Freeze...

Jasmine Singh

Fertility is one topic that women have not been comfortable talking about, not even celebrities. However, with former Miss India Diana Hayden giving birth to a baby girl through the egg she froze eight years ago, there are visible changes in perception. Diana heard about egg-freezing when she was 32 years old; at that time she froze 16 eggs from 2007 to 2008.  

Even comedienne Whitney Cummings spoke about it at one of the shows. So did celebrity Kim Kardashian, “I decided to get my eggs frozen so that when the time is right I am prepared in case something happens. I’m glad that I’m freezing my eggs. I think now I can just be proactive, but I want to make sure when the time is right, I want to be prepared. I should be safe.” Celine Deon and Janet Jackson are a few other names in the list. 

Breaking the taboo 

Says Dr Umesh Jindal, director, Jindal IVF and Sant Memorial Home, Sector-20, “Career panning, rise in divorce rates or psychological issues are also reasons behind women taking to freezing the eggs. If a woman is planning to have children at the age of 40, then the right time to get eggs frozen is 30 or 35 years. Eggs can be frozen at the age of 38 as well, but chances of success are slightly less.” The price for freezing eggs is the same as the IVF procedure - it can go up to Rs 2 lakh and a recurring cost of Rs 25-30,000 every year to keep the eggs frozen. 

No dearth of reasons

Harjot Bains, 29, from Sri Ganganager, Rajasthan, has been living in Mohali for five years now. This pretty girl is making her acting debut with a Punjabi film, Seerat, and has no qualms in admitting that she has already got her eggs frozen. “It was funny, I had a heart break, I wanted to have a child from my ex-lover, so my friend in Mumbai suggested that I should get my eggs frozen and wait for the time he comes back,” Harjot breaks into a throaty laugh. “It’s only later that I realised that it was such a boon. I want to make my mark as an actress and I don’t want to get married before 40.” 

Mansi Gulati runs her crèche and does Reiki healing in sector-33 Chandigarh. Her husband died three years after their marriage; Mansi was 30 then. “This is a period I cannot even describe, I was under heavy sedatives. In the same year, I developed a lump in my throat; it was not cancerous though. Then, in one of the hospitals, a nurse told me to get my eggs frozen.” Mansi got the procedure done in Patiala. She married at the age of 39 again and has a healthy son today.

Reasons vary, but women have realised that they don’t have to chase the biological clock or quit their careers to bear children. There is always some time later!

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Know this 

• Women who want to get their eggs frozen need to inform IVF clinics a few weeks in advance. There is a 21-day horizon from the beginning of the menstrual cycle when the ovaries are being readied for the stimulation phenomenon. 
• Patients are sometimes put under medication in order to produce more eggs.
• It is the ultrasound-guided surgical needles that are employed to harvest eggs from the ovary. 
• As the eggs are in fluid form when they are extracted from the ovaries, they are later poured in a petri-dish and water is removed. Later, an anti-freeze solution is poured over them in order to ensure that ice-crystals do not form. Thereafter, the eggs are stored in liquid nitrogen tubes for a period that is defined in the consent form.