WEBVTT - Misconception: The Baby Boom 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.800 It would be weird to find out it wasn't possible. 0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:14.640 I think that would mess with me a lot. Anyways, 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:22.439 time to get in the chair. Yep, this is me 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:24.720 a year and a half ago, sitting with a cloth 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:27.480 draped over my lap in a bright yellow exam chair. 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:32.000 I'm getting my fertility tested, so she just drew my blood. 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:38.720 I'm feeling pretty nervous. As a health reporter, I'd spent 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:42.199 the last six months digging into the fertility industry, so 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:45.160 I knew that at thirty six, it was entirely possible 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:47.720 that I was here too late, that it was no 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:52.800 longer possible for me to have kids. My journey to 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:55.040 this yellow exam chair had started with a breakup a 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:58.120 few years earlier. I was living with my boyfriend when 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:01.040 he got a job in Colorado had moved there without me. 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:05.240 So a few months later, when my obgyn asked me 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:07.560 if I planned to start a family, I didn't know 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:11.000 how to answer. It was February twenty twenty, just a 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:13.840 few weeks before I officially tered my mid thirties, and 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:15.800 I had just gotten a room meet for the first 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.800 time in over a decade. My carefully laid life plans 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:22.840 had pretty much just gone up in flames, not to 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:26.319 mention that there were rumblings of a global pandemic. Kids 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:30.440 seemed like a pretty far off concern. Of course, it 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:33.520 wasn't as if the incessant ticking of my biological clock 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:37.160 had escaped me altogether. It's all around you if you're 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:39.160 looking for it. If I want to have kids, I 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:41.000 have to do it. By the time that I turned 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:43.840 thirty five, I've been trying for five months nothing. 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:47.200 My biological clock is taken like this, and the way 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:49.600 this case is going, I I never get married. 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:53.160 It used to be just my mom half joking that 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:55.960 my kids were going to be her only grandkids. But 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:58.880 as I entered my mid thirties freshly single, I found 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:01.240 it harder and harder to escape the message that my 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:06.760 ovaries had an expiration date. My obgin was just the start. 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:10.600 Now I was noticing egg freezing ads from startups in 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:15.000 my Instagram feed, and infertility stories about celebrities like Jennifer 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:16.079 Aniston on the news. 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:19.600 Now, in a candid new interview with Allure, the actress 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:22.000 is opening up, telling the magazine that I would have 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:24.880 given anything if someone had said to me, freeze your eggs. 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.880 There is a reason this is everywhere. One in six 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:34.720 people experience infertility globally, and it's not just a woman problem. 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:38.320 The world's first IVF baby was born in nineteen seventy eight. 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:41.840 It's the first known baby conceived outside its mother's wound. 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:46.720 Since then, the number of people seeking out fertility treatments 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:50.959 like IVF and egg freezing has exploded, which the media 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:52.679 is constantly drilling into you. 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:56.560 Millions of American women have used fertility treatments. In twenty twenty, 0:02:56.600 --> 0:03:01.359 more than twelve thousand women froze their eggs nearly twenty sixteen. 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:04.440 The industry stands to make about forty one billion dollars 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:07.679 in sales. In twenty twenty three alone, eight hundred and 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:11.240 seventy four million dollars were invested in fertility startups, according 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:15.840 to Pitchbook. That's more than double just five years earlier. 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:20.280 The growing number of people like me delaying having kids 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:24.960 has resulted in a gold rush. But fertility it's a 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:28.960 little different from other sectors of medicine, especially here in 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:34.000 the US. I'm Bloomberg reporter Kristen V. Brown. I've spent 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:37.200 the last decade reporting on health and science, and I'm 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:40.480 fascinated by what happens when new technology comes into contact 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:44.200 with us humans. In my reporting, I've let biohackers implant 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:46.400 an NFC chip in my hand that can unlock a 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:49.680 door and set my spit to DNA testing companies to 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:53.760 expose racial biases. This time, I'm going down a reproductive 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:57.080 rabbit hole. Over the last