To Freeze or Not to Freeze?

Not quite ready for a baby? Still in favor of rich dishes, late nights and lazy mornings? You’re not alone, lots of women are having babies later in life.

Why wait? Well, lots of reasons: career ambitions, Mediterranean summers or you just haven’t found anyone remotely close to who you want to spend 18 years of your life with. Or maybe you’re just not ready to be a Mahhhmmmm.

It’s OK to be on your own timeline, but that ticking biological clock, the one you don’t hear, is a real thing. Your fertility is at its best in your 20s and then starts to decline through your 30s and beyond. Freezing your eggs from 25 - 32 can significantly bump up your chances for a baby later as well as having to do less egg freezing or IVF cycles.

And here’s a tough but 100% necessary question: Do you want to be a mom? Someday? Definitely? Maybe or I can’t decide right this second, please hand me another espresso martini? Wait, make it two for my bestie.

If you have even a fleeting thought that you might want to have kids someday or if you fall in love with the right partner and want the option to have kids, then we need to have a chat about it — like right away. In fact, you should meet with Dr. B, even if just for 30 minutes, to learn about your options. After all, tick, tick, tick …

But before you go, here’s what you should know before taking that (cold) plunge.

Your Age

Your eggs are at their prime when you’re in your early- to mid-20s. As you get older, egg quality starts to go from healthy to ho-hum. Fertility starts to gradually decrease at age 32 and then dips waaaaay down from 37 on.

But even if you’re in your 30s, it’s likely you’ll still be able to freeze your eggs. Generally speaking, most fertility docs will let you do it until your early 40s. But you’d probably rather buy a carton of fresh eggs at the grocery store than ones that are just about to expire, right? So why wait with your own eggs?

Your Finances

Real talk: Egg-freezing isn’t cheap, but it’s an investment in your option to choose later when you’re ready to make that decision. A lot of the associated costs (fertility medications, storage, injection specialists, etc.) are covered by your HSA savings account, where your job lets you put money away tax-free. [Sidenote: If you’re putting money into your 401K, when we’re all expected to live up to 100+ years old, then you should be putting away money for family planning which will happen much sooner.] Married? Get your spouse to kick in some money too. You can contribute $4,150 for just yourself, or $8,300 if you’re married. While the average cost for egg freezing is around $11,000, with the right planning, you’ll be ready for it. (HSA savings account rollover, phew!)

Breakdown of the cost:

• Your location (it’s typically more expensive in big cities than in smaller towns)
• What your fertility center charges per round — and how many rounds you do. The younger you freeze your eggs, the less rounds you’ll need to do.
• Cost of medications
• Doctor’s office visits (co-pays or out-of-pocket expenses)
• Annual storage fee to keep eggs frozen

Your Health

Prioritizing your health and making a few changes to your diet 4-6 weeks before you freeze your eggs will lead to better outcomes. Seems like an obvious statement, but your eggs need a healthy foundation to be able to perform at their best! Let’s start with the basics:

• You’ve heard it before: Eat a good diet, get quality sleep and manage your stress. But, what does this mean and where do you start? Don’t worry. We make it turnkey for you in your customized, tailored-just-for-you fertility plan.
• Ditch booze, drugs and smoking/vaping, which are seriously bad news for your eggs.
• Schedule a consultation with one of our Fertility Experts. You can have a visit with one of our renowned specialists from the comfort of your home.

Your Work & Personal Life

Egg-freezing isn’t a simple, quick procedure. From start to finish, one round takes between 10 to 14 days on average. During that time, you’ll be going to doctor’s appointments, taking medications, undergoing the retrieval while sedated, and then recovering post-retrieval. Let’s just say you might not answer so nicely when Karen sends you that: "Just checking in to see if you're still working on this - keep me in the loop!" email. So, what can we do? Be honest with you about the process for one. We’ve found that most clinics don’t describe what the experience is really like, which is why you’re seeing women take to IG and TikTok sharing how terrible it was for them, but it doesn’t have to be that way. We’ll be with you every step of the way for the good, the bad and just the realness. We promise that it can be so worth it in the end.

Like many things in life, preparation and information are half the battle. Lushi’s here to make this possible, manageable, painless and empowering.

Schedule a consultation with a Lushi specialist today.