Culture

Until Things Are More Stable, I’m Freezing My Eggs and Myself


As a modern woman, I’m forced to think about a lot of things: the gender wage gap, what silhouette of jeans is cool now, Pete Davidson, and, of course, my fertility. I’m not sure if or when I want to have children, or if I’m with the right partner, or in the right career, or using the right brand of shampoo. With life as confusing and unpredictable as it is these days, I’ve decided that the only sensible course of action is to freeze my eggs and also myself, just until things are a little more stable.

Having kids is a big decision. My boyfriend and I don’t know if we’re ready to get married, let alone raise children. Truthfully, I’m not even certain that he’s the one. Sometimes I just stare at the back of his little head and think, Him? Forever? So, rather than try to navigate the course of our relationship and the K-I-D-S discussion, I’ll just put myself on ice for fifty years, which should give us both enough time to think about if we’re really right for each other or if we’ve just got comfortable and are going through the motions because staying together is a lot less complicated than extricating ourselves from each other’s lives. And then, in a half century’s time, once we’ve taken some space, we can see where we both stand. (That is, if we’re both able to stand, given that he’ll be eighty-four years old and my perfectly preserved legs will be wobbly and full of cryo fluid.)

Then there’s my career to consider. Balancing work and motherhood can be a challenge. Currently, every morning I trudge into my job, which was only meant to be a placeholder until I figured out my calling, but six years have passed now and it is slowly grinding my spirit into the consistency of sawdust as I realize that maybe I don’t have any passions at all. But if I were frozen, then I simply wouldn’t have to work. Plus, I could save up and be a bit more financially stable before potentially having a child. Sure, it’d be expensive to freeze my eggs and rent out a cryochamber, but do you have any idea how much day care costs these days? It’s not cheap! Once I’m thawed, either the twenty dollars of bitcoin I bought in 2022 will be worth trillions or the entire financial system will have collapsed and reverted to a basic barter system—and, boy, can I barter.

Even if I do decide that I want kids one day, there is still so much I’d like to accomplish before being emotionally handcuffed to some baby. I want to travel (once the mutating virus has subsided), finally find a haircut that suits my face, and figure out who I really am underneath the artifice of my career, possessions, and zodiac sign. But that all sounds like a lot to tackle. Cryopreserving my body at a hundred and thirty degrees below zero Celsius and pumping vitrification solution through my bloodstream to prevent my soft tissue from turning into ice, at least until everything wrong with society sorts itself out? Now, that I can manage.

Still, this wasn’t an easy decision to make. The success rate of a pregnancy from frozen eggs is lower, many women who freeze their eggs never return to use them, the majority of my friends and loved ones will probably be dead by the time I’m unfrozen, and I’ll be entering a world that’s all but unrecognizable to me. But modern life is full of complicated choices! So, until the lid on my pod pops up, in 2072, I’m buying myself a little more time, just until I have it all figured out.



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