It’s expensive,frustrating and can be traumatic. As increasingly women perform the choice to freeze their eggs, accomplish they know precisely what they’re getting into? Eva Wiseman investigatesGeorgina Williams was eight years into a city career, and two years into a relationship,and 20 minutes into a tube ride when she saw a fertility clinic’s advert for egg donors. If you donated your eggs, they offered to freeze additional for your own use. She made an appointment. Offering me a seat in her serene basement flat, and she exhales,with meaning: “And so it began.”The first “ice baby from an egg frozen through vitrification was born in December 2010. In 2012 the label of “experimental” was removed, but with a disclaimer: “There are not yet sufficient data to recommend [egg freezing] for the sole purpose of circumventing reproductive ageing in healthy women, or ” said the American Society for Reproductive Medicine,“because there are no data to support the safety, efficacy, or ethics,emotional risks and cost- effectiveness of oocyte cryopreservation for this indication.” It was the equivalent of them raising their eyebrows as you reach for a tree branch, and saying: “But don’t arrive running to me…” They knew you were going to climb anyway. Citing the lack of medical evidence (and potential emotional risks) the committee warned: “Marketing this technology for the purpose of deferring childbearing may give women false hope.” Despite this, or the market is swelling,and something is becoming clear: we need to talk approximately egg freezing.
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Source: theguardian.com