As women are waiting later and later to have children, freezing one's eggs is becoming more and more common. Many women have begun to see the procedure as a way to hedge their fertility bets.
Brigitte Adams, 39, is one such woman. Adams has frozen 11 eggs in the hopes that some day soon, she will have children.
"I always wanted a traditional family," Adams, a marketing consultant for tech companies, told TIME Magazine. "I didn't want to be a single mother."
Adams hopes that soon, she will meet a partner to have children with the old-fashioned way. The eggs are there in case that doesn't happen. Going through the freezing process gave Adam's a funny idea: what if she created a website to help other women like her get their eggs frozen?
Out of that idea emerged Eggsurance, a website Adams created to help women with the process of freezing their eggs. Having gone through the procedure herself, Adams said she often felt alone and confused. She says she saw the need for a site like Eggsurance to help guide women through the process. The site answers basic question about how egg freezing works, how to choose a doctor, and what key questions to ask in consultations.
"Egg freezing is such a new technology, and clinics are on a learning curve," says Adams, who says most of the information she received at her fertility clinic was related to in-vitro fertilization, and not to egg freezing. "They used to have a couple of egg-freezing patients trickle in, but those numbers are now rising. Clinics need to recognize the new face of egg freezing."
Freezing your eggs is still considered an experimental procedure, and is not covered by health insurance. Women who want to get their eggs frozen often pay between $7,000 and $18,000, not including about $5,000 in medication, according to Adams' research. Adams offers access to her website for free, but hopes advertisers will make her new service sustainable.
When it comes to dealing with fertility later in life, Adams says what many women need most is community and support. She says when you're approaching 40, fertility can be very scary and sensitive topic for women.
"You're racing down, and all of a sudden the cliff drops," Adams says of the feeling. She says she tries to talk to women about the reality of their fertility odds on her site. "I try to be very gentle about it, but I say, Guys, you need to be aware of this. Their mouths drop. Most women are shocked, even very well-educated women. We're so concerned with not getting pregnant for so many years that that fertile window is escaping us."
Bow that her 40th birthday is rapidly appraoching in July, you can bet Adams is thinking about her options for motherhood. But she says she's optimistic.
"When I was 35 or 36, I was wrapped up in anxiety about how am I going to meet that person?" Adams says. "I'm really happy I was proactive and froze my eggs. It gave me a sense of calm and freedom."
