The average industrialized woman menstruates roughly 450 times. Compare this to women in agrarian societies who menstruate about 150 times and the change is more than evident. Just a generation ago, women were starting families in their early twenties. That means kids were born 120 menstrual cycles earlier than they are today. With early onset of puberty of the modern era – likely due to exposure to hormones and dietary and environmental changes – and it’s possible that a 29 yr old woman has already menstruated 200 times before vying for pregnancy.
This is personal. I’m 29 and, while I may still feel young, my eggs aren’t. Every time I menstruate, I use up some of the limited supply I was born with and as I age, so too do the eggs in my ovaries.
This is also political. It’s now possible to save eggs for later use. While sperm has been banked for decades, and embryos have been frozen for IVF since the 70s, freezing eggs has been a trickier task. Human eggs have an extremely high water content making the process challenging due to ice crystal formation.
In the past ten years, however, flash freezing has made the process reliable. And in the past year, this process has gone from experimental to clinical bringing it, for the first time, to women across Canada as a form of insurance policy against infertility and support for postponed pregnancy.
So, who is freezing their eggs? Dr. Janet Takefman, Director of Psychological Services at the McGill Reproductive Centre, tells me that while we might expect young career women to employ the service, this isn’t really the case: “It’s [mostly single] women. They either haven’t met Mr. Right, are in a relationship and it’s too [soon] to think about family planning, or want to raise children on their own.”
How old are these women? “We thought it [would] be the 20-somethings who would be doing this,” she told me. “It’s actually 38 ½. Women who’ve waited as long as they can, so it’s a last ditch attempt.” The problem with the technology, however, is that 20-year-old eggs are more likely to freeze and thaw successfully than 30-year-old eggs. By the time they’re close to 40, there is a much lower chance of success.
How many women are freezing their eggs? The numbers are still low. The McGill Reproductive Centre, for instance, has frozen eggs for no more than 45 women. Dr. Takefman thinks these numbers are probably higher in Ontario and BC than in Quebec where IVF is covered by provincial health insurance. “ [The province] will freeze eggs for cancer patients,” Takefman continued, “but most women who might [freeze] their eggs will go for IVF given that it’s covered.”
And egg freezing is expensive, costing between $10-15000 to freeze a cycle’s worth of eggs. To make it worthwhile, a woman must produce between ten and twelve eggs, which isn’t always the case. And of those eggs, there’s still a chance that when thawed, only one or two might be usable.
Given the low odds and high costs, is it likely that more women will participate to bank against later fertility issues? “The main thing is it’s not a guarantee,” Takefman declares. “It’s like a fertility insurance policy … we usually hope that we don’t have to use our insurance but, when we do, it doesn’t always pan out the way we hoped.”
Of the 40-or-so women who have frozen their eggs at McGill, only a handful have actually used them: some became pregnant naturally, others might still be waiting for a right time to have kids. “It makes you feel empowered,” Takefman concludes. “It makes you feel proactive.”
When I asked my friend if she would think about freezing her eggs for later, after a moment’s pause she shook her head: “I want to have kids naturally. And I really don’t think I’ll wait that long.”
