I have been watching with both interest and alarm as egg freezing has moved from the sidelines to the mainstream. From “freezing parties” and “free fertility checkups” to workplace benefits that cover the procedure and positive Twitter threads by people who chose it, there’s a lot of pressure on young women to keep their options open on delaying motherhood.
If freezing eggs and using them later were simple, I would be more enthusiastic. But I’d still be sounding a note of caution.
There are several things that should give you pause. The first is that egg freezing is not medically benign – it carries risks. Another is that it’s not financially neutral – it’s pricey. But even more concerning is its psychological impact – the way it makes you feel more secure and confident about your prospects of becoming a parent, while possibly making those prospects even worse. Because ultimately egg freezing kicks all the hard decisions down the road into a far-off future.
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And even after all that, you might not get one live birth. (Numbers aren’t that reliable because not a lot of studies have been done, but women 35 or under with 10 to 15 eggs on ice still might have only a 40-per-cent chance of live birth.)
You might realize in the midst of all these calculations that egg freezing is not at all like insurance, but more like gambling: Insurance is a sure thing, but live birth after egg freezing is anything but.
