To wonder why more parents don't encourage daughters to freeze eggs?

How much does it actually cost?

This is a good point. Egg freezing is not a one off cost.

No!
It actually says lower success rates than fresh ivf cycle.

I would think a parent who ‘encouraged’ their adult child’s reproductive choices was massively overstepping boundaries, particularly where a medical procedure is involved. If my parents had, at any point in my life, started telling me what I should be doing with my ovaries, I would have thought they were being really interfering and weird.

I’m trying to think of something to say in response - but I really do not have any words.

I will add we live in the US. It’s a global bank, but I don’t know if this option is offered to women employees in the U.K. Even when I lived and worked in the U.K., my employer’s (also a global firm) healthcare policy would have covered x3 rounds of IVF. But egg-freezing is different. To the employer it’ll just be an extension of “we care about our women employees, we know that dating and finding a partner can be fraught, we know egg-freezing might help you, see this as a perk as money can solve this”. But it’s very difficult indeed not to jump to the conclusion that this employer - an investment bank at that - is buying your most productive years. To me it’s just like walking into the communal kitchen and finding ibuprofen and lemsip and snacks and sandwiches, walking into the ladies and finding baskets of toiletries and sanitary products, going to the in-house shop and finding dry cleaning services and referrals to housekeepers and window cleaners and taxi services etc. Yes, it’s helpful. But they’re only doing it to keep you at your desk for more hours. It’s not because they love their employees.

Still, we’re all free to choose to avail of these things or not. Egg freezing at 35yo is crazy. But, easy for me to say with easily-conceived DC of my own.

Because if I had provided my daughter with a private education, a flat, and also paid a substantial amount towards her wedding, then I would expect her to be able to put some money aside for freezing her eggs, if that is what she wanted to do. If she couldn't manage to earn and save the money herself after having such a privileged start to life, then I would be pretty hurt and disappointed that she then wanted to blame me.

This. I can't provide either of my DD with this generous start in life but the sentiment in this post is spot on.

Op you've had an extremely privileged start to life - you became an adult and starting taking decisions for yourself - most parents try very hard to respect that.

I won't presume that my DD want kids and frankly these days many parents won't assume that either.

Also I can't fund everything in their lives -we - DH and I - paid for our wedding and house deposit - I will always help my DC but honesty the level of privilege here is already high - but also idea that your parents could foresee you wanting to be a mother and needing fertility help which is a huge ask when you apparently didn't foresee this and save up and act.

I don't think this is such an amazing gift. The employer is expecting a trade-off: female employees sacrifice their best childbearing years and fingers crossed they might have children later.

No thanks.

Because most reasonable people would not consider their adult DD's reproductive choices to be any of their business, and they would be correct.

Exactly this. It’s a huge ordeal to undergo physically and mentally in addition to the huge financial expense and there are no guarantees. The eggs probably won’t be needed and if they are, there isn’t a lot of evidence that egg freezing is successful . I don’t think we’re anywhere near a situation where egg freezing should be seen as a general practice for girls between 18-25, just in case!!

because world population rates of humans are ridiculously high @alesndra ?

I think most 18 to 25 year olds wouldn't want to do it, mine certainly wouldn't.

Because it’s a complete unknown. A woman may not want children or may end up conceiving naturally, or IVF process might fail.

A flat or wedding or uni money is solidly and reliably spent.

Because the chances of a healthy pregnancy are pretty poor?

“the chance of a live birth is somewhere between 32% and 18%”

https://carefertility.com.au/resources/blog/8-common-questions-about-freezing-eggs-for-a-later-pregnancy#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20eggs%20that%20can%20be%20stored%20depends%20on,time%20she%20freezes%20her%20eggs.

They’re not great odds to pin your hopes on, go through an invasive procedure and spent a lot of money on.

As a mum of two daughters in their late twenties I don't encourage my daughters to do this because their family planning is none of my business.

It’s nothing to do with me. If I was asked for an opinion I would give it but I would not start that conversation with anyone, I don’t even know how I would begin to broach something so personal.

😲

That's madness so she can work longer then decide to have a baby at 45-50.

Is there any long term data regarding the progress of children who are conceived via frozen eggs?

Because it is not normal or risk free to have a baby this way.

I know this isnt AIBU but its such an unreasonable idea. I find it appalling tbh.
Babies arent a commodity.
I desperately wanted children and feel forever glad that I was able to have the two I did. Had I not been able to - Id have considered fostering, adopting or.......... not having kids. Not ideal but que sera sera.

I mean what does happen to them if they are not used ?

Yup. My SIL had her eggs frozen at 35yo (insane), all paid for by her employer (an investment bank). It was a benefit under the umbrella of health benefits. I had/have no words.

Fucking hell, what a monstrous thought.

Having babies older already has health implications for the woman and the potential baby. Doing so with frozen eggs is even more of a gamble, whilst the idea of "freezing your eggs while young" gives a false sense of invulnerablility and sidestepping a biological clock.

Encouraging perfectly healthy, fertile young women to undertake an unpleasant, invasive and expensive procedure on the off chance they might want it later is awful.

as a childless by chance woman, can I throw in that there seems to be an underlying assumption that A) every woman wants children and B) that every woman who can't conceive naturally will go the IVF route because they will never be happy without children. I get that that is how it feels to the OP but it ain't so.

There's also the issue of what you do with the eggs.

What if you have one child naturally and are done, but have eight frozen eggs? What if there are three frozen eggs and they feel pressure to use them all?

A lot of people, if not most people, struggle with the idea of destroying them. So it's a lifestyle of paying for them, or a lot of pressure to have the exact number of children as frozen eggs...