What Happened to All Those Frozen Eggs?

The failure rate: 59/88, or 67%. This is better than nothing if you are facing a medical procedure that will render you infertile, but a delusion if you plan on it to postpone childbearing.

I donated my eggs to an infertile couple who was disappointed that they didn't materialize into a baby. For me, the biggest issue w using frozen embryos is the realization that the odds of them turning into babies is v small. Infertile women are v vulnerable and emotionally fragile. They need to protect themselves emotionally and not get their hopes up on any procedure.

I guess you could make teeny tiny omelettes, but you'd have to break a few of the eggs.

I would think that a conservative would object to them being called eggs and insist that they be deemed "half unborn children."

Are studies being done to look at the short and long term effects for a child who originated from a frozen egg? This is the last thing that the corporate interests engaged in any facet of engineered reproduction want to look into - too much money to be made - but I hope that someone will.

The headline reads: "What Happened to all those Frozen Eggs? Egg freezing was supposed to be as revolutionary as birth control. It hasn’t lived up to the hype" If one expected egg freezing to have a revolutionary effect, then they should have checked the money side first. The pill has had a huge impact because it is inexpensive and convenient -- especially if it is covered by insurance. The procedure to obtain and freeze eggs is much more expensive and therefore available to far fewer women. It is an option for the upscale readers of the NYT rather than the millions of women who have retail jobs and don't have that proverbial $400 for a financial emergency.

Aldous Huxley and Mary Shelley warned humanity about the hubris of playing the role of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace's evolutionary fit natural selection Mother Nature. What didn't people get from ' Brave New World' and ' Frankenstein'?

My daughter developed breast cancer at age 31 and had eggs frozen before starting chemotherapy which should have damaged her ovaries beyond repair. Against the odds she has one child and is again pregnant without IVF, but the procedure allowed her to go through a year and a half of chemo with hope for a family afterward. If her single friends decide to start families the eggs are available.

Great article that address the many benefits of egg freezing. As a millennial who has frozen multiple times (3 times) in my younger years (33-35-37 yrs old) and have collected many eggs (61 eggs) to make sure I play the egg math game well, I’m excited about the new wave of technology that is giving today’s egg freezers more success when thawing and using eggs for future pregnancies. The success rates of egg freezing is similar and just as good as IVF frozen rates now. Embryologist & RE docs are more skilled and knowledgeable about selecting the best viable embryo. Freezing technology devices and techniques have tremendously improved since that first wave of women started freezing over 10 years ago. Lots has changed and now patients education is improving to freeze at younger ages like we do for donor egg patients to get live births rates increase since age is the number one factor for outcomes. See my resources on website eggsperience.com and podcast about egg freezing Eggology Club. Or google Valerie Landis to see my egg freezing.

I do understand and support any woman who wants to undergo egg freezing. I became a mother through IVF in my 40s and can sympathize. However, a better solution would be to support working families however they are formed, whether single, married, partnered, older, younger, adoptive, or through assisted reproduction. Gender equal policies to support both part time workers and full time workers, and to eliminate the structural barriers to receiving worker benefits, whether health care, paid leave, social security and unemployment benefits, all would contribute to the happier state of mind that the author refers to, not only for women, but for all workers contemplating parenthood in the United States. And the happier state of mind includes not feeling pressured to put off childrearing for career considerations.

It’s totally nuts that I see commenters here lambasting women for having children later in life, when this has been happening with older, entitled males for decades? With nary a peep from anyone. Men can get away with being irresponsible about starting families and settling down, because the culture tells them it’s okay for them to delay their adulthood, “play the field”, and then marry a much younger woman who’ll supposedly make up for it. The burden of that inevitably gets carried by women, like so many other burdens in life: we end up being the ones left to decide when to have children, and sacrificing our careers and everything else to support and raise those kids. There are many more single moms by choice, because they just couldn’t find a responsible male with whom to build a life that involves family, than there are single dads in the same boat. I agree with the commenters who cite egg freezing as a symptom of a society that doesn’t provide the kind of support to help women and men become parents earlier in life: we burden kids with debt that sets them back when they’ve barely begun their adult lives. We promote an economy that favours the wealthy, at the expense of everyone in the middle. And then we offer these paltry “solutions” to problems of our own making, instead of addressing the root causes.

