The other day my boyfriend’s mother gave me the current issue of Newsweek telling me that it contained an article I must read. She had the magazine opened to the article “Why I froze my eggs”. I thought to myself good lord, another journalist’s attempt to inaccurately document fertility preservation and assisted reproduction. However, the article is very well written and it gave a first hand view of the pressures women are feeling about their fertility in today’s society as well as the correct steps a woman should take if they are considering these options. I checked out the company they mentioned in the article online and it turns out I had examined some test oocytes for spindle defects a few years back from this same group. At the time I know they were very sincere in their measures to find an alternative in Italy to freezing embryos (see http://www.the-scientist.com/news/20050614/01/). I feel that the concept of oocyte freezing is directed more for young girls and women facing life threatening diseases over the lack of “finding Mr. Right”, however that is a personal choice made possible by new frontiers in reproductive biology.
One thing that was not mentioned in the article that I am puzzled by is that the author had 35 oocytes retrieved and only 8 of them were mature to freeze on the spot. Did they try to in vitro mature the remaining 28 or were they simply discarded?