The Washington Post came to Shady Grove Fertility in hopes of learning more about the revolutionary option of egg freezing for women. Lavanya Ramanathan, Style writer for the Post, sought to learn about who is freezing their eggs, how they came to that decision, and what can this new technology really offer in way of hope for future family building.

At the recent Egg Freezing Conference hosted by Shady Grove Fertility in Washington, D.C., women considering egg freezing shared what factors were influencing their decision to freeze their eggs:

Planning for the future
At 28, Ann Morgan may be [a potential egg freezing patient]. It’s not concern about conceiving a baby, but about having a second and a third, that has brought her and her husband to the conference. Morgan wants to go to graduate school, but that choice means that they’ll need to plan how to space out their children.1

Taking action on advice
A 34-year-old woman who asks to be identified only as Jea says that a friend who is struggling to conceive cornered her and urged her to consider egg freezing. “Knowing what we’re going through now,” she says her friend told her, “I would have done it when I was your age.”1

Moving on after a divorce
Shady Grove Fertility patient Tiffany Angelo, an anesthesiologist local from Bethesda, found herself in an unexpected situation when she and her husband divorced. After allowing time to grieve, she turned to egg freezing as a way to take control of her future motherhood.

While many of the centers now offering women egg freezing have performed thousands of successful IVF (in vitro fertilization) cycles, egg freezing has historically been reserved for young egg donors and women facing cancer treatments. Today, promising pregnancy rates using frozen eggs, albeit from a relatively small pool of women, leads many physicians to encourage women to consider egg freezing if they are unsure about their future family building.

As a doctor, Angelo knows that her investment offers no guaranteed return. But she would recommend freezing in a heartbeat to a younger woman on the fence not only about freezing but about having children.

“Imagine a world where the clock doesn’t tick for women,” Angelo says. “You could technically have children at any age. It’s such a wonderful gift to women, to take the pressure off them.” 1

If you would like to learn more about the Egg Freezing Program at Shady Grove Fertility, call 1-877-411-9292 or schedule an appointment today by filling out this brief form.

1 Ramanathan, Lavanya. “Egg freezing’s popularity is bomming, but it’s a choice that offers no guarantees.” Washington Post 25 Nov. 2014

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