We're born with between one and two million of the things. Each passing year, the quality and quantity of our precious reserve declines until we hit the menopause and they effectively run out. I'm talking, of course, about our oocytes, the little eggs produced in our ovaries.
But one procedure, oocyte cryopreservation, more commonly known as 'egg freezing', allows women to subvert this process and gain some control over their so-called "biological clock". It's been hailed by many over the last few years as a silver bullet offering young women the chance to “have it all”: build a successful career while putting their chance of having a baby literally on ice, until a time that suits them.
In 2014, when the news broke that Facebook in the U.S. would start covering the cost of its employees freezings their eggs, the debate around the issue exploded. Citygroup and JP Morgan Chase in the U.S. were already offering it to their employees, but Facebook's connection with the "Lean In" narrative (that women should grab all the career opportunities they can), propagated by Sheryl Sandberg, the company's Chief Operating Officer, really got people riled up. Apple also began offering egg freezing to its staff shortly after.
Opponents argued that it forces women to work through the most fertile years, when what women who want kids really need is well-paid parental leave and subsidised childcare. While those in favour said it will be "the great equaliser" for women at work, and could be "our generation’s Pill — a way to circumvent a biological glass ceiling that, even as we make social and professional progress, does not budge."
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This publicity led to an increase in the number of women inquiring about the procedure in the U.S., Time magazine reported, and it's quickly gaining popularity among professional women. Just 500 women froze their eggs in the U.S. in 2009, while nearly 5,000 did in 2013, according to data from the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART), Time reported. And fertility marketer EggBanxx estimates that 76,000 women will be doing it by 2018.
In the UK, the marketing of egg freezing hasn't been anywhere near as aggressive as it has been in the U.S. so far, and the industry remains embryonic. UK companies don't offer to cover the costs for their staff like they do in the U.S. yet, either. Facebook and Google don't currently cover the cost of egg freezing for their UK staff, and while Richard Branson said last year he wanted to introduce it for Virgin employees, it's not offered to UK employees yet either.
However, there are signs that interest in the procedure is growing in the UK. A cocktail of social and economic factors has meant that British women are increasingly delaying motherhood, and the number of young British women freezing their eggs has risen rapidly in recent years, according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). In 2014, 816 British women froze their eggs – 25% more than the previous year, and more than 28 times the number who did in 2001, when just 29 women underwent the procedure. The most commonly cited reason being that they had no male partner. Inquiries into the procedure at private clinics also apparently rose by 400% in Britain between 2014 and 2015, with more than half of these coming from under 35s.
Egg freezing parties, offering women the chance to talk about the procedure informally and potentially receive a discount, are already all the rage in the U.S. and fertility experts in the UK have said they could soon become a reality in cities like London, with a high population of professional women. There was even an egg-freezing popup shop earlier this year in Old Street, London, designed to stimulate debate about social freezing (as opposed to eggs frozen for medical reasons), and get more young women talking about their fertility. (Hence the use of "Tumblr pink" in the creators' marketing material, presumably.) "I think younger and younger women will freeze [their eggs] as egg freezing goes more mainstream, success stories of pregnancy are published, and prices decline," Brigitte Adams, the founder of Eggsurance, a blog and discussion forum about egg freezing, told Refinery29. "When I froze in 2011, the majority of egg freezers were like me, at desperation point, in their late 30s. Demographics have since shifted a few years younger since then, and I believe this trend will continue." According to some experts, freezing your eggs earlier – in your 20s – increases women's chance of becoming pregnant using them later on. So if you're in your 20s or early 30s and thinking about freezing your eggs, is it worth it? And what does the seemingly miraculous technique actually involve?
Egg freezing parties, offering women the chance to talk about the procedure informally and potentially receive a discount, are already all the rage in the U.S. and fertility experts in the UK have said they could soon become a reality in cities like London, with a high population of professional women. There was even an egg-freezing popup shop earlier this year in Old Street, London, designed to stimulate debate about social freezing (as opposed to eggs frozen for medical reasons), and get more young women talking about their fertility. (Hence the use of "Tumblr pink" in the creators' marketing material, presumably.) "I think younger and younger women will freeze [their eggs] as egg freezing goes more mainstream, success stories of pregnancy are published, and prices decline," Brigitte Adams, the founder of Eggsurance, a blog and discussion forum about egg freezing, told Refinery29. "When I froze in 2011, the majority of egg freezers were like me, at desperation point, in their late 30s. Demographics have since shifted a few years younger since then, and I believe this trend will continue." According to some experts, freezing your eggs earlier – in your 20s – increases women's chance of becoming pregnant using them later on. So if you're in your 20s or early 30s and thinking about freezing your eggs, is it worth it? And what does the seemingly miraculous technique actually involve?
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The cost
The first thing to think about, and hurdle to overcome, is the price. Egg freezing is expensive and as such is highly exclusive: it's an option only available to a small minority of women. Namely, those already in stable and, mostly likely, professional careers or with family money behind them. For most younger women, with lower salaries and student loans to pay off, it's not an option, or at least not something to consider lightly. Egg freezing isn’t universally available to healthy women on the NHS, only those facing reduced fertility for medical reasons, such as cancer and premature menopause. While there have been calls to make it available for free to all women in their 20s and early 30s, most women turn to private clinics. One cycle of egg freezing can cost between £3500 to £4500 in total, but costs can vary between clinics, and most women go through more than one cycle to increase their chances of "harvesting" their desired number of eggs. You can be charged extra for blood tests, drugs and sedation. Then there's the annual storage fee, which can be up to £400, so the earlier you freeze your eggs, the more you’ll end up paying in storage costs. If you freeze them at 25 and don’t use them until you’re 40, you could pay around £6,000 for storage alone."It's worth researching which services are actually required and speaking to different clinics as often unnecessary tests are tacked on to the price," says Professor Geeta Nargund, Medical Director of CREATE Fertility, who is an expert in the field. "Always question if high doses of drugs are prescribed, as they cost more and may not be necessary."
Alice Mann*, 39, froze her eggs nearly three years ago after splitting up with her long-term partner. She has spent nearly £14,000 so far on three cycles, which resulted in 14 frozen eggs, plus £300 per year to keep them on ice. She breaks down the cost in a post on her blog, Egged On, where she chronicled her experience. Mann is glad she froze her eggs when she did, rather than in her 20s, but she told Refinery29: "Although in some ways, I wish I'd done it when I was younger as I know that younger eggs are healthier, I have to be realistic.
"My fertility wasn't forefront of my mind when I was in my 20s and, crucially, I didn't have the money," Mann added. There's also a chance she wouldn't have been able to chose flash freezing, a newer and more effective freezing technique, when she was in her 20s. "Fundamentally, I did it when I was mentally and financially ready to – and fortuitously at a time when the technology had improved."
For most women in their 20s, then, freezing their eggs isn't really an option, especially in the current economic climate: eye-watering rent and property prices, precarious employment, government austerity and the ongoing financial crisis, mean young women don’t exactly have much spare cash lying around. "Egg freezing is an expensive process and should not be taken lightly," said Nargund. "In the future there may be opportunities to discuss partial-public funding, once we have established a robust national database." However, for those who can afford the procedure, it could mean they end up spending less on fertility treatment in later life.