Should You Freeze Your Eggs?

The idea of being a mother in my 20’s was unfathomable. I always had a desire to build a stable life before considering starting a family. My mother’s generation was less focused on careers due to social pressures in the 1970s. Women were expected to marry and have a family almost immediately after the wedding. The choice to wait was not a luxury females had during that time, like they do today. Modern science has made a world of difference in many women’s lives.

The freezing of eggs for humans is relatively new. Also, known as oocyte cryopreservation,  a treatment used by fertility specialists to help women have babies is increasing in popularity. Eggs are generated from the woman’s ovaries, frozen and stored to use at a future date when the woman is ready to be impregnated. History shows the first experiments of the technology were done on rodents around the 1960’s. Between 1986-1992 the first egg donor pregnancies were reported, one of which was to a 53-year old woman in menopause. Over the course of the past two decades, science had skyrocketing results. Research increasingly improved the technology by delivering its first baby in 2005, after thawing out a frozen egg that was kept 4 years in cryostorage. Although thousands of babies have been born using frozen eggs, it remains relatively uncommon compared to the conventional method which is not an option to everyone.

The cost of freezing eggs is extremely high. Getting the suggested 10-30 eggs for freezing will amount to tens of thousands of dollars. In addition to price, it is essential to find a reputable fertility clinic. All this without a guarantee that a pregnancy will take, unfortunately, the treatment does not always work. Despite the possible setbacks, freezing eggs can give young women peace of mind. The key is not waiting too long to do the freezing. Our eggs are much more viable when we are in our 20’s and 30’s which is a challenging time. How many women this age do you know have $5,000 to 10,000 lying around to pay for the procedure? I would bet that many are still paying college debt and interest to tie them up for a decade. However, if this is something that is important for you then planning in advance makes this a viable course of action.

Freezing eggs was not a possibility for me. The science to get pregnant using the method did not exist as a recourse during my college years. However, if my daughter would like to consider this alternative I would throw my support to her corner. The beauty of modern science is that it offers choices, so women can delay taking on additional roles they may not be prepared for early in adulthood.

Career mobility, finding your soulmate or unwillingness to change a lifestyle, women have different reasons for putting off motherhood. Being a wife and mother is an immense responsibility, not only consuming you physically but emotionally, too. Delaying this part of life for a few years is a personal decision , and only yours to make.

Protected content. 2019 awakened-woman.com