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?

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

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 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’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.

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.

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

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

How much does it actually cost?

Because housing should always be a priority. A child will always need housing. Because the vast majority of people will not need IVF or egg retrieval.

Because it's easier just to have kids in your 20s/early 30s than to do something far fetched like that.

Because I don't necessarily want GC.
Because I am killing myself working to fund uni and help towards a house deposit
Because I am also supposed to fund a wedding according to my culture.#

There is a limit to how much parents can be expected to do in 2024.

I think it's crossing a boundary to assume your daughter is going to want to have children, and when.
But everyone wants/needs a roof over their heads.

I think OP you have had a very privileged life and your parents seem incredibly wealthy. Which is ok, but your expectations for what parents can do is really out of touch with reality.

Just because someone can do something, doesn't make it right

I really hope that this does not become common place in the future, that at 18 or 21 a woman has to freeze their eggs

So will males be freezing their sperms too ?

What about freedom of choice ?

www.hfea.gov.uk/treatments/fertility-preservation/egg-freezing/

Around £125-£350 a year storage fees.

I actually think mummies and daddies should all be buying DCs little real estate plots on Mars because… you know, overcrowding, global warming and all that.

Egg freezing is often misleading, in fact women have been raising awareness about how its missold.

Encouraging egg freezing might give false security and encourage women to delay, feeling like theyve given themselves time when often doesn't cover how unlikely to be successful it is, and the risks of pregnancy at an older age

Egg freezing gets banded round like a magic cure when infact research has been as damning as a 2% success rate for older women in their later 30s. Lots of the higher rates used to advertise come from women thawing them under 30

Embryo freezing is more successful but requires you to commit to sperm

Should it result in pregnancy, Then even then you have increased risk regardless of how young your eggs are.

The costs are also incredibly high

Not sure why anyone would be encouraged at 18, unless there was a cancer, ovarian issue, or similar, when egg quality and reliability of production peaks typically roughly between 24 and 28, depending on a range of other health factors, some may remain at that peak quality until their early thirites before the decline happens. Younger isn't always better.

I've discussed with my children, boys and girls, the family medical history including fertility. I encourage them to consider their whole life, not just work (as they feel schools tend to focus on jobs and telling them everything that can go wrong in relationships), but beyond that, I don't feel it's my place to encourage optional medical procedures.

Better to tell them female fertility reduces from age 25 as the vast majority are unaware.

No it doesn't for most - the ability to get pregnant remains largely stable through the twenties. There are exceptions and are some genetic, health, and lifestyle factors that impact this, but in general, when considering maternal and child health and wellbeing throughout pregnancy, childbirth, postnatal and beyond , egg quality, reliability of producing eggs, and other fertility factors, the 'least risk/best window' is 24-32ish. There are ways to mitigate some of the risks beyond that, some which are being pushed like expanding blood testing to include wider nutrition panels to help reduce the impact of deficiences that tend to be a bigger issue in younger mothers on-going health.

Higher rates of abnormalities from ivf.
But also its not great for the body to have sedation and hyperstimulation

No, it says lower...

Just asked 22 if she though I should pay for her - she looked at me like I was mad, went ‘ewwww’ and said ‘it’s a painful and invasive procedure- why would you do that?’

In terms of asd risk it maybe that the next generation would be better having kids pre 30s

I do agree that the better support would be in changing society.
I would have had children younger should I have been able to afford a house, marriage and childcare younger
We should also be making sure that we are supporting equal access to fertility treatments as needed. Some areas fund decent fertility help, others completely stopped funding it. That kind of postcode lottery needs to be stopped

Because most people don't have premature ovarian failure and most women are able to have children before age 35 when fertility starts to be increasingly impacted, and most women by their early 30s are mature enough to freeze their own eggs if it looks like it'll be necessary. It'd also be very odd to freeze eggs at 18 when miscarriage and abnormalities are more common under 25.

Fertility isn't bad for most people in their early 30s, if there's problems early egg retrieval wouldn't have fixed it and you just do the IVF when required.

In the Uk you can only legally keep the eggs for 10 years, so there’s not much point doing it at 18.
Also, unfortunately the chances of them creating a baby from frozen eggs is very low. Frozen foetuses do far better, but obviously that’s more tricky.
As women our greatest hope is the cancer drug they’ve recently found slows ageing of eggs.