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?

Say I had collected eggs at great cost, stored them at the cost of thousands, and the eggs battled through each of the statistically unlikely events of collecting well, freezing, then dethawing
The next unlikely events would be fertilising, making it to the next stage then implanting which would also cost thousands

The cost of the egg retrieval is a small part of the storage, subsequent ivf etc than needs to happen. If you have 8 eggs frozen, it's not uncommon to lose them at each stage so you have to start looking at things like icsi because you can't take the risk of less invasive but less effective iuis

You're looking at costs in the 10's of thousands in order to store and use frozen eggs

If my parents had paid and stored them for me, I certainly couldn't afford for multiple ivf treatments per pregnancy to use them

I'd have agonisingly frozen eggs that I couldn't afford to use

I feel like it would put pressure on my daughter to have a child she maybe didn't feel 100% sure about as I'd have made it very clear (in her mind) that I wanted her to procreate by encouraging egg storage and she may feel a pressure to "make use of the gift."

I suppose if my daughter was 37 I could say to her that if she had a child, I could still just about help with childcare until the child started school. I'll be retired by then but I'd be 69. I figure I could help with a baby / toddler at that point but if she left in another 5 years then I'd be much less able to help physically. but this is because i was 32 when I had her.

have kids when your mum is young enough to help :-p

Because the whole idea of paying for a daughter's house and education is to help her to build up independence, not to say 'right we have helped you so give us a grandchild please'.
Egg freezing isn't ideal and has little guarantee of success.

Egg harvesting is brutal. Why would you want to go through that if you didn’t need to.

The 10 year life span is a good point

I wasn't ready at 28, I would have been forced to destroy them. In my early thirties I couldn't have afforded multiple ivfs to use them so would have also had to destroy them

Egg freezing isn't as successful as its made out to be. I froze 14 eggs in 2016 ,I thawed and tried to get them fertilised in 2023, and they either died in thawing or didn't fertilise.

I will point that I used the best clinic in London /Europe for this procedures.

There are plenty of case studies similar to mine.

With flats, cars etc you know they will be used.

Frozen eggs might not be used. Maybe the daughters will have no issues conceiving. Even if they TTC later in life. Or maybe they'll TTC in their twenties.

It can provide a false safety net as well, having frozen eggs doesn't guarantee anything. This false safety net would be my main worry.
I also think parents don't necessarily want to put their young daughters through all the injections etc and a harsh medical procedure.

I'm hoping my children don't want children tbh. The world is getting harder imo and I would prefer they didn't have that worry. So wouldn't occur to me to offer egg freeze as a gift

The thread isn't about helping to look after kids though? It's about freezing eggs.

Are you serious? It’s unreliable and no guarantee of working, means having to do IVF when they do want to use the eggs, it’s painful and invasive. How many young people even know if they want kids? It also has the ongoing cost of storage. Freezing embryos is more reliable but obviously involves choosing a partner first. Maybe not all parents see their daughters as breeding machines. And I’d seriously consider whether you want your parents paying for IVF if you did need it - it’s not guaranteed and could create a difficult dynamic as theyr essentially paying for a grandchild. I would never accept money from parents for IVF. A property deposit or car is not comparable - those are guaranteed

I was waiting for someone to come along and say this. I feel like an awful person because I am encouraging my DC not to have DC. Especially as they want to stay in London if they can.

You're doomed either way

Either I had them when my parents were struggling to help due to age or when my parents were still working and people are edging closer to 70 now when they are at home and available

In many situations people delay having kids because they can't afford them due to not being able to have one income house holds. My parents also can't afford for a one income house

If I had them young my mum had many years of working ahead of her potentially til she was 68 then would have struggled to be regular childcare

Nobody expects to have the same number of children as eggs, that's not how it works. If you had only 8 frozen eggs, 7 might thaw successfully. With successful ICSI, 5 would fertilise (70-80%) and 3 would make it to day 5 (30-50%). 2 of those might be chromosomally viable (65% for mid-late twenties), of which only 60% successfully implant. For most people, 8 eggs frozen from a 25 year old would result in 1 child.

This.

Daughters are not grandchildren-producing machines.

Because my daughter has autonomy over her own body and I wouldn't dream of suggesting it.

For all those wondering why the house and other gifts weren't enough to give independence and ability to save money in order to have kids earlier.

It absolutely did. I'm in my late 20s, I have a child but struggling to conceive a second despite ttc for over a year. So it's not due to lack of planning, inability to budget to have a child earlier or due to me prioritising a career and leaving kids too late...

Why don’t parents give their boys the gift of sterilisation to prevent unwanted pregnancies? Then the parents can pay for the reversal later?

If I had a son, I'd be bloody tempted to do this...

I wonder that you didn't think through what a horribly intrusive proposition you're making, OP? But then again, we're all different.

I wouldn't even think of suggesting this to any woman, least of all my daughter. Ugh.

Because parenthood isn't a right or a given? Because your world isn't smaller and you're not less of a person if you don't have children? Because Larkin was spot on?

To suggest a possible answer to your question - I guess it's because no one wants to imagine that their daughter will struggle to have children. I think we all just hope and pray that it'll all be ok when the time comes.

But you touch on an important point. Many women are staying longer in education (eg gap year, 4-year degree, masters) than in previous generations. Many women are then working longer before starting a family:

1. To get their career properly established so they have something to come back to after marriage leave and
2. To get a deposit together (whilst paying rent and trying to have a bit of a life) if they want to get on the property ladder first - because property is much more expensive now, relative to salaries.

So having babies in your twenties does not feel manageable for some.

Some firms pay for egg-freezing for female employees.

Exactly. It's not a safe or sure thing at all. Most people do conceive children naturally, thankfully.

I’m sorry to hear this.😞 It sounds really upsetting. Did you get the family you hoped for?

With all due respect. I think you're assuming that egg freezing could have saved your situation OP when its likely it wouldn't

The odds are very much not likely to be successful.

Unfertilised frozen eggs tend not to have a particularly high success rate.