Have you ever considered putting your eggs on ice? With tech giants Google and Facebook announcing plans last year to pay for their female employees to undergo the egg freezing process, this option has become much more widely known.
Egg freezing is presented as the ultimate insurance policy at a time when we find ourselves ready for babies much later in life than ever before. With more of us fearing Mr Right won’t turn up until we’re in our 40s and finding ourselves working double-time to reach the top rung of our chosen career ladder, freezing our eggs can certainly seem like a way to feel far more relaxed and positive about what life might bring our way. But is it a reliable fallback option?
Investing in your fertility
Egg freezing is a fantastic technological advance that can be crucial for women dealing with cancer and other serious illnesses that might delay pregnancy significantly or damage their fertility dramatically.
This technology is looking for new applications now extending to women who are delaying motherhood. I think this is in theory a great idea. My issue with the promotion of egg freezing is that women are being sold something (and at a high price!) that is no guarantee that they can delay having a child later than their biology will allow. Not only that, but the message sends another subtle but powerful message that our bodies are best handled medically which continues to foster women neglecting their reproductive health and fertility under the belief that they’ll be a medical procedure to help them when they are finally ready. This is part of the continuum of the cultural norm around our bodies and health that medicates our cycle first, medicates our pregnancies, medicates our labor and delivery, and over medicates our moods.
In my experience, working with thousands of women at Flo Living, the more we invest in protecting and boosting fertility throughout our lives, the better off we will be in all ways – from our sex drive to our energy levels to our mood. We are also far more likely to conceive naturally, even at a seemingly late age.
Check out Flo grad Diane’s story for more on that!
The right age to freeze your eggs
With the upfront costs for the procedure between $10,000 and $15000 and annual storage costs at around $1000 a year, this is not an option open to everyone. Especially if you consider the fact that to be really sure to harvest and save the healthiest eggs possible, women need to be going through this process in their 20s!
Who has access to that kind of money at that time in their lives? And who even considers that they will need to freeze their eggs when they’re just out of college? But if you want to hedge your bets and get the best chance for your money, that’s when you have to do this. However, at this time, most women wait until they’re in their 30s and are unfortunately often panicking about when they’ll get to settle down and start a family.
Egg Freezing Success Rates
What egg freezing companies are really playing into is our fear about our bodies and aging, of course. The overall 15% success rate says it all. If you have your eggs retrieved during your 20s, you can gain a few more percentage points with a 19% success rate, but after 35 that rate goes lower than 15%. This is no insurance policy, and although in theory if this had a higher success rate, it would be an amazing opportunity for women, without improvements to the process, it remains a way of cashing in on the anxiety women experience about their declining fertility and ticking biological clock.
Now, as long as women are totally aware of this success rate, engaging this process from the mindset of wanting to do everything possible from diet, to lifestyle to egg freezing is great.
As someone who wants women to feel confident and empowered in all aspects of their body and health, I think it’s important that we maintain the right perspective that always the best fall back option is how well you preserve your hormonal balance through diet and lifestyle.
The technology used for freezing the eggs is still relatively new. In fact they’ve only recently mastered how to freeze an egg and defrost it without destroying it. They must essentially dehydrate the egg and then make sure the walls of the egg stay intact when it is thawed. As more women choose this option, and doctors have the opportunity to put the process to use, the technology may become even more sophisticated. At this time though, it’s still essentially experimental. There’s no backing to the kinds of grand claims some companies are making.
Flo Life-insurance
From what I know helping many women conceive when they were ready, even after failed rounds of IVF and years of trying, is that the best insurance policy for your fertility is to sustain a diet and lifestyle that promotes the optimal fertile environment. That way, you can have a child, as I did, naturally at 38.
You can also feel better, have more energy, have a great sex drive, and generally live a happier, healthier life. Living in your Flo is good for your fertility and for your anxiety levels! With some super simple and easy to maintain changes to the way you eat, the products you use, and how you work out; you can have real peace of mind knowing that you are doing what’s best for you today and for your future.
Always remember, that once you have the right information about how your body really works, you can start making health choices that finally start to work for you! You can do this – the science of your body is on your side!
to your FLO,
Alisa
Good things come in threes:
I want to hear from you
First, have you considered freezing your eggs?
Second, do you worry about when and if you can have children?
Third, You know every one you know is hormonal – spread a little good ovary karma and share this article on social! ?
Are You Trying to Conceive?
If you want to do everything in your power to improve your chances of becoming a mom—then we want to help you optimize your fertility.
Whether you are just starting to think about having a baby, or have already tried naturally or have been trying with IVF, our Fertile FLO Program will help improve your chances of conception.
Click here to download my FREE guide, The 5 Health Foods to Avoid to Get and Stay Pregnant.
Most fertility companies don’t offer to save the eggs past 10-12 years, so it seems pointless to freeze in your 20s. No one knows how long they stay good frozen.
So true. I think you have to look at the positive side of fertility. The reason that the statistics say 1% of of 40-44 have healthy babies is because many if not most women at that age group are finished having children. If you go back a couple of generations ago, women knew they could still have children until menopause. That basically was their birth control. However, we remember that these women were not on synthetic hormones (ie: birth control), ate what they grew and raised themselves and/or raised locally, ate more real food, and were not overweight or obese like the vast majority of child bearing age women today (being overweight or obese can sometime cause infertility due to other issues). To me, this is something to look at.
I turned 40 this year and was hit with OMG I want to have a child but I’m single and already old :(. So I looked into egg freezing and after hormone testing found out I’m not a good candidate because I have low ovarian reserve and high FSH. That is, I’m almost out of eggs. I’m devastated to say the least as I always wanted to have biological children and there’s nothing I can do about my age or lack of partner. I ran out of time and now I have to try to come to terms with the fact that I don’t get to be a mother in this lifetime. It’s so completely devastating.