirdly, hormones. Also not-so-jokingly referred to as horror-moans. This egg freezing process, followed by IVF later to put the egg back in, involves the manipulation of hormones which can have a deleterious effect on health. Did you know for example that progesterone can contribute to hearing loss? That estrogen can contribute to the risk of cancers? Fourth - given the 2-12 percent chance of pregnancy success from a single egg, most doctors will implant two. Twins do not an easy pregnancy make, especially if you are an older woman. Too many are born premature, which often results in developmental and physical health issues. And raising twins is pretty exhausting. I urge young women to think carefully about all these factors (and there are many more). Seems from this article that too many are taking a cavalier attitude toward the whole process.

This intense desire to control all aspects of life comes with a price, I think, when things do not go according to plan. I wish all of these young women the best and hope that they are ready to roll with life's punches.

Fertility declines at 22? Sweetheart, I had my children all naturally at 36, 41 and 44. Yes, for some people it gets harder in the late 30s, but seriously, at 26? Wait another decade and invest the money in the meantime, you will need it for childcare and college expenses.

There are two factors that seem unexamined, either by this article or by the women freezing their eggs. The first is the pure physical challenge of carrying a baby to term as you grow older. I just gave birth to my second child at 39 and the experience was challenging - pregnancy at advanced age can be hard not just because of the availability of eggs. Second, the experience of IVF is expensive, time-consuming, and not for the faint of heart. I have not been through it myself but members of my family have and it can ravage a family. Is anyone speaking to these issues?