Why ALL women should freeze their eggs at 30 (and their parents should foot the bill, like mine did)

When Sarah Richards fell in love eight months ago, one of the first things she discussed with her partner was starting a family.

Perfectly normal, you might think. But Sarah is 42 and her partner is nearly 50. On this basis, her dreams of motherhood and domestic bliss seem optimistic to say the least.

But Sarah doesn’t think so. Between the ages of 36 and 38, she underwent eight procedures to freeze her eggs. She now has an astonishing 70 of them stashed away. They, she believes, are her key to motherhood.

It was a gruelling and expensive process, costing around £30,000. But Sarah, a journalist, believes it was worth every penny, and that every childless woman over the age of 30 should follow her lead. Not only that, but their parents should cover the costs of their freezing treatment. 

Sarah Richards underwent eight procedures to freeze her eggs. She now has an astonishing 70 of them stashed away. They, she believes, are her key to motherhood

‘If Mum and Dad have the resources, they should do this for their daughters,’ she says. ‘Though I paid part of the bill, my parents covered the rest. They were investing in me and their future grandchildren.

‘I think there’s a psychological benefit to doing it even if you don’t get the baby at the end of it, because it makes you feel like you have taken charge of your fertility — and therefore your life. Instead of being sad and desperate, it should be seen as empowering.’

In fact, Sarah feels so strongly that she has written a book about her experiences. Part memoir, part scientific history, it chronicles both her own experiences and those of three other women who have frozen their eggs in the past decade.

Egg freezing remains controversial, not least in terms of its efficacy. As few as 20 babies have been born from frozen eggs in Britain, although the figure is believed to be around 1,200 worldwide.

According to some fertility experts, long-term storage of eggs does not result in any decrease in quality. So in theory, they can remain frozen indefinitely. The number of such births is likely to increase, however, given pioneering new procedures. 

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In the past five years, a process called vitrification has been developed. It takes the eggs down to -196C in 60 seconds, leaving no time for damaging crystals to form, and has significantly improved the chances of successful conception.

But while egg freezing has been available in the UK for more than a decade, many people feel uncomfortable with the notion of women doing it for social, rather than medical reasons.

‘I think there’s a psychological benefit to doing it even if you don’t get the baby at the end of it, because it makes you feel like you have taken charge of your fertility — and therefore your life. Instead of being sad and desperate, it should be seen as empowering'

Sarah falls into the former category, although by accident rather than design.

She grew up assuming she would become a mother. ‘I was the eldest of four, and if you asked my friends who would be the first of us to have children, my name would be top of the list,’ she says.

However, like many other young women, Sarah also spent most of her 20s with a man she was not sure about. ‘It wasn’t a bad relationship, but it wasn’t strong enough,’ she recalls.

But by 32, and with her friends and younger brother all having families, Sarah knew she needed to act.

‘It felt like everyone was moving forwards with their life, and I was aware of this sadness. I was focusing on what I didn’t have — a baby — and it became all I could think about. I knew that, though I wasn’t unhappy with my boyfriend, if I was serious about becoming a mum I needed to walk away.’

By the age of 35 she was in a stable relationship with a man six years older, whom she had met on the internet, yet children were still not on their agenda.

'The notion of egg freezing was suddenly very attractive. I wanted to be able to see what the relationship would be like without this huge clock ticking in the background', said Sarah

‘On his online dating profile he had ticked “maybe” to children. At first I was just trying to enjoy the relationship, although it was always weighing on my mind.

'When we spoke about it, he’d say: “I don’t want them now, but I don’t know how I’ll feel in a few years”. Increasingly, though, time was the thing I didn’t feel I had.’

It was then, she says, that she started to contemplate the idea of freezing her eggs after hearing about it from a friend. ‘I loved my boyfriend but he still wasn’t ready to commit to children, and my age was starting to really hit home.

'The notion of egg freezing was suddenly very attractive. I wanted to be able to see what the relationship would be like without this huge clock ticking in the background.’

She consulted her doctor, who was supportive, but didn’t have much in the way of information. ‘I realised that if I was going to do this, I would have to work it out for myself,’ she recalls.

Within a month she had found a company that offered a free information session, which she attended alone, along with 20 or so other anxious 30-something women.

‘It was terribly poignant. There were all these smart women with great shoes and designer bags, drinking chardonnay, yet none of us would catch each other’s eyes. I walked away convinced that egg freezing was the right thing to do.’

