Should you freeze your eggs?

Ex-Miss World Diana Hayden recently gave birth to a healthy baby girl, from eggs frozen eight years ago. A look at what you should know, before opting for this modern medical miracle...

42-year old ex Miss World Diana Hayden and her husband Collin Dick became parents early this year to a bonny baby girl Arya Hayden. Little Arya was born from Diana’s frozen eggs. She first read about frozen egg babies in 2005, and between 2007-08 had 16 eggs frozen with infertility specialist Dr Nanditha Palshetkar. Today, her gamble has paid off. Two years ago, she was diagnosed with endometriosis, which makes the quality of eggs produced poor.

Luckily though, through freezing her eggs, her daughter was born healthy, weighing is 3.7kg and 55cm long, well above average Indian weight of 2.6kg! What you should know:
The procedure is not easy. First you’ll need to know if you are a suitable candidate for egg freezing, and figure out your odds of success. Then you’ll need to get over your fear of needles, since egg production needs to be simulated through injections. You are monitored as the eggs are produced, followed by a retrieval procedure. Typically it takes one or two cycles to get a good number of eggs. The goal is to usually freeze around 15 eggs, to optimise your chances later. The best time to do this is from your mid-twenties to your early thirties. When it’s time to use your eggs, they are thawed and then fertilized with the sperm. Once the embryos form, they are
placed back in your womb.

Why it’s great:
- If you’re not finding the right man, or if you have pressing career needs right now, but are also worried about your biological clock running out, you may not want to miss out on the opportunity to create children from fertile eggs. Freezing your eggs is a good option in this case.
- For cancer patients, or those with other medical conditions, the option of freezing eggs before they go in for chemotherapy enhances and enables their chances of having kids.
- So far, there’s been nothing found wrong with frozen egg babies, who are as healthy as babies conceived naturally.

Why you need to watch out:
- It’s always better to do things naturally. Frozen eggs should only be used if you can’t budge on your lifestyle choices or medical condition, since the hormones that are injected into you during extraction and later fertilization, definitely have side effects.
- The costs are fairly high. The procedure along costs Rs.2 lakhs, and it takes around Rs.25,000 every year to store the eggs safely.
- Success rates aren’t always great, and freezing eggs doesn’t guarantee a baby. Eggs are delicate, and must survive the thaw and fertilize procedure.
 
Consider freezing embryos instead:
If you’re sure you want to have children with your current partner, but now’s not the time, you might want to consider freezing embryos instead. Eggs are delicate, but with embryos you fuse your partner’s sperm with the eggs, and freeze them.