MIDTOWN MANHATTAN — Egg freezing for non-medical reasons became an accepted practice in the United States 13 years ago and has since seen surging demand. The procedure, once reserved for patients facing cancer or other fertility-threatening conditions, is now increasingly used by women seeking to preserve fertility options later in life.
Kate Sonderegger underwent egg retrieval at a fertility clinic in Midtown Manhattan, joining hundreds of thousands of women who have frozen their eggs nationwide. The process requires nearly two weeks of daily hormone injections to stimulate multiple ovarian follicles, followed by a minor surgical procedure in which a needle is used to extract fluid containing eggs. Those eggs are then placed on straws, plunged into liquid nitrogen, and stored in tanks at minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit.
Women are born with all the eggs they will ever have, and both quantity and quality decline steadily from fetal development onward. Freezing an egg halts this aging process. “We're born with all of the eggs that we're ever going to have, and we don't make new eggs, and we can't fix or repair them. It's always decreasing over time.” said Dr. Lucky Sekhon, a doctor at RMA of New York. “As you get to 35, that number has steadily increased to about 30% to 35% of embryos being abnormal from your 35-year-old eggs. At 37, 38 years of age, 50%. That's a turning point. Things start to move more rapidly. And at 40, you're looking at 60% to 70% of embryos being abnormal. By 45, 90%.”
Current data shows no difference in the health of babies born from frozen versus fresh eggs used in IVF, and lifestyle factors such as yoga or not smoking do not appear to improve egg quality. “We have no data to suggest that you can influence your egg quality in that way, unfortunately.” Sekhon said.
Tomer Singer, head of Northwell Health's fertility practice, said, “I think that egg freezing is as revolutionary as the pill was in 1960s and 70s.” He added, “Women had the option of choosing who to be with, and not to accidentally get pregnant with the wrong guy. Egg freezing took it an extra level. So you don't have to have a baby at 30, because you're 30 or 35. You can delay fertility into your 40s. You'll have women having kids in their late 40s with their own eggs that were frozen in their 20s and 30s.”
Nameetha Jacob, who froze her eggs at 34 and again at 36, described the procedure as “It's an insurance. I know that, you know, I'm going to be an older mother.” She also said, “It takes the stress away from dating. You're not pressured to find someone and settle down and get married. You don't hear the ticking.”