In the early-aughts, much of the sex education my classmates and I received simply revolved around: “Don’t give each other diseases, and don’t make a baby!” Instructors seemed almost exclusively fixated on “troubleshooting” young people’s sex drives.
Thus, instead of learning anything about preserving my fertility as the time-limited resource it is, I was primarily taught just to fear my baby-making capacity.
This is why, when I reached my 30s and first considered freezing eggs — knowing that I wanted the option to create a child someday with the love of my life, yet fearing my eggs might “expire” before this love finally found me — I had misconceptions about the process (and my biology) that made me hesitate.
And those misconceptions cost me priceless years I can never get back.
Unfortunately, my case is probably far from unique: fertility education is missing from many sex-ed curriculums around the world. Thus, you might’ve been denied important facts about your body and your reproductive window too.
So before you lose any further time — or pregnancy opportunities — to a lack of info, here’s a crash-course on freezing eggs.
Egg Freezing Does NOT Diminish Your Egg Supply
You probably know that eggs eventually run out. This is true — but I mistakenly surmised that extracting eggs from my ovaries (for freezing) would deplete my overall supply faster… which scared me out of freezing them way back when I should have.
Turns out, that’s not how it works.
In a healthy cycle, your ovaries are prepping an entire batch of eggs for ovulation at any given time. Then, a few days before ovulation, your body picks one egg from that month’s batch as the best contender for the job — and basically lets the rest of that month’s batch die.
In other words, you naturally lose lots of eggs every month. Not just the single egg that pops out in search of sperm.
By contrast, egg-freezing medications trick your ovaries out of being so severely choosy with that month’s batch, so that they can’t neglect and discard all the other eggs they normally would.
This is why — unless you have wild complications (e.g., ovarian torsion) — harvesting eggs does not diminish your available supply. Instead, it helps mature and preserve more of the eggs your body would’ve otherwise given up on and done away with.
Win–win!
Your Age Might Not Be the Deal-Breaker You Fear It Is
All bodies vary, and yes, sadly, some people’s egg supply and egg quality diminish sooner than average.
For most, however, although the ideal time for both egg quality and yield is by your mid-30s, many clinics will still agree to harvest eggs after 35 because fertility is just so individual — and over 80% of women up to age 39 are able to get pregnant naturally with their own eggs in any given year.
Unfortunately, in my early-30s, I saw a website that stated an inaccurately low cutoff age for freezing — so I assumed I’d missed my chance, and I abandoned the idea.
This was a huge mistake. In reality, it would’ve been a great time to freeze.
Alas, once I realized this and managed to freeze, now my age was sub-optimal, both for likelihood of quality and quantity retrieved.
Before assuming that your own eggs are a no-go — and before deciding to wait a few years (since maybe your ovaries are on a faster timeline) — have a fertility specialist run some tests to learn what your personal best options are (e.g., egg freezing, embryo freezing, artificial insemination, donor gametes, adoption, etc.).
In fact, even if a clinic’s website (or secretary) says you’re too old, they might be wrong. This happened to me at 37, and I’m glad I insisted on keeping my appointment; the doctor ran tests, and she decided to take me as a patient after all.
I can’t emphasize enough: whatever you’ve heard, read, or even been directly told about your age — assume nothing until a fertility doctor (or two) evaluates you.
Freezing Might Be Much Cheaper Than You Assume
When I first considered freezing eggs, the high cost of living in my home country (USA) had conditioned me to assume that the cost of everything everywhere, particularly all things medical, would be so extravagant that I shouldn’t even bother.
I’m glad I was wrong… but I’m sad that I lost years to this mistaken assumption.
Turns out, egg-freezing costs vary hugely from country to country.
For instance, back when I froze eggs in 2022, while US prices were averaging anywhere from $8–20k per freezing cycle, I was living in Berlin, where a standard freezing protocol (i.e., consultations + standard medicines + retrieval + plus first year of storage) cost me around €4k.
Meaning: it was 50–80% less expensive to freeze eggs in Berlin than in my home country.
In fact, it costs some people less to freeze abroad even when they add in the travel costs.
So if you can’t afford your local prices, look into freezing abroad. Many doctors happily take international patients, with Zoom consultations before you commit.
Some (or all) of The Process Might Even Be Free
In Germany (where I live), fertility consultations, including the attendant bloodwork and ultrasounds, can often be covered entirely or almost entirely by insurance.
