Apple and Facebook are now paying for their female employees to freeze their eggs. (Oh, your mom sent you a link to that news story, too?)
Getty Images/iStockphoto danielle71
The truth is a bit more complicated (and awesome): Facebook and Apple will offer employees up to $20,000 over the course of their employment for reproduction-related services. That includes egg-freezing, yes, but also in vitro fertilization, surrogacy, and more.
People are talking about it like it's the most amazing invention of all time. That's partially because it really IS an incredible advancement in modern medicine. And it really can help women with fertility problems have babies. Now undergoing chemotherapy for cancer or being diagnosed with endometriosis don't have to mean infertility. That's fantastic.
But egg-freezing as a safety net option for otherwise healthy women to delay pregnancy is a little more complicated. On the one hand, the more control women have over their reproductive choices, the better. On the other hand, freezing your eggs isn't necessarily a fail-safe way to control that choice, and some doctors are concerned about the way it's being marketed.
And maybe it is the right choice for you. But before you make that choice, you should know a few things.
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