More Canadians are freezing their eggs. Why and what to know about the process

For her 25th birthday this year, Shania Bhopa gave a gift to her future self.

The PhD student from Hamilton decided to freeze her eggs as an “insurance policy” to have a baby in the future as she focuses on her career right now.

Bhopa’s goal is to have her first child a decade from now, around the age of 35.

“A weight’s been lifted off my shoulder,” said Bhopa, who underwent the egg-freezing procedure at Markham Fertility Centre last month.

“I’ve always wanted to be a mum, and I think that’s one of my purposes in life and … I know that’s not my timing right now,” she told Global News in an interview.

Egg freezing and other fertility treatments are on the rise in Canada, as couples delay their plans to have kids for a variety of reasons.

In 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of babies born in Canada fell to a nearly 15-year low and the fertility rate hit a record low of 1.41 children per woman.

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And in 2021, close to one-quarter (24 per cent) of Canadians aged 15 to 49 changed their fertility plans because of the pandemic, according to Statistics Canada.

Canada is already considered a “late” childbearing nation and its fertility rate, which is an estimate of the average number of live births a female can be expected to have in her lifetime, has dipped over the last decade.

“We have been seeing really since the pandemic started, an increase in the number of women or people with ovaries who are accessing fertility preservation in order to secure their future fertility,” said Carolynn Dubé, executive director with Fertility Matters Canada.

Dubé said this helps alleviate the pressure of a “ticking clock” for women who want to put off starting a family to focus on their professional life.

“It gives them a greater chance to bring home a baby because their eggs have been frozen … at a younger age,” she said.

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Several years ago, big tech companies like Google, Apple and Facebook began paying for female employees to freeze their eggs as a way to attract more young women to their staff.

It’s a growing trend with some companies in Canada now also offering the freezing of eggs or sperm, as part of an expanded suite of fertility and family planning benefits.

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Dubé said there is now a great awareness with more women openly having conservations online about their family planning options.

“We’re seeing more and more people through social media sharing, and I feel that this younger generation of women especially are really actively seeking information about their health, their reproductive health.”

Women’s fertility starts to decline after the age of 30 and more significantly when they cross 35.

That is why egg freezing is a route many take, but it comes with a heavy price – roughly $10,000 or more in Canada for as many eggs as can be retrieved. This includes costs for the medication and procedure and an annual storage fee.

The egg-freezing procedure is similar to the IVF treatment in that the eggs are removed from a woman’s body.

After screening, medication is given to stimulate the ovaries so they produce eggs – a process that can take up to two weeks, said Dr. Togas Tulandi, professor and chair of obstetrics and gynecology at McGill University in Montreal.

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After stimulation, an ultrasound-guided procedure takes the eggs out for freezing and storing.

Tulandi said the best age to preserve eggs is in the 20s and early 30s.

The longer you postpone, the less worthwhile it becomes.

“We have requests of patients who want to … preserve the eggs at a later age, but the problem is not just the number of eggs, but the quality of egg is decreased when you are close to 40 or even after 40 especially,” he said.

Egg freezing is also an “amazing medical option” for young cancer patients who need to undergo treatment that could affect future fertility, Dubé adds.

For Bhopa, who documented her 11-day egg-freezing journey on social media, the whole process was a “roller-coaster” ride, she says.

The daily medication injections made her body “really sore” and she said her ovaries felt like “going from limes to grapefruits” in size in her mid-section.

“It’s such a strange sensation,” Bhopa said.

While egg freezing is considered a safe and effective process, some women may experience mild symptoms like bloating and headaches, said Dubé.

The procedure can also result in ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, when the ovaries become enlarged and cysts are formed due to the medication, said Tulandi.

But this gets better over time and no surgery is needed, he added.

Symptoms of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome include fatigue, nausea, headaches, abdominal pain, breast tenderness and irritability, according to an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

There is no expiry date for the frozen eggs, which remain at the same age they were originally stored, but many patients don’t come back to use them.

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Bhopa says when the time comes, she will try having a baby naturally for a couple of months before she goes back to the clinic to use her frozen eggs.

“Knowing that my likelihood, especially with my career goals, (that) I can have a happy, healthy baby potentially closer to 35, so that is very refreshing.”

— with files from The Canadian Press.