two years, I've talked to 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:01.080 dozens of fertility patients and doctors. I've talked to ethicists 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:04.560 and lawyers and historians. I visited labs to get a 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:07.360 peek at what goes on behind closed doors, and flew 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:09.360 to see clinics that are trying to do things a 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:13.160 bit differently. When I started digging, I found plenty of 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:17.040 stories of miracle babies, But I also found a corner 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:20.960 of the healthcare world uniquely driven by profit, one that 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:23.840 some say plays by its own rules. I met people 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:26.920 who gambled their financial futures for a baby and still 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:30.160 didn't get one, people who felt they were misled about 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:37.279 the odds. I wanted to know why fertility medicine seemed 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:43.440 so broken and what the industry is doing to fix it. 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:46.400 It was also personal, because I wanted to know if 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:49.920 I should freeze my eggs. So I got my fertility tested, 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:52.440 and I set off on a journey into a corner 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.040 of the medical world where some of the most intimate, 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.560 emotional and trying moments in life collide with big business. 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:02.120 A world where the are high, but the odds are 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:06.120 sometimes low, where miracles happen, but so do mistakes. 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.440 We're a couple of years in fifteen thousand in by 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:10.240 value Eisen. 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:11.920 We have no answers. 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:16.320 Most people have no idea what happens in the lab 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:17.760 of a fertility clinic. 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:20.520 It took ten years to get to our sun because 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:21.679 there was a lot of back and forth. 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:24.800 The industry was built as a niche for high net 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:25.760 worth individuals. 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:29.599 Are we doing good for patients or is it the 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:33.679 patient lost into these business transactions. 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:36.360 I was going to experience all of this firsthand. 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:41.160 Yeah, it's all oh slightly terrifying. 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:41.720 Yeah. 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:45.880 Before I froze my own biological clock, I wanted to 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:49.080 understand how women who haven't even been diagnosed with fertility 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:54.320 problems got swept up in the infertility market from Boomberg's prognosis. 0:05:54.880 --> 0:06:03.640 This is misconception. We'll be right back twenty years ago. 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:06.479 There were no startups offering Black Friday deals on egg 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:10.120 freezing packages. In the eighties and nineties, egg freezing was 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:12.640 really only thought of as a way to preserve fertility 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:15.719 for cancer patients, and it didn't work all that well. 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:19.400 Then in the late nineties, a clinic in Italy started 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:23.279 seeing repeated success. Nicole Noys happened to attend to talk 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:24.839 by one of its doctors. 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:28.359 And it's like the sparks flew in my brain and 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:30.440 I said, I'm going to go meet that woman. I 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:32.159 think that's where my energy should go. 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:34.839 Nicole was a doctor at NYU at the time. 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:36.960 I literally went and sat in the front of the room. 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:38.960 I said, I'd like to come visit you in Italy. 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:41.280 I'd like you to come visit me in New York. 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:44.320 And she didn't even speak great English at the time, 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:46.720 and she agreed to all that. So I went there, 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:49.559 she came to New York, and we developed an incredible bond. 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.800 It didn't take Nicole long to realize egg freezing might 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.120 have use beyond cancer patients. 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.719 It's not that different to have a woman who's thirty 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:02.520 nine years old or thirty eight years old and is 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:05.600 realizing they are not in a relationship conducive to child bearing. 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:08.839 And then honestly, I took it upon myself to say, 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:14.040 this is so important for women for reproductive autonomy, that 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.280 I'm going to make this my mission for the rest 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:19.520 of my career. And I went to the governing body 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:23.280 in America, I went to the governing body in Europe 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:25.920 and said, can I hold meetings about egg freezing with 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:28.200 all of the experts I know in the world. But 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.480 I literally had to carry all this myself to all 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:34.520 these European countries, and I brought everything with me and 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:38.360 handed out binders to everybody and said, let's brainstorm here 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:41.440 and move the science further. And it was incredible. 