Later, Baby: Will Freezing Your Eggs Free Your Career?

There comes a point in every childless woman’s life, usually around 35, when the larger world becomes very interested in her womb. Friends and family inquire about its health, asking why it’s not being utilized, when it will be, and then: Will it even work? For those who do want children, the pressure can be crushing and counterproductive. “I found myself going on dates thinking, is this marriage material? Is this? Is he? It was exhausting,” says Dr. Suzanne LaJoie, an ob-gyn in Manhattan. “When I was in med school and residency, all my friends were having babies.” She went through a breakup in her mid-30s and started to worry she wouldn’t be able to have a child of her own. So in 2007, at age 37, she paid $10,000 for a round of oocyte cryopreservation, more commonly known as egg freezing. “I just wanted to take the pressure off,” LaJoie says. “Men don’t have a biological clock, and I felt like it leveled the playing field a bit.”

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