And so, just before her 37th birthday, Sarah embarked on the first of what would be eight egg-freezing procedures, with the full knowledge of her boyfriend. ‘I told him I was covering the seminar as part of a reporting assignment, but I was thinking about doing it for myself. And his reaction was, “I think it’s great to buy yourself time”. Looking back I can see it was buying him time, too.’ 

Her parents, meanwhile, were supportive, although her mother was initially nonplussed. ‘She wondered why I didn’t just dump him and find someone else who wanted children. But I was in love with him. And she gave me backing, emotionally and financially.’

The process is not, she acknowledges, to be taken lightly. It involves consultations, scans, blood tests, hormones and drugs to be self-administered daily via hypodermic needles, not to mention the 15-minute procedure, undertaken via an anaesthetic, to harvest the eggs.

DID YOU KNOW?

By 2011, 16,000 eggs had been stored for patients in the UK

‘Overall, it takes a month, but then you can get on with your life. There is a risk of ovarian hyperstimulation, which affects around 1 per cent of patients and can, in extreme cases, cause the ovaries to burst. It wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t horrific either.’

Egg freezing costs around £4,000 per cycle in the UK, and is only provided on the NHS for cancer patients who face losing their fertility. Sarah’s first foray into egg freezing produced six viable eggs — a decent haul but not, she felt, enough to give her peace of mind.

Six months later she underwent the procedure again, harvesting 16 more. ‘I knew I’d like two children, so to ensure the best chance of that I needed more eggs on ice as an insurance policy.’ After further research, she decided to try a different clinic; in Canada, as opposed to New York. She returned twice more before her 38th birthday — 39 being the age at which many doctors no longer consider eggs worth saving.

By then, she had spent £30,000, but amassed 70 eggs. ‘I felt I’d given myself the best chance of becoming a mother.’ 

But not with her then boyfriend. ‘He wasn’t a bad person, he just realised he didn’t want to be a dad. He spent hours talking to male friends who had children, but in the end he just didn’t want to do it. There was a lot of heartache, but I realised we couldn’t make it work.’

Sofia Vergara has made no secret of the fact that she wants to freeze her eggs

And so, at nearly 39, Sarah found herself back on the singles market, but with the knowledge that she had an insurance policy. ‘Freezing my eggs wasn’t a guarantee of motherhood, but if I hadn’t done it I would have been back on the market knowing my fertility clock was winding down every day.’

What she felt instead was curiosity about how life had panned out for other women who’d undergone the same procedure. She found three women, in their 40s, who had frozen their eggs prior to the introduction of vitrification.

One had had a baby from her frozen eggs, one had gone on to have a baby using donor eggs, and another was childless. All three were in happy relationships and none, Sarah says, had any regrets. ‘Even though it hadn’t worked out the way they had hoped for two of the women, they all reported that taking charge of their fertility had made them feel they had taken control.

‘I came away from speaking to them thinking that the worst thing that can happen is that it doesn’t work. Even then, it was still worthwhile as they had been able to move their lives forward without this shadow looming over it.’

For all that, the fact remains that many people are deeply uncomfortable with the notion of women selecting motherhood on their terms, conjuring images of 60-somethings gleefully thawing eggs they froze three decades earlier.

Sarah, however, disagrees. ‘I understand people’s anxieties, but I don’t think most women are looking to do anything extreme,’ she says.

But egg-freezing is by no means a total panacea for the panicking 30-something singleton. It’s expensive, the long-term effects have not yet been proven, and statistics show it’s far from failsafe.

But Sarah believes women should be allowed to reach their own conclusions.

‘I’d like to see egg freezing on every young woman’s radar, as something they talk to their doctor about. It’s important for every young woman to think about their future fertility.’

In her own case, Sarah says, freezing her eggs allowed her to go out with men in a more discriminate fashion. ‘You’re looking for someone to make you happy, not make you pregnant.’ 

Even after reaching her 40s without apparently meeting Mr Right, Sarah says she felt at peace. ‘I knew I wasn’t going to use donor sperm — the reason I froze my eggs is because I wanted a family with the right man, not just a baby.’

Indeed, only now, after three years of Mr Almosts-But-Not-Quites, is Sarah in a relationship of seven months with a man she met online and who she believes may, finally, be Mr Right. And, potentially, the father of her children.

‘He’s got two children already but he wants more,’ she says. ‘I told him on our first date that I’d frozen my eggs and he said he thought I was clever to do so. I think doing it shows you’re taking care of yourself, which is an attractive quality.’

Motherhood, Rescheduled: The New Frontier Of Egg Freezing And The Women Who Tried It (Simon & Schuster).