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:45.000 This is the moment fertility care went from being something 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:47.800 for people with a disease to something for healthy people. 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:51.160 Nicole was on the front lines helping to improve egg 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:55.160 freezing technology, testing and implementing new methods that would make 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:59.200 it more successful. She helped NYU start an egg freezing program, 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:04.160 helped freezing go mainstream, and as it went mainstream, it 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:07.960 became a product something you could brand as empowering or 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:12.920 maybe even feminist. It was proactive preventative. 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:16.400 Between two thousand and six and twenty ten and went 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:19.400 from being people sneaking in to do an egg freezing 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:21.880 cycle to people sitting there and like telling their friends 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:23.040 they're doing egg freezing. 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:28.280 Freezing, thank freezing freezing. That was exactly how Bridget Adams 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:31.360 decided to freeze her own eggs. A friend urged her 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:33.040 to do it over dinner. 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:36.000 What was this restaurant. It was like a funky little bit. 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:38.760 It was in Hayes Valley in San Francisco and it 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:39.840 was like a taco place. 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:43.960 At around forty the friend had failed to get pregnant 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:47.880 with a second child. Bridget was already thirty seven. Her 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:51.080 friend's message was basically that Bridget's time was running out. 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:53.000 She sort of said, if you're going to do this, 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:56.360 you need to do it now, and just sort of 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:59.000 the urgency in her eyes. And I had been thinking 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:01.160 about it and been on the for at that point, 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:04.920 like nine months. It was seeing another woman and sort 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:07.679 of seeing myself and her and I was, you know, 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:09.920 behind her a couple of years, and I thought, you know, 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:12.800 if this is happening for her now, that was really 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:15.720 just impetus that I needed. I really get going after that. 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:20.640 This was twenty eleven, right around the time Nicole noticed 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:23.800 egg freezing was just starting to catch on. It was 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:27.400 still designated in experimental procedure by the American Society for 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:30.760 Reproductive Medicine for Bridget, though it seemed like a sort 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:34.400 of necessary solution to the problem of her aging biology. 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:38.120 Bridget was considering it for the same reason I was, 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:41.800 for the same reason that research tells us most women 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:45.360 freeze their eggs. She just hadn't met the right person 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:47.880 to start a family with yet, so she pulled the 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:51.240 trigger and wound up getting eleven mature eggs from one 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:52.320 egg freezing cycle. 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:54.480 I was really happy. 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:56.120 I didn't think I would get that many. 0:09:56.480 --> 0:09:58.640 I think when I was going in for ultrasounds and stuff, 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:00.720 they sort of predicted like a or something. 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:03.679 After she froze, it felt like the pressure she had 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:05.600 been feeling for years had lifted. 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:07.679 I was at my most confident. 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:11.040 I felt great. The next year, egg freezing lost its 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:15.040 experimental designation. That same year, a thirty one year old 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:17.880 Kim Kardashian froze her eggs in an episode of Keeping 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:21.000 Up with the Kardashians, gritting through it as her mom 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:24.960 administered a fertility shot. I'm glad that I'm freezing my eggs. 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:27.480 I think now I could just be proactive. I want 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:29.640 to make sure when the time is right, I want 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:34.760 to be prepared. It started to really catch on to 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:35.959 become part of a movement. 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:40.679 This is very much the time of lean in feminism, 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:43.080 and so it was this idea that if you just 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:46.960 stepped up to the job and leaned into your career, 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:48.319 that you would get as far as men. 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.240 I'm a Rosenbloom was an editor at Bloomberg business Week 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:54.320 at the time, and she covered this growing freezing frenzy. 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:59.440 So egg freezing was this treatment that people started to say, Okay, well, 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:01.400 if you can't kids, if you're too busy at work, 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:03.240 if you're too focused on your career, you could freeze 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:04.959 your eggs and then you can just have them later. 