A woman may decide to freeze her eggs for a variety of reasons―she wants to focus on her career in her 30s (you know-- that thing men do for which they are never shamed or asked to apologize), she has a medical condition now that may decrease her chances of conceiving naturally later (because being a woman wasn’t complicated enough), or maybe she doesn’t see finding the right person to share a child with in the near future (are these dating profiles or ugh...) Regardless, there are a few pros and cons to consider when making the decision:

Pros of Egg Freezing

• Save your healthiest eggs now: Egg health decreases as a woman ages, so freezing your eggs makes it possible to preserve fertility and get pregnant later.  Like that one friend who’s announced that she’s “turning 29” for the past 7 years, egg freezing allows your eggs to say ‘about to turn 35!’ for a full decade if needed; after 40, the chances of getting pregnant decrease significantly and the odds of bearing eggs with chromosomal abnormalities increases, most unfortunately.

• Healthier eggs may mean fewer rounds of IVF later: Fertility treatments may be more expensive at a more advanced age without the benefit of having younger, frozen eggs to use.  Because if you DO wind up having kids, that’s not the ideal time to blow through your savings.    

• Peace of mind: Women have the time to create the best possible situation to start a family without the concern of time passing.  It allows us to be like those ethereal wood nymphs who never age and can bear a child at any time!  Or like...you know...men.  

• No regrets: As technology advances, so will the ease of this process, and women may wish they had taken advantage of this technology when they were the right age for it.  

• Promotes gender equality: In the workplace and in relationships, it levels off the pressure to have children by a certain age.  You might still decide not to have a child in your 40’s because the exhaustion of having a newborn baby is more than you feel like tackling at that time.  But that decision is made by you and not your ovaries.  

Cons of Egg Freezing

• High cost: A cycle of egg freezing costs around $10,000, and, with additional fees for medication, and storage, the total costs may be around $15,000.

• False sense of security: There is still no 100% guarantee that frozen eggs will lead to a successful pregnancy.  In fairness, even women getting pregnant the traditional way at 28 aren’t guaranteed that it’ll work.  There are no guarantees with egg freezing.

• One cycle, one child: One cycle of egg freezing usually results in one child, at best; multiple children require multiple cycles of egg freezing, with no guarantees.  We’ll say it again.  It’s a lot of money.  To MAYBE create one child.  Who will then do grow up and do ridiculous things like riding a skateboard without a helmet or walking through a dangerous area at night because they have literally no idea how much they mean to you.

• Drug treatment and medical procedures risks: Both to retrieve the eggs now, and to return the fertilized eggs later, the woman’s body needs to undergo hormone medications and invasive procedures, which always involve some small amount of health risk.  And some pain.  And as women, often we feel like the last thing in the world we want to say is, “Please. Inject me with more hormones.  My emotions were not chaotic enough, so let’s up the dose.”

There is a lot of information available online, from both fertility centers describing the medical process, as well as from women in the Glow Community who have made this decision already and are willing to share their thoughts, feelings, and outcomes.