Is IVF really an elective procedure?
By Angela Mollard – Herald Sun
Women are asking men to contribute to the cost of egg freezing as compensation for squandering their fertile years, prompting calls for more education around family planning.
For long-term couples where shared parenthood was a common goal before they split, women are requesting their ex help fund freezing their eggs as a safeguard against future infertility.
One woman has told how she was 34 when she and her boyfriend of 10 years split in 2021 after he changed his mind about wanting a family together.
Florida-based influencer Christina Galbato has more than 327,000 followers. Her reel on egg freezing. Picture: Instagram
Writing anonymously about the experience in the UK’s The Times, she said she asked him to pay for two rounds of egg freezing, costing $20,000, after he ended their relationship.
“Even if I’d been able to scrape together the funds, I felt it was only fair that James chipped in after leading me up the proverbial garden path,” she explained.
“Of course, he had every right to change his mind about the relationship, but he could afford to; the biological inequity was glaring.”
Describing how her former boyfriend agreed instantly – “he seemed relieved to have a way to ease his conscience” – the woman, now 39, is about to use her frozen eggs to have a baby with her new partner after conceiving naturally but then suffering a miscarriage.
Encouraging men to become accountable is a viewpoint championed by IVF specialist Dr Devora Lieberman who often sees women turn to egg freezing when their most fertile years have passed.
Dr Devora Lieberman encouraged women to seek egg freezing as part of a settlement if they break-up during their fertile years. Picture: Salty Dingo
“Whenever I do egg freezing talks I say if you have a relationship breakdown or divorce in your mid 30s you should get two rounds of egg freezing as part of the settlement,” she said.
“It’s tongue in cheek but I believe it very strongly.
“A lot of women I see who’ve been in long-term relationships find themselves suddenly single at 34, 35, 36 and having to start all over again.
“It’s not like you can just go to a bar and meet someone and decide the next day they’re going to be your baby daddy.”
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As author and columnist Charlotte Ree wrote recently, her former boyfriend persuaded her not to freeze her eggs then ended their relationship late last year.
They’d been together four and a half years, and she turns 35 in March.
As she wrote: “Time is generous with men who change their minds; less so with women whose lives do not unfold on schedule.”
Picture: Charlotte Ree grid top left hand side, Dr Hammarberg top right hand side. Kimberly Caines grid bottom left hand side.
With egg freezing in Australia costing between $8000 and $10,000 per cycle and egg storage fees around $500 per year, it’s no surprise that specialists are reporting more women wishing to share the cost with partners who change their mind after they’ve had explicit conversations about having children.
Dr Karin Hammarberg, an adjunct senior research fellow at Monash University, said the issue of former partners contributing to the cost of egg freezing is something she’s hearing anecdotally.
“There’s a lot of research showing that men want to have children just as much as women but they can have trouble getting to the crunch time,” she said.
“It’s a story we hear a lot – you’re in a long-term relationship and you have expectations and the next step is children and then he’s not ready.
“That can be a non-negotiable for women and, as we know, years have passed, her fertility has declined and suddenly her situation is very different.
Dr Hammarberg believes men play a huge part in navigating women’s fertility. Picture: Supplied
Hammarberg said with fertility rates declining across the globe, young men need to be educated on the subject.
She wants to see fertility information included alongside contraception in school sex education and believes GPs should play a role.
“Every GP consultation should include a question about whether they want to have children and that should include young men as well,” she said.
“It has to be understood equally by men and women.
“Fertility is not there forever and if you want to have children you’ve got to get on with it.”
While some may caution against men being retroactively responsible for hypothetical futures, egg freezing educator Kimberley Caines agrees family planning should be a joint conversation and financial responsibility for couples.
Caines, a former journalist who froze her eggs when she was 28 after reporting on a story about infertility, said schools teach teenagers how not to have a baby but neglect to educate them on fertility.
“If couples are planning to have children it’s responsible to discuss the timing of kids, the implications of age on fertility and the cost if fertility interventions are part of that plan,” she said.
“It shouldn’t just fall back on women to pay for it if we’ve got to freeze our eggs because our fertility falls off a cliff while men’s sperm is always reproducing.”
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