BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Your grandma hosted Tupperware events. Your mother attended Mary Kay soirees.
Now, you could be sipping cocktails at an egg-freezing fête.
Judging from a current occasion at a swanky Beverly Hills lodge, feminine fertility could possibly be the subsequent large factor in direct advertising and marketing.
About 20 ladies — and some males — gathered just lately within the presidential suite of the Viceroy L’Ermitage on this famously upscale metropolis to speak, drink wine and eat hors d’oeuvres whereas listening to about the opportunity of freezing their eggs for future conception.
Some of the ladies mentioned they hadn’t found the perfect partner and wished to maintain their fertility choices open. Others mentioned they have been targeted on their careers now and didn’t wish to compromise their possibilities of having a household later.
All have been prepared to place apart their inhibitions for one night to study an intensely non-public topic in an uncommon setting: a cocktail social gathering.
Frances Hagan, 35, had heard in regards to the “egg social” from a buddy and was desirous to learn how egg freezing labored. Hagan, a lawyer, mentioned she is single and nonetheless hopes to search out somebody with whom she will have kids the old style means. But she mentioned it doesn’t harm to contemplate freezing her eggs as a backup.
“I’d like to wait and just see what happens,” Hagan mentioned. “But if I wait too long, maybe it won’t happen. I’m trying to be proactive.”
It might be no coincidence that the occasion was held in a spot like Beverly Hills, given the appreciable expense of freezing eggs — and of utilizing them later.
Egg freezing prices between $10,000 and $15,000 for the process and the medicines. Thawing the eggs and fertilizing and transferring an embryo might price hundreds extra in a while. A number of Silicon Valley employers, together with Facebook and Apple, cowl egg freezing for his or her staff, however most employers and insurers don’t.
Two Southern California Reproductive Center workers register attendees of an “egg social” on the presidential suite of the Viceroy L’Ermitage in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Anna Gorman/KHN)
Dominika Martinez, 35, who determined to freeze embryos along with her husband after getting married final 12 months, attends an “egg social.” (Anna Gorman/KHN)
In the previous, egg freezing was primarily for ladies who risked infertility due to most cancers therapies. But in recent times, extra ladies have been choosing to freeze their eggs for non-medical causes — comparable to not being able to have a child.
As the apply turns into extra widespread, so do occasions designed to boost consciousness of it and recruit sufferers for clinics that carry out the process. In current years, cities comparable to Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco have been the venues of egg-freezing events.
At the Beverly Hills lodge, physicians from the Southern California Reproductive Center, the fertility clinic that sponsored the occasion, projected slides on a wall and defined the historical past and science of egg freezing. They advised the visitors that it was an insurance coverage coverage for ladies who need kids sooner or later.
“It’s the smartest thing any woman can do if they are not in a serious relationship that is leading to children,” mentioned Shahin Ghadir, a fertility specialist on the apply.
Ghadir mentioned internet hosting ladies in an informal atmosphere makes the thought much less intimidating and stigmatizing. “It lets people know it’s not a medical issue — it’s a social issue,” he mentioned.
Besides, Ghadir mentioned, “with a glass of wine, everything sounds better.”
The first child created from a frozen egg was born about 30 years in the past, however it wasn’t till 2012 that the American Society for Reproductive Medicine declared that egg freezing ought to now not be thought-about experimental. That opened the door for extra ladies to freeze their eggs, mentioned Evelyn Mok-Lin, medical director of the UC-San Francisco Center for Reproductive Health.
UC-San Francisco began providing “elective” egg freezing quickly afterward, and the variety of ladies opting to freeze their eggs has since risen sharply, Mok-Lin mentioned.
More than 6,200 ladies within the U.S. froze their eggs in 2015, up from 475 in 2009, in keeping with the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology. And 155 births resulted from the fertilization of ladies’s frozen eggs in 2014, up from 28 in 2009.
Egg freezing provides ladies management over their reproductive well being and fertility, and the medical dangers are very low, mentioned Mok-Lin. But given the excessive price, not everybody can afford egg freezing, and it doesn’t all the time work. “It is a luxury for many people and without any guarantee in the end that the investment will pay off,” she mentioned.
The course of entails stimulating the ovaries, extracting the eggs and flash-freezing them.
Necka Taylor, a nurse who attended the Beverly Hills soiree, mentioned her first cycle of in vitro fertilization was unsuccessful, however she’s hoping to strive once more. Taylor, 32, mentioned she has a number of buddies who’ve had infants, and he or she is aware of she desires kids herself.
“I just don’t know when it’s going to happen,” she mentioned. “I knew I needed to take steps to have a healthy baby.”
Her buddy Dominika Martinez, 35, mentioned she had thought-about egg freezing prior to now however it wasn’t till she obtained married final 12 months that she determined to freeze embryos along with her husband.
“I am still not where I want to be in my career,” mentioned Martinez, a social media marketer. “I feel like I need a little more time.”
Martinez mentioned that when she and her husband are prepared, they may attempt to conceive naturally. But if it doesn’t work, she mentioned, “we have a backup plan.”
Ghadir, of the Southern California Reproductive Center, advised the group that he had kids and had not anticipated the expense, time and power of parenting. Freezing eggs may help ladies have kids on their very own timeline, he mentioned.
“If I was doing this at the wrong time in my life, it would have been a disaster,” he mentioned. “Doing things at the right time, when you know you are ready … is one of the most important reasons to freeze your eggs.”
KHN’s protection in California is funded partially by Blue Shield of California Foundation. Coverage of ladies’s well being care points is supported partially by The David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
Cost and Quality, Health Industry
agorman@kff.org”> agorman@kff.org | @AnnaGorman
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