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:09.280 It wasn't long before tech companies like Apple and Facebook 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:12.480 started offering egg freezing as a perk for female employees, which, 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.400 of course the media jumped on, freezing my eggs allows 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:18.080 me to fulfill my dreams on my own timeline, without 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:20.240 depending on a man or my biological clock. 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:25.600 And then people started to think a little bit more 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:30.719 critically about, well, why would a company want to necessarily 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:33.599 provide that service for their employees. 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:37.360 Would companies that offer this benefit basically be sending a 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:39.720 message to women saying no, no, no. In your twenties 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:42.120 and thirties, you should be working round the clock because 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:45.520 you can freeze those eggs and have your children later. 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:48.800 Of course, start up specializing in egg freezing popped up 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:50.760 to cash in on the moment by doing things like 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:55.400 hosting cocktail parties. One even use the slogan lean in 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:59.160 but freeze first. Another build their event as an evening 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:02.120 of the three f's, fun, flirting, and freezing. 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:07.240 This may look like a fancy Los Angeles cocktail party, 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:11.240 but it's actually a marketing event put on by the 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:13.559 Southern California Reproductive Center. 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:18.360 Their marketing uses slick social media campaigns, spot like settings, 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:20.280 even mobile fertility vans. 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:24.360 Companies like Prelute Fertility were raising hundreds of millions of 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:28.599 dollars in venture capital and bringing the field a Silicon valleychine. 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:31.200 They were promising to use new tech like big data 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:34.200 to help women get pregnant. Egg freezing was like a 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:38.439 gateway drug, a buzzy new product bringing the whole industry attention, 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:43.080 and it was working. In twenty eleven, when Bridget froze. 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:46.160 The CDC reported about one hundred and sixty three thousand 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:49.199 fertility cycles by the end of the decade. In a 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:54.679 doubled Bridget was riding this wave. She became a freezing advocate, 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:58.720 spreading the gospel to other women. She started a website, 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:02.400 eggsurance dot com that it's stuff like basic information on 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:06.040 egg freezing and interviews with doctors, and of course a blog. 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:08.599 She went on TV to talk about her experience. 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:11.440 Bridget Adams, let me start with you, what was your 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:15.280 first reaction when you heard that Apple and Facebook were 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:18.480 going down this road. I prosed my eggs three years ago, 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:21.760 which was a little bit of an early adopter to it, 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.440 and I was thrilled. It's so hard to have it 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:27.000 all and it's giving women more options. 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:30.720 So the thing that struck me really was just her openness. 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:33.520 When Emma was reporting a story on the dawn of 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:38.160 this revolution in reproductive choice, she interviewed Bridget. Actually, Bridget 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:42.040 ended up on the cover, staring out confidently, almost as 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.840 if she was invincible, under the headline freeze your eggs 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:46.920 three your career. 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:49.600 At that time, the idea that you would go on 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:54.720 the cover of a magazine talking about your fertility was 0:13:54.880 --> 0:14:00.320 pretty rare and brave, and I just appreciated that she 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:02.840 was so open and honest about it. 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.240 When I read Emma's article a decade later, thinking about 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:10.680 freezing my own eggs, there was one paragraph that stood 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:15.440 out the top. Reproductive health societies cautioned against thinking about 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.600 egg freezing as a way to stop the clock. Doctors 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:21.400 knew it was no silver bullet. The little data we 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:24.360 had on how well it worked was not overly optimistic. 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:29.760 That message, though, wasn't getting much airtime. Bridget hadn't given 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:32.160 much thought to what would happen after she on frozer eggs. 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:36.200 At that point, freezing was becoming increasingly popular, but not 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:38.880 that many women had returned to use their frozen eggs. 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:41.920 Eleven eggs sounded like, you know, shitload of eggs in 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:42.640 my age. 