I can’t begin to count the number of television shows or movies I have seen lately that mention women freezing their eggs. In the hit television comedy, The Mindy Project, a frozen fertility specialist, Mindy Lahiri, talks to young women about freezing their eggs if they are considering putting off getting pregnant. Not having a ticking biological clock hanging over our heads has been a foreign concept for women up until now.
The idea behind it is to freeze your eggs while you are still young, so you have the option of getting pregnant or using a surrogate later on in life. As women age, the number of eggs in their ovaries decreases, and start doing so at a greater frequency. Not only that, but the quality of those eggs is also better when a woman is younger. The older a woman gets, the greater risk of diseases occurring in the newborn. The process of freezing eggs gives women a chance to have children when they choose instead of having children when they aren’t ready just because time is ticking.
To give you an overview of what to expect should you choose to go down this road includes, first and foremost, an appointment with a specialist. During this visit, an assessment of the reproductive organs, frozen fertility, and overall health will be ascertained. The process will begin with hormone injections that will allow your body to mature enough eggs for the time of retrieval. When you are at the optimum stage, a short procedure to retrieve your eggs will be performed and they will be immediately frozen. The process is an expensive one, and to maintain the eggs in a frozen state also requires regular fees. All of this should be considered and discussed with your physician so you are aware of all your options.