And if you freeze eggs again later, doctors can often justify asking your insurance to cover a new consult and round of tests.
Moreover, around the world, some non-private health plans (e.g., public insurance in Germany for married people under 40, Medicaid in New York state as of 2023, and many more policies if patients have certain medical conditions) might cover substantial costs towards fertility procedures of various kinds — not just consultations and testing.
This is why you should at least ask about the cost of a consultation, even if you know you can’t afford the whole process right now.
Plus, a consultation can help identify whether you need to hurry.
Having info about your options is invaluable — and maybe even free.
Freezing Eggs is Surprisingly Safe
Un-fun fact: I’ve tried seven different hormonal contraceptives over the years, and my body reacted horribly to all of them. Including some problems that lingered for years.
This made me very hesitant about freezing eggs: if my body couldn’t handle a tiny daily hormone pill, how would it handle mega-doses of hormones?
What experts in Europe explained to me, though, was threefold: 1) Decades of research on fertility therapies (including egg freezing) find egg freezing very safe for most people. 2) The levels of hormones used in European egg-freezing protocols are supposedly often lower than what’s common in the US. 3) Even people who’ve had problems on birth control pills tend to tolerate egg-freezing hormones well — because these hormones are taken for a much shorter time than a typical birth control prescription.
Specifics can vary by country and treatment plan, and research constantly evolves — so please ask your fertility doctor(s) for their take on the latest data. Indeed, though, according to Amilis, a UK-based fertility knowledge hub:
“It’s very rare for egg-freezing to have long-term side effects.”
Fabulous.
(And yes, my fears about wrecking my hormones were unjustified too.)
An important exception: fertility hormones (and, well, pregnancy) can pose a thrombosis risk for some patients, so your doctor must evaluate this. But this risk can often be managed too.
So just tell a fertility doctor about your worries rather than assume the worst.
You Might Even Be Able to Optimize Your Eggs
Only after I froze eggs did I hear about a book called It Starts With the Egg by Rebecca Fett. I truly wish I’d read it beforehand — because according to Fett’s book, there might be a variety of ways to optimize egg quality, and your body starts prepping a given batch of eggs a few months before ovulation.
While the world of medicine is still unsure about, well, lots regarding the bodies of people with XX-chromosomes (it’s an ancient problem), some studies referenced in Fett’s book suggest that everything from nutrition status, to sleep (especially melatonin levels), to inflammation can all impact your chances of developing a healthy egg in any given month.
When I learned this — after having spent €4k to freeze what amounted to just three eggs — I wondered whether the fact that I’d been exposed to covid the month before (inflammatory), or having suboptimal vitamin D, or taking high doses of iron pills for my ongoing deficiency (iron being highly inflammatory, and deficiency being less than ideal) might all have hurt my chances of getting more eggs from the process.
If I’d known how important these factors might be in the months before a batch of eggs matures, I might’ve waited another month or two to freeze.
After all, with any expensive investment, it’s nice to know you did all you could to maximize your returns.
Read up on egg quality, in that case, and compile questions about this for your doctor before you begin.
Opinions will vary. Some doctors find the research about optimizing egg quality unconvincing. Some find it convincing but will still urge you not to wait, since egg quality is correlated with age. Others (unethical ones) might pretend not to believe those studies, since patients who get a low egg yield on their first try might pay to freeze multiple times.
But some doctors will guide you on optimizing your eggs — and, thereby, your satisfaction with your investment.
I deeply regret that I wasn’t better informed about this all at a much younger age, but I had no one to tell me. That’s why I’m telling you. So you have the chance to be empowered about your fertility in the ways I wasn’t.
I don’t know if the eggs I’ve frozen will ever become a baby. Frozen eggs — even bunches of them — are unfortunately no guarantee.
This is the study my own doctor showed me to illustrate the odds of a baby from the eggs I wanted to freeze. And this excellent piece on Vox emphasizes the uncertainties involved, while explaining why so many people still take such a pricey gamble.
All I can hope is that, whatever my future holds regarding motherhood, I will find peace in the outcome. I hope this for you too: peace in the choices available, the choices you make, and their outcomes.
Whatever your choices are, being well-informed is always a wonderful place to start.
Note: Research is always evolving. For the most up-to-date info, discuss all questions about fertility preservation and assisted reproduction with experts—in this case, fertility specialists, and not just a normal OB-GYN.
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