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:46.320 Like a lot of women. Bridget just assumed it would work. 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:48.640 It was kind of like this urban myth where like 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:50.520 you could get your eggs frozen and then you'd never 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:54.480 have to worry about it. People had such optimism about 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:58.840 this procedure, and then of course reality sets in where like, actually, 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:01.600 it's like a ten percent chance maybe that it would work. 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:05.400 It's a numbers game. Each egg only has a slim 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:09.040 possibility of one day becoming a tiny human. Studies I 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:12.280 read pegged those odds anywhere from four to twelve percent 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:16.680 per egg, and the older the eggs, the slimmer the odds. 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:21.240 But that message was getting lost amidst the hype. We'll 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:27.280 be right back. Once you've bought in, it's hard not 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:31.640 to keep going. It was just before Christmas twenty sixteen, 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:34.760 and Bridget was still waiting for all the right pieces 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:38.200 to fall into place to start a family, waiting for 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:41.920 mister Wright. It had been more than five years since 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:44.760 she froze her eggs. She was now in her mid forties. 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.960 She hated the idea of spending yet another Christmas alone 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:51.320 without a family of her own, so she decided she 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:54.160 was done waiting. She would fertilize her eggs with a 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:54.880 sperm donor. 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:57.960 I always thought I would meet someone. It didn't happen, 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:01.480 but I thought, you know, I can find someone else 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:05.120 at any age. There's not a limit on you know, 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:08.120 hopefully finding a partner, but there is a limit on 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:11.640 the ability of me to carry a child emotionally and physically. 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:15.600 So I defrosted my eggs and fertilized them right before Christmas. 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:18.640 Then it was a waiting game to see how many 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:19.560 of them would make it. 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:25.440 So I had the eleven eggs six defrosted and fertilized, 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:29.200 and then of those six, only one made it to 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:30.080 day five. 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:33.520 And less than a week eleven good eggs became just 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:34.720 one viable embryo. 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:37.760 So I found that out sort of right over Christmas time, 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.560 like the twenty fourth that I had one viable embryo. 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.680 In January, she started the medications necessary to prepare her 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:49.040 body for pregnancy for the embryo to be implanted in 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:53.240 her uterus, and it worked. She got pregnant, and I 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:56.479 was just you four it. She started looking at strollers 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:59.280 and thinking about baby names, like I beat the odds 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:04.680 that euphoria was brief. Forty eight hours later, I found 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:05.080 out that. 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:09.399 It, you know, wasn't the emberyor wasn't growing. 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:13.520 For years, she'd walked around feelingly she had this great 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:17.199 insurance policy in her back pocket, a plan B for 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:19.880 starting a family of her life. Plans didn't work out 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:20.840 how she intended. 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:25.000 I was sitting there crying in a heap, you know, 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:27.399 in my bedroom, and I was like, I was a 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:30.359 fucking cover girl for egg freezing and it didn't work 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:34.600 for me, and I threw everything around. I didn't get 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:36.840 out of bed for forty eight hours. And I think 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:39.800 just the emotional toll and you know, physical toll of 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:42.200 what you've done to your body, and just the hormones 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:43.119 that are raging through you. 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.520 Frigid story actually has a happy ending. She did eventually 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:50.520 have a baby, a little girl. It just didn't happen 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:52.840 how she thought it would. She used an egg donor, 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.280 which is really expensive, and the end she spent about 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:59.320 eighty thousand dollars. She was only able to do it 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:01.440 because she had a good job and companies stock to 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:04.080 cash out, as well as financial support from her family. 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:06.640 I hope my daughter can laugh about it one day, 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:08.119 But you know, at the time, it was just like, 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:10.480 come on, just tap me a break somewhere. 