Are companies still running ads in college papers for students to sell their ova? Will those companies buy the frozen eggs from women who have decided not to use them? Another question: do the doctors at whose egg banks the frozen eggs are kept sell them? Is there any oversight on the egg freezing companies to make sure the eggs are really those of the women who have been paying to keep them alive and frozen? Etc.

This article seems to say that women submit to expensive, uncomfortable and potentially dangerous medical procedures, which often fail, for economic reasons. In other words, so they can afford the children they eventually have. What's wrong with this picture? Once again, families are bearing the brunt of a system that ignores human needs in favor of corporate demands (which is why corporations offered to pay for egg freezing and keep productive workers toiling at their desks!) I worked phenomenal hours at a professional job to afford the same house and enjoy the same level of retirement as my father, a blue-collar worker with a stay-at-home wife and four children to support. I didn't have children, and I could never understand how those who did have them managed. If we had a sane workplace for all, women and men alike, then maybe the unnatural, high-cost, body-invasive medical treatments wouldn't be necessary.

Let's see: Should we try to change career expectations so that you don't have to hit your peak in 30s, or should we try to change biology so that you don't have to reproduce during your peak reproductive years (mid-twenties to mid-thirties)? We chose the latter. Why? How is that progress? This is progress: Not labeling people who down-shifted their careers to start and raise young families as failures. Not assuming that they will be "hopelessly behind and will never be able to catch up". Redefining full-time to mean a 6-hour workday (with no change in pay or benefits) so that both parents can equally share in caregiving and income-earning. (There is sufficient data now to show that people don't put in more than 6 hours of productive labor daily in the workplace anyway, and reducing the workday to 6 hours actually improves worker productivity and company profitability.)

I wonder if these women were counseled on the risks of "female" cancers due to the number of hormones given to them to produce so many eggs? In IVF they use the same hormones to stimulate the over-production of eggs. "IVF and Ovarian Cancer The good news was that they found no increased risk of breast or uterine cancer in the former IVF patients. The bad news is that found an increased risk of ovarian cancer. ... Close monitoring in the years after IVF treatment may be smart." from a Google search.

This generation has doubled down on the "Me" generation mantra. US fertility collapse in 2008 (down approximately 15%) and was assumed to be a response to the financial crisis. It has not returned with last year being the lowest fertility rate on record. The US is significantly below replacement rate (~1.77 children for each couple - 2.1 is considered replacement rate). Only immigration maintains the US population. Worse, birthrate at the lowest income levels is about 50% higher than at the highest level setting the stage for even greater income inequality in a generation. When the Chinese ended their 1 child policy, the assumed birth rebound did not happen. When families become wealthier and delay having children, they do not choose in later life to have them.

But what's good for the child? Being raised by a nanny in a single parent home so mom can keep on earning a living? Parental relationship not necessary for child raising? Parenting is tough. Two adults who can support each other at least part of the time is a good thing. Ask a single mother before you think of launching.

I wonder some of these women’s lives hadn’t changed the way they might have hoped in the years since freezing their eggs. I did not try this method of prolonging my fertility, but if I had, what would have been my thinking? That I would find a good partner and obtain a higher salary. Well, guess what? Now, at 41, I am very single and do not earn enough to raise a child on. What is different? My health, and not for the better. Even if my life circumstances were more conducive to parenting, it is hard to imagine now going through the physical pressures of pregnancy. Could my situation really be unique?

egg freezing is a symptom. the problem is lack of support for women who choose to have careers and become mothers.

I think it’s ridiculous that Apple and Facebook are being applauded for paying for this service that is not guaranteed to work down the road, as opposed to making the space in their workplace culture for young female employees to have children on their biological time table. This technology should provide an opportunity for women who need to put off childbirth for personal reasons, not an excuse for companies to fail to accommodate working parents until they are upper management.

Waiting until 47 to conceive? Then 70 when your child graduates from college? And 80 when you have your first grandchild? Maybe?

This article caught my eye as I have a friend who recently froze eggs for a reason not mentioned, which surprised me. My friend, who is in her early 30’s and planning a May wedding, was recently diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer. She is undergoing chemo. I imagine, but I am just guessing, that the ability to freeze eggs could make a huge difference to anyone in this position. I certainly hope that all health insurance would cover this. I fear that this might not be the case, which would be terrible. (I have one friend who’s baby is due at the end of January-woohoo. She made a decision to follow her dream of parenthood despite the fact that mr right father had not shown up. She froze eggs a few years ago. ) Life holds no guarantees. It’s interesting to see that so many people made this decision and investment and never withdrew their “funds”. I hope that it gave them breathing room.

