There’s a fancy new discotheque coming your way, and it’s called an Egg Freezing Party! And by eggs, I mean the ones you have stored in your ovaries. And by egg freezing party, I mean an informational event to learn about freezing your eggs. An egg freezing party is like speed dating for a fertility doctor. At the event, local fertility doctors provide information on fertility basics, advances in the field and the trends and concerns they’re seeing from young women in their own clinic. So you’re not actually freezing anything at this party, you’re just learning the how-to.
Did you know that between the ages of 30 and 40, your chances of conceiving per month decrease by 75%? By the time you reach 35, the quality and quantity of your eggs steeply declines. A woman loses 90% of her eggs by the time she reaches age 30, so freezing your eggs in your 20s locks in both the quantity and quality of your eggs to be used when you’re older, providing more possibilities for conception.
Egg freezing is the removal and freezing of your eggs to store for later when you’re ready to have children. The process is fairly simple. You begin with a drug regimen of hormone injections (the same ones used for in-vitro fertilization) for 7 to 14 days which stimulates the ovaries and ripens multiple eggs. Then, under anesthesia, your eggs are retrieved and frozen. That’s it. Seriously. Your eggs are frozen until you’re ready to make babies, which could be up to ten years or more down the line.
It definitely sounds too good to be true, right? Freeze those little nuggets and come back to them when you’re feeling all mature and whatnot? There are definitely a few hurdles to overcome when trying to conceive, whether with frozen eggs or not. Eggs (from women under 38) thaw at a 75% success rate. This means that if you freeze ten eggs, about seven with thaw properly. Then they have to be fertilized, which also has a 75% success rate. So from your seven thawed eggs, five or six of them will be fertilized (I can do math!). It’s suggested that ten eggs are stored for each pregnancy, and ten to twenty eggs (although this number varies) can be harvested per cycle.
Here’s the real whopper: the price. The average price for a single cycle (that’s ten to twenty eggs) with EggBanxx is about $6,500 to $7,500. Fo serious. The trouble here is that your eggs are healthier when you’re younger, but the younger you are, the less money you have to invest in future babies. When freezing your eggs through EggBanxx, there are financing plans to help you afford freezing your eggs. EggBanxx’s services are less expensive than what they claim other clinics can charge, which is sometimes up to $18,000. Once your eggs are frozen, however, you need to be prepared to spend about $500 annually to store these frozen eggs until you’re ready to try to conceive.
Okay, so now you know how, and you know how much cash you’d be shelling out… by why? Why the heck would a woman in her twenties freeze her eggs? Perhaps you’re a singleton with aspirations to not be a singleton in the future! Maybe you’re focusing on your education or your career, and aren’t ready to start a family yet, but know you’ll want to later on in life. Heck, maybe you’re just having a damn good time and you think it’d be best if you weren’t bringing a stroller to a club (I heard it’s frowned upon). There are also health problems that may prevent you from conceiving later in life: early menopause, endometriosis, cancer. There are an unlimited number of factors involved when making a baby, and egg freezing may help you overcome some of them.
People who freeze their eggs are looking to maximize their chance of having a healthy baby when they’re ready. As many ovary owners already know, as you get older the chances of conception decrease. Freezing your eggs while you’re young (think 20s) allows you to freeze healthy eggs, and increase your chances of having healthy babies at a later stage in life. It’s like hitting the pause button on your fertility countdown. Now you have time for your education, career, and whatever other trouble you’d like to get into before making babies. You can do it all, and make your biological clock stop ticking (or at least make the ticking not quite so loud).
EggBanxx has been hosting Egg Freezing Parties in NYC, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, Boston, and other metropolitan cities for over a year now. The next egg freezing event will be held on August 27th at NYC’s NoMad Hotel from 6pm to 8pm. Dr. Loucopoulos, Dr. Stephanie Thompson, and Dr. Jamie Knopman will be speaking at the event, answering any questions you may have.
RSVP for free cocktails, snacks, and information on freezing yo’ oocytes (that’s a fancy term for eggs)!
Not in NYC? Have no fear! Take a peek at when EggBanxx is coming to a city near you.