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:14.120 I'm telling you bridget story not just to point out 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:17.359 the irony, but because I think it highlights the misconceptions 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:20.359 around egg freezing. Right at the moment it was starting 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:23.520 to take off. It wasn't as if anyone ever told 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:26.879 her flat out that eleven frozen eggs was a guarantee 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:29.880 of a baby. But I also don't really blame her 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:34.199 for feeling misled. There's this sort of smoke screen that 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:39.280 obscures the truth, dueling messages of hope and fear that 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:43.920 helps sell fertility procedures to women, and those messages were 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:45.760 even starting to work on me. 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:52.000 Okay, So it says my results are ready for review, 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:56.200 and I'm talking to the doctor in a couple of minutes, 0:18:56.800 --> 0:18:59.480 almost two weeks after I got my fertility tested, the 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.440 day I had been nervously anticipating had arrived. 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:08.240 So my AMH is three point zero eight. I think, 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:15.520 combined with thirteen follicles, that's pretty good. So I'm just 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:19.640 like digesting this before the doctor calls me. I talked 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:22.040 to a nurse practitioner on the phone and she explained 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:25.480 what I was seeing. I had thirteen follicles. Those are 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:28.679 the fluid filled sacks that contain an immature egg, and 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:31.400 she said that thirteen was a healthy number at my age. 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:36.160 My AMH levels were also optimistic. AMH is a crucial 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:38.760 hormone in reproduction, and tests like this try to use 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.639 it to judge the healthiness of a person's ovarian reserve. 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:45.879 Three point eight was a great result. My fertility hadn't 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:49.840 fallen off some proverbial cliff, at least according to these 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:52.359 two data points. And so if I did want to 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:55.800 freeze my eggs, these numbers are a good indication that 0:19:55.880 --> 0:20:01.160 it would go pretty well, probably right exactly. Knowing all 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:05.320 this was a double edged sword. I felt some reassurance, sure, 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:09.280 but now I also felt pressure to save the fertility 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:12.520 I had left. I had a real decision to make. 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:17.080 Was I going to freeze my eggs? The idea of 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:19.880 paying thousands of dollars and winding up with nothing made 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:22.400 my stomach heart. But I did have a few things 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:25.280 going for me. For one, we know a bit more 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:29.600 than we did back in twenty eleven when Bridget froze. Nowadays, 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:32.800 because of the slim odds per egg, most doctors recommend 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:35.679 banking at least twenty I'm also a bit younger than 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:38.440 Bridget was when she froze, which research shows gives me 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:42.240 a better chance of success. Knowing everything that she'd been through, 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:45.199 I asked Bridget whether I should freeze my eggs. I 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:46.520 expected her to be a critic. 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:50.520 I'm definitely an advocate of egg freezing. 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:51.800 I was shocked. 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:54.520 I think that what it's done for women in terms 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:58.840 of giving women a little more time, whether it be 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:02.360 finding a partner, you know, being at a point in 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:05.000 their career where they can you know, actually think about 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:06.880 having a child, or be you know, sort of set 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:11.520 up for success. It's an amazing technology. It's just unfortunately 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:15.440 marketed in a way right now that is not transparent, 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:19.959 and I think we're doing a disservice when egg freezing 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:24.119 is marketed in such a care free, nonchalant sort of happy, 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:26.240 just do it and forget your troubles. 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:31.640 There was also a new variable in my calculations. When 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:34.600 I first started thinking about freezing my eggs, way back 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:37.480 before the pandemic, I was worried about whether I would 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:40.919 meet the right guy before my time ran out. Now 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:43.680 I was pretty sure I had met the right guy. 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:47.879 His name was Stupe. He lived in Scotland, but things 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:50.880 were going really well. He was getting ready to move 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:54.000 to New York. Now I felt like I wasn't just 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:57.080 making a decision for me. I was making it for 0:21:57.119 --> 0:22:00.320 both of us. His chance to be a parent was 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:04.600 on the line too. In the end, the thing that 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:06.959 nagged at me the most was the feeling that if 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:10.160 I didn't do this if I didn't freeze my eggs, 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:13.639 I would regret it and I would have no way 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:20.919