Here's a better question: what's happened to all those frozen embryos in fertility clinics--those 'precious babies' in anti-choice parlance? Are they still being 'murdered' apace in anti-choice states like OK, IN, and KY? If the anti-choice movement is about the sanctity of life and not controlling women, why are fertility clinics allowed to create and freeze (and discard) embryos?

I have a question. Suppose you freeze your eggs and then get them fertilized and freeze them as insurance. What happens to the frozen, fertilized eggs? According to our morals police they are little people and can't be unthawed unless it's to be implanted otherwise it's murder. As is usual, our technology has out run our moral thinking.

Why is nobody advising these women to have their eggs fertilized from donor sperm, and then, once they are embryos, freeze them. Much greater chance of achieving pregnancy that way.

Serendipity? Fate? Thank God for grandchildren, he is wet and crying and is all yours, son. I thought changing tables in men's rooms was cute, my son actually complains when they are not there.

How have the children fared?

Children later in life? No way. You need all the energy you can get. Use those eggs sooner than later. Moderate your work life to give great experience but not be all encompassing. Get the kids grown up well. In the teens they will need you less and less. Ramp up work then. That’s the time to not have kids. Take on more responsibility. Then later in life, kid free and established job, enjoy.

Have any studies been done on the effect of freezing eggs on future unaided fertility? I know more than one woman who froze her eggs early, then tried to conceive without assistance while in her early thirties, but had trouble. I wonder if there is any correlation.

Egg freezing is a technical fix that allows women to juggle their career schedules and delay parenting until they can afford it. I'd rather see a more egalitarian society in which couples have stable, well-paying jobs, combined with social supports, that allow them to raise children when they want to, which I expect would be in their 20s and 30s. The root cause of most of our economic and social problems is that middle-class incomes have been the same since 1980, while middle-class expenses like housing, health care and education have increased exponentially -- as the top 1% gets more and more of our income. Our enormous concentration of wealth is sitting there, waiting to be redistributed, so that the rest of us can enjoy the basics of life. Being able to afford children was -- and should be -- part of the social contract. My parents' generation didn't have to delay childbearing until "they could afford it," or "they had established their career." Neither should you.

I froze mine in my 20s due to cancer. It was an extremely lonely process. I had no partner and my friends at the time went MIA. In fact, I had to hire a "surgical escort" to pick me up after the procedure. I doubt I will ever use my eggs, but at a time when it felt like a lot of things were being taken away from me, being able to freeze my eggs was very comforting. That emotional comfort is probably what keeps me paying the substantial storage fee every year.

It's notable that the long-term health outcomes have apparently not been tracked. Egg retrieval requires ovarian stimulation and then an invasive procedure involving anaesthetic. It would also be interesting to know the average age of the women doing it - it's being sold to women in their late 30s, who are at more risk of age-related infertility in any case.

Choices and options are wonderful! The more, the merrier!

Along with contraception, abortion, IVF and other techniques, egg-freezings is a way for women to escape the tyranny of nature and to make reproduction part of a self-designed and self-directed life. I had my kids in my early twenties. But while it had certain advantages - pregnancies were easy and I have grown-up sons while still relatively young- it is not a path I would recommend to women today. I made sure babies did not delay my career but it required financial and other sacrifices that, honestly, were not worth it. Children are nice; money and professional success are nicer. So if we can delay childbirth by using technology, why not to do it? In addition to enabling women to plan our career, reproductive technologies may also allow us to exercise quality control over the end product. With both IVF and egg-freezing, inferior quality ova and embryos can be discarded before the implantation, thus resulting in healthier babies.

One thing I fear is missing from this piece is mention of the long-term health effects -- if any -- experienced by women who undergo such intense hormone stimulation so as to be able to freeze their eggs in the first place. It's not just about whether the procedure will result in a biological child; it's about all of the potential costs. And it's yet another uncertainty in an industry full of uncertainties.

It's important to note that, from the statistics provided here, egg freezing is twice as likely to provide false hope for delayed birthing of biologically related children than real hope. Plan realistically.

Wow, dealing with a 13 year old having a melt down at age 60. I thought it was bad when I went through that on my 50th birthday.

Unfortunately modern life has gotten so complicated that it’s hard to be able to afford children during the biologically optimal time. Both sperm and egg quality decline in the late 30’s. Infertility treatment is successful only about half the time at that point. I hope the success of egg freezing isn’t being over-promised.