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

[alesndra]

I know , I know - money! But there's so many more parents that help out their children by buying them housing or contributing large sums towards the wedding. Why isn't egg freezing a more common "gift"?

For example, I grew up quite comfortable and my parents wanted to help me build up a safety net. When I finished uni they bought me a flat in central London (for which I am immensely grateful) and paid a substantial amount towards my wedding (again, very very thankful for this). So they clearly have money and were willing to use it to help me out in life. Similarly now, I've mentioned we might do IVF and parents have said if they can help out financially they are very willing. So... why is it that so few girls are encouraged by their parents at age 18-25 to freeze eggs by their parents? Why, among all of my friends, even ones who went to private school and come from super rich backgrounds, have none of us been "gifted" an egg freezing round but many got flats etc? Not ungrateful but just wondering why culturally it's not as common when it could save so many tears, stress and even money down the line to be used on unsuccessful IVF rounds as egg quality declines?
I feel like this is 100% something I would "gift" my daughter, ahead of for example cars or flats. Or am I missing something?

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.

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.

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

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.

Just Googled this. Sounds awful.

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!

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.

@Blisterly @IdgieThreadgoodeIsMyHeroine because that causes it’s own problems. Reversal, depending on how long after the initial procedure, can have as little as 60% success rate for there being sperm in ejaculate.

Almost all vasectomies can be reversed. However, this doesn't guarantee success in conceiving a child. Vasectomy reversal can be attempted even if several years have passed since the original vasectomy — but the longer it has been, the less likely it is that the reversal will work.

I found it incredibly invasive. Months of medications and trans vaginal scans and cancelled cycles, injections 4 times a day, 6 rectal pessaries a day, failed sedation for retrieval so being awake but paralysed throughout, abandoned fresh transfer, OHSS and ascites needing hospitalisation, over a month of recovery....

Worth it now I'm carrying my husband's baby, not worth it in my early twenties on an off chance I might one day need eggs.

You are JOKING!!!!

A friend of mine nearly died from this procedure. Incredibly risky!

For the vast majority it would be a completely unnecessary waste of time.

People struggle with the idea of destroying embryos, not eggs. Women who menstruate “destroy” one or more eggs every month!

I found it invasive. Not just the injections but the repeated internal scans to check how the follicles are growing. Also I had my first few retrievals under GA not sedation.

And all for nothing.

This!

Yes this. But we are conditioned by society to believe we will regret it if we don’t have kids and that that regret will last the rest of our lives.

@Millsmills thst sounds really tough.

i imagine its a different experience when you’re egg freezing with no fertility issues at the time - eg I didn’t have any cancelled cycles etc.

Certainly I think emotionally it’s a lot less traumatic - because it’s about a future that you may or may not want in the future rather than something you want now that you’re struggling to achieve. Which I imagine makes the full IVF cycle far more emotionally difficult.

and as said of course there are risks regardless. I was fortunate not to have bad experiences.

so all i can say is that for me multiple rounds of egg freezing was not difficult as a process 🤷‍♀️

i wouldn’t be gifting it to my nieces at 18 however no matter how much money I had unless they were gong to undergo an operation etc that impacted on their fertility

and I wouldn’t say it was for everyone - for me it was something I’m glad I did. But if I hadn’t don’t it - I think probably I would have ended up in the same place of being at peace with not having children. But it wiuld
have been a harder journey for me to get there.

But we ARE society. If we want to change this, its up to us. My parents were delighted when one of my sibs had kids but were never pushy eith the rest of us.

There's a while lot of difference in terms of success in freezing eggs, and freezing embryos.

It's a lot of money for that might not be needed, might not be successful, and it's putting a huge amount of pressure on the 18 year old. Even offering that to your Daughter gives her the idea of expectations.

Egg harvesting isn’t a bit of fun. It effing hurts

It's a relatively modern thing to wait until you're mid-thirties before seriously thinking about having your first child.

Every single one of my friends are 36 and still have the "in a couple of years" frame of mind. I'm guessing none of them have kids in the end.

@2024onwardsandup but all of those things can happen in egg freezing cycles too. Sounds like it worked well for you but there's no reason why you can't have cancelled cycles in egg freezing. You can respond poorly to stims and need to try a different protocol. You can get OHSS (in fact it's more likely the younger you are and the higher your AFC). So doing that whole process, knowing that there is a very real chance of complications or unforseen circumstances, on the off chance you want children in future? Or the off chance you might be part of the small percentage that undertakes IVF? That's a massive undertaking.

I'm glad you had an easy experience.

Because I wouldn’t have wanted my eggs sat in a freezer.

Also, plenty of women (myself included) conceive first time TTC well into mid-late 30’s.

I was 36, 38 and 42. I would add though that I was never broody nor particularly bothered about having children (all DH’s idea 😂), so wouldn’t have made any special efforts to get pregnant.

I would have been horrified if my parents had suggested egg freezing!!

There's a lot of incorrect information about modern IVF, so you won't get much understanding. Eggs are retrieved through a needle, they're not chicken eggs removed through open pelvic surgery 😆 With current vitrification success rates are not dissimilar to fresh IVF. 3 euploid embryos have a success rate of 95% and eggs from a healthy 26-32 year old would make this easier if you knew you wouldn't be able to TTC naturally under 35. Success rates are high with donor eggs for a reason and that's why egg freezing is so useful. It doesn't have to be so costly, transfers can be natural and attrition is absolutely normal and should always be factored into treatment and how many eggs you'd collect. Just like natural conception only has a 20% success rate in your twenties, you're using the same eggs so why wouldn't there be attrition.

The age you suggest is silly, but a fertility check up in the late 20s and if results suggest it, collecting enough eggs around age 30 would make sense. Having been in the 'infertility world', the one thing that I hear the most is "I wish I'd frozen eggs when I was younger" followed by "I wish I'd been told about this sooner". From that aspect you're not unreasonable OP.

And yes, I've had IVF and been hospitalised with OHSS. I'm a rape survivor and didn't find the 4-5 three minute internal scans to be distressing nor the needle that's used to extract the eggs when I was unconscious. It's not as bad as a smear and we do that. I had nearly 60 follicles with PCOS but it's a lot easier for most people who have 10-20 who would be trying to freeze eggs for the future, rather than as a fertility treatment. OHSS is a small risk to a small number of people and managed through correct protocol and aftercare. Anyone should be seeking out a decent doctor just like with any other medical procedure, and be fully informed.