Calling All Eggs

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED to, a Tupperware party, a Pleasure party, a Birthday party? No sorry, none of the aforementioned, but you are invited to an Egg Freezing party. Yes, that is what I said "egg freezing." These parties are very popular in the more affluent areas like Manhattan, Orange County, and parts of San Francisco. You'll find a group of women usually in their 30's or

40's, most of them professional women, gathering for the same not so common cause.

Formally referred to as "oocyte cryopreservation," egg freezing has risen over the last decade. The 11-fold increase in women who choose to "bank" their eggs according to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine has boomed since 2009.

This practice is still a young industry and has seen very few numbers of successes or failures. This procedure was considered experimental until 2012; the number of births born from frozen eggs is small. More than 99% of American clinics now offer this procedure. The concern among many physicians is that women may view this procedure as a guarantee of getting pregnant; it’s NOT!

Well over one-third of infertility cases are unexplained and a third of all miscarriages have no explanation. It seems ludicrous that we are even talking about social egg freezing considering the fact that so little is known about the whys and wherefores of conception and carrying a child to full term.

There are two dynamics that affect women’s fertility; both transformed as a woman gets older. These dynamics are quantity and quality of a woman’s egg supply. Men make new sperm throughout their life, while women are born with all of their eggs. Ergo, when a woman is in her 20’s the majority of her eggs will be normal and consist of the 23 chromosomes needed to pair with a man’s sperm to make a fetus.

By the time a woman reaches her 30's, the dynamics shift, and gradually she will have fewer eggs. Chances are these eggs will have a higher proportion of abnormalities with 22 or 24 chromosomes. By the time a woman is in her 40's, most fertility doctors think she will have to get donor eggs to get pregnant. Egg freezing, which was once reserved for cancer patients only, is becoming a solution to the problem.

Like so many things in life, money is a huge factor and creates a paradox for many women. The cost for your average egg freezing procedure is $11,000. The best eggs to freeze are those of a 20-year-old, do you know a lot of 20-year-old women who could afford to freeze their eggs? This practice is becoming big business and even Wall Street is getting into the act and beginning to take notice.

What's that you say, you'd like a personal trainer for your eggs. I have a solution, well several actually. Forward-thinking companies like Apple and Facebook are now offering egg freezing as part of the benefits program to entice those qualified applicants. You could always apply at one of these companies and take your chances of being hired.

My other solution is a bit more challenging, unfortunately, yet we could easily fix the problem with no money or false promises of getting pregnant. How about this for a new and novel idea. How about society changes the archaic way of viewing working parents. You wouldn’t have to worry about your fertility or that price tag of $11,000. If you found your suitable mate and wanted to start a family when mother nature intended, then voila, problem solved.

I am acutely aware that someday, most likely in the not too distant future, we will be able to order a baby like we order a car; don’t forget the heated seats. A woman’s body is made to have children for a limited amount of time. That time coincides with physical stamina. A 20-year-old is meant to chase after a little one, sometimes with limited sleep, not a 40-year-old; male or female. Believe or not there is something to be said about the natural order of things.

I know, I know, there I go again talking about the old days. I have news for you the old days weren't as archaic as you may think. Things were simpler, and guess what we didn't freeze eggs; we scrambled them, we cooked them over easy and sometimes sunny side up. They were usually served with bacon or sausage, toast, and jam, and they cost maybe two bucks at any coffee shop.

By Carol Heath