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

Why aren't more parents encouraging their sons to step up and be partner/dad material before they're 40?

Why aren't more parents encouraging their kids to go into the most lucrative industries?

Why aren't more parents prepared to offer childcare and accommodation to their grown up children?

Why aren't more parents lobbying hard for employers and the state to be more family friendly so that their children find it easier and cheaper to raise a family than they have?

People aren't having children for just some of the reasons outlined above.
Why is the onus on women to undergo an invasive medical procedure at great cost and which has a shit chance of ever resulting in a live birth?

It's not that people necessarily want to have kids later in life - the enablers simply aren't there to allow it.
Too many men take decades to grow up, wages are shit, housing is expensive, childcare is astronomically expensive and hard to find in many areas, and employers still make it hard to work and be a parent.

These need fixing first to make family life possible for more people at a younger age. Fertility and how it declines with age absolutely needs to be discussed more and at a younger age. But I'm not convinced freezing eggs is the answer for the vast majority of people.

I haven't read the full thread but I've read op's entries.

I'm quite surprised to read this question.

Putting aside the gift of a flat etc, which isn't really relevant, but if you are in your 20s, for most women eggs wouldn't have declined so much as to benefit from using frozen eggs. Cancer would be an exception to this, but women are often encouraged to freeze eggs before undergoing cancer therapies.

The success rate of defrosting and implanting frozen eggs successfully is pretty small.

I did read that Google offers egg freezing as an employment perk, but the problem is, a woman can feel she has more time, delay conceiving naturally completely, then when relying on the frozen eggs, does not meet with success.

Moreover the cost of the subsequent ivf can be enormous, so there are women with "banked" eggs who can't afford to use them.

Ultimately, it's a question between you and your own parents. Did you ask them, and if so, what did they say?

What have the doctors said is your fertility issue? Is it definitely something that would be solved by you having banked your eggs?

I'm sorry you're having trouble ttc. I expect you've tried doing a sperm count, and being really careful on dates and other tips like that? If you're at the ivf stage then I suspect you have tried all of that.

Best of luck with it I hope you get your baby!

Just Googled this. Sounds awful.

People delay having kids because they haven't got a partner or their partner doesn't want kids. Finances are rarely a reason to delay beyond 30.

Because they don’t want to put their healthy young daughters at risk of OHSS? It’s
no joke.

Well I don't know if the way IVF is carried out has changed since I had mine but I found it extremely invasive and very traumatic. The egg collection was also very painful. It's not something I would ever have done again, even more so now that I'm aware of the risks involved.

I wonder why more parents don't encourage their adult sons to grow up, stop wasting their female peers' fertility in their youth only to decide to shack up with and impregnate a 25 year old when they're 40 +?

Motherhood was horribly delayed for me thanks to a series of indulged commitment phobic man-children who couldn't possibly have taken on any form of responsibility until they were at least 35. Quite happy to shack up and fuck around in 20 or so years prior though.

No because my child is not a brood mare.

I would never encourage my DD to do it - she’s not some sort of breeding machine! I would however happily support her through it, both as a parent who has also been through the process and financially.

She’s 20 and thinks that it is something she will probably look into a few years down the line. She wants to live her life to the full in her 20s and isn’t planning on marriage or babies any time soon.

I was an older mother (late 30s) and have no regrets. It is a better time to have kids in my opinion with increased financial and mental stability.

@Twattergy success rates depend on how many eggs you freeze. If you freeze enough success rates are very good (but that of course comes with cost, small but not insignificant risks etc)

@katepilar do you think it’s weird if someone does it because they are having cancer treatment for example?

For all of those saying it’s incredibly invasive - it’s really not. And compared to childbirth, well….

its about ten days of injection, you get bloated, then you have light sedation for egg extraction. But there are indeed some risks with it which should not be downplayed.

And there are many well documented benefits to having children later in life - in particular greater emotional maturity and stability as well as finances 🤷‍♀️

so it’s not quite as outrageous as people are suggesting

Why not?
Extremely low success rates creating a false sense of security?
No sense of whether it's something the daughter in question would actually want to do?

It’s quite an unpleasant procedure and success from frozen eggs which aren’t fertilised isn’t great. So in a way you’d be getting a false sense of security.

I agree with you that it would make a great and generous offer of a gift for those who can afford it. Likely parents don’t think of it if they had no major issues concerning or had children young.

Sadly, it remains a bit of a taboo topics and so I can’t see a parent or child readily raising it.

Having not been in a position to have children in my 20s (which is the reality for a lot of women nowadays) and needing treatment, it’s a fact that the younger the egg that higher the chances of success with IVF. Therefore whilst it’s an invasive procedure, should someone need treatment further down the line, it is one of the best things to do to boost chances. For something as precious as being able to have a child, I think it’s a great investment for “piece of mind” that they’ve maximised their chances for those who can afford it.

Not trying to offend - but because its simply weird. The whole concept of freezing eggs is sick. Plus unnecessary procedure.

Because my daughter may not want children in the future and I’ve no desire to make her feel like having children is the be all and end all. There have been no fertility issues within her family, it’s an incredibly invasive procedure and if there ever did become a need for her to freeze her eggs then it would be a discussion she’d have with her doctor. If she needed help financing it and I was in the position to do so I would, but I’d never encourage her to do it “because you’ll want to have kids at some point!”

They can also be donated. You have to renew your consent every 10 years, up to a maximum of 55 years. This is a recent change in law so no one will be at that stage yet.

I’d rather my daughters have financial security than have a child. Especially since it isn’t guaranteed and is a difficult process to go through.

It isn’t something I’d encourage at all.

TBH my DD would rather have a house than a child. Also, her reproductive choice is bugger all to do with me so I wouldn't have even tried to "encourage" her to do something on the off chance she may change her mind anyway.

That’s stooping op. Ignore.

Everyone needs a roof over over their heads, from birth until death, and has done since humans have started building structures with roofs. Comparatively, a handuf of women, with the benefit of hindsight, have wanted their younger selves to have frozen some eggs, for about 5 minutes of human history. That's probably a big part of the reason - it's not a universal necessity.

It can’t always buy babies though…..