Randomly, a few months ago I started receiving issues of Vogue in the mail. I'm not sure how I got signed up for it, but I know I haven't paid for it. I had just been reading the covers. If nothing interested me I would sit the magazine aside. Last night I started actually reading the magazines and I came across an article, "Time to Chill?" the article covers breakthroughs in egg-freezing technologies, the pros, the cons, and one woman's personal account of her journey through the process.
I'm always interested in articles like this because having children is something I do want in my future. I am about to turn 27 and I won't lie due to my single status alternative ways to having children is something that definitely crosses my mind from time to time.
This new technology will allow for women to cryogenically freeze their eggs in order to use them at a later date. In essence it's a way of beating that biological ticking clock. The woman who the article gives a first hand account of her experience uses the phrase, "I am freeing myself from the tyranny of the expiration date." I love that phrase! The ultimate feminist fantasy!
The article offers a few statistics, "Many young women blithely believe they can wait until their 40s to have kids, but that is wishful thinking. At age 40, more than half will not be able to conceive without help, and by 44, even with IVF that number plummets below 5 percent."
Anyway on to the actual procedure. The first step is injecting tiny vials of hormones every morning. During this time the patient visits the doctor every morning for blood work that is used to monitor how she is responding to the medication. 12 days after the start of the regimen if hormone levels look good there is an ultrasound to detect how many follicles are developing eggs within them, if there is enough (usually b/w 10-18) the patient is put under anesthesia and the oocytes are removed for freezing.
It is believed that the oocytes are good frozen for up to 10 years. This definitely opens up a huge window for beating your own biological clock.
What are the pros of this kind of procedure? It allows for single women to still fulfill their lifelong dream of mothering a child, it takes away the beat your biological clock aspect, it is an alternative to IVF, and it less costly than IVF.
The downfalls, as of yet there are no detectable problems with the children created from this procedure. however the procedure is fairly new so all of the offspring from this procedure are still young. the procedure does cost $15,000 per round, often women have to do at least 2 rounds, sometimes more.
Prior to 2007 there were only a handful of live births as a result of frozen eggs, to date there are more than 1500 worldwide.
What do you ladies think of this alternative to IVF?
This sounds really similar to the initial process of IVF. I suppose it is the same, you take a bunch of hormones until your ovaries (usually eh size of almonds) swell to the size of oranges, then they stick a needle in and get eggs out. I really like this article written by a lesbian couple who underwent IVF (even though I know you're talking about part one here) that is way too brutally honest for me :)
ReplyDeletehttp://offbeatmama.com/2011/03/lesbians-undergo-ivf
I enjoyed that article very much. It is very similar except your eggs are frozen instead of implanted. What was too brutally honest?
ReplyDeleteThe article made me never, ever want to do IVF. All the poking and prodding and ovaries the size of grapefruits turned me off to the idea, which is what I think you could have to go through to freeze your eggs. It makes me shudder to think of having a syringe suck eggs out of my ovaries when they are engorged (or any time really)
ReplyDeleteWhile it does sound slightly uncomfortable and unpleasant. I don't know that it makes me shudder.
ReplyDelete