Record numbers of women are freezing their eggs. With advances in reproductive technologies come not just new possibilities, but new dilemmas
One of the great reliefs of middle age is not having to give any thought to fertility. That particular hustle, which can blow a hole through a woman’s 30s and early 40s – and even, thanks to the lottery-ticket promise of tiny advances in IVF, later – is mostly in the rear-view mirror by the time 50 rolls around, and what was once all-encompassing fades. For many women, I think, the predominant feeling looking back is: thank God that particular nightmare is over.
A report released this week by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) brings it all flooding back, pinging tiny depth charges off otherwise innocuous-sounding words – “cycle”, “storage”, even “window” gets a look-in – and yanking one back to a fraught and what seemed, at the time, never-ending period.
Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist
