[HN Gopher] The optimal age to freeze eggs is 19
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The optimal age to freeze eggs is 19
        
       Author : surprisetalk
       Score  : 61 points
       Date   : 2026-03-09 14:38 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.lesswrong.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.lesswrong.com)
        
       | Teever wrote:
       | > Lastly, the stem cells we're planning to use to make these eggs
       | accrue mutations with age, and we don't currently have a good
       | method to fix these before making them into eggs. These mutations
       | will bring additional risk of various serious diseases, only some
       | of which we currently have the genetic screening to detect.
       | 
       | I've always found this one fascinating. Somehow human cells age
       | and humans get old and die but humans can somehow make an
       | entirely new creature through reproduction where that is reset
       | and most of the defects from the parent are gone as well.
       | 
       | How does that work and what stumbling blocks exist that prevent
       | us from replicating it?
        
         | pbh101 wrote:
         | Isn't that what stem cell therapy is?
        
         | strangefellow wrote:
         | I don't know anything about this subject, but I thought it was
         | just natural selection that effectively filtered out the 'bad
         | eggs', as it were. On that same note, I've worried about the
         | effects that modern medicine might have in short-circuiting
         | evolution/natural selection. Would love to hear from someone
         | with qualifications to speak on this matter.
        
           | xyzzy_plugh wrote:
           | Modern medicine absolutely short-circuits natural selection.
           | If you have an older sibling who was delivered via C-section
           | chances are you wouldn't exist.
        
             | shrubble wrote:
             | That's not true for the USA however.
             | 
             | The large award for a medical malpractice trial was the
             | reason for doctors pushing for a C-section if there's any
             | possibility of a complication. (Sometimes called defensive
             | medicine.)
             | 
             | Most people point to the cases won by John Edwards, trial
             | lawyer and vice presidential candidate as the reason for
             | the great increase in C-sections. His case wins include 30
             | trials at which he won at least $1 million dollars each.
        
               | DanielHB wrote:
               | In my generation (80s-90s) pretty much everyone in Brazil
               | that was born in a hospital was born through C-section.
               | Only recently did the practice of defaulting to c-section
               | is beginning to fade.
        
           | rendall wrote:
           | Modern medicine is part and parcel of natural evolution.
           | There is no short-circuiting of evolution. That's not a
           | thing.
        
         | Waterluvian wrote:
         | We're were photocopying photocopies. But I guess if you're
         | taking two copies and tracing a third that is based on them but
         | doesn't actually have to be a facsimile, it gives nature more
         | flexibility?
         | 
         | Like I'm not sure it actually works this way but I can intuit
         | why it's possible, given the new life doesn't have to be an
         | exact replication.
        
         | micromacrofoot wrote:
         | Naturally the reset happens before most cells have grown, part
         | of the trick in doing it with grown humans is doing so without
         | destroying existing tissue or causing cancer.
         | 
         | It's almost like trying to change the flavor of a cake after
         | it's been baked. Significantly easier to swap out ingredients
         | before it's that far in the process.
        
         | colechristensen wrote:
         | There are a bunch of mechanisms in sperm/eggs for better
         | protection/repair/removal by suicide than in any other tissue.
         | It makes sense that these evolved to be the best in these cells
         | compared to any other. Also other tissues might have
         | significantly worse problems having cells kill themselves
         | instead of continuing to operate with a corrupted genome.
        
         | gopalv wrote:
         | > Somehow human cells age and humans get old and die but humans
         | can somehow make an entirely new creature through reproduction
         | where that is reset
         | 
         | I think the eggs aren't dividing as you age (you are born with
         | them, so to speak) and the sperm is held "outside" the body.
         | 
         | One is in original packaging and the other is produced in a
         | "cooler" enviroment by the billions with a heavy QA failure of
         | 99.9999%.
        
       | arjie wrote:
       | If you're curious what it's like for a couple of normies doing
       | IVF, I wrote down our experience here to the degree I remembered:
       | https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/IVF
        
         | WarmWash wrote:
         | If I'm understanding that right, it cost $25k per run, and you
         | did 3 runs, so $75k total? Or was it $25k for the full thing?
         | Did insurance cover anything?
        
           | arjie wrote:
           | Our IVF clinic has a publicly available price sheet[0] so
           | that is correct (thought he prices are higher now): $75k
           | total for us. My wife and I are relatively old. Friends who
           | were approximately 10 years younger collected some 50 eggs on
           | a single cycle. There is a drop-off in egg -> embryo but the
           | women with the 50 eggs are likely going to end up with more
           | usable embryos than us.
           | 
           | Insurance coverage is broader now. When we did it, we used
           | cash pay but nowadays where we live in California there is SB
           | 729 that means most big insurance plans will cover IVF.
           | Personally, I think that's a bit regressive. Older, more
           | established couples like us are benefiting from what will be
           | primarily paid into by younger couples. But if pre-
           | implantation testing becomes widespread (a good thing, imho)
           | then IVF will be more widespread so perhaps this is a
           | forward-looking policy. Still, expanding the child tax credit
           | and raising it to 10x what it is would be good, I think.
           | 
           | 0: https://springfertility.com/finance/
        
           | conductr wrote:
           | Didn't read that account but I went through it with wife. The
           | egg collecting / embryo creating process is the expensive
           | part, so depends on how many times you have to do that
           | process. The re-implantation was significantly cheaper, so
           | also depends on how many times you have to do that part but
           | at least its less costly.
           | 
           | We ended up doing 1 extraction and 2 implantations. If I
           | remember it was roughly ($15k-20k) then (~$5k * 2). This was
           | about 8-9 years ago. We had no fertility issues and had other
           | reasons for doing IVF, but if you do have fertility issues
           | it's more risk the extraction and embryo process will fail
           | and need repeating.
        
           | morkalork wrote:
           | I went through this with my partner and it cost around CAD
           | $30K all-in. Thankfully it was 100% covered by insurance (for
           | the drugs) and by a provincial program (for the procedure).
           | 
           | The drugs for stimulating follicle growth cost around
           | $500/day and the first cycle didn't result in enough mature
           | follicles to be worth attempting the egg harvesting. In the
           | second attempt, the duration was extended after a scan to let
           | more develop. Every extra day, is an another $500.
           | 
           | If it weren't for the government program we were seriously
           | looking at going to one of the many clinics in Mexico
           | offering these services.
           | 
           | We weren't so lucky with the numbers though; here's
           | significant attrition at every step and if you aren't
           | starting with a good number it can look like: 5 follicles > 4
           | mature eggs > 2 embryos > 1 child
        
         | tonymet wrote:
         | how were the adverse effects during the hormone / endocrine
         | therapy for her?
        
           | arjie wrote:
           | This is a common question we get. I will ask her again and
           | add it there, but she described:
           | 
           | * feeling bloated during the process (and feeling heavy in
           | the stomach)
           | 
           | * the discomfort of the actual injections (there are two
           | daily)
           | 
           | * pain post-retrieval that was reminiscent of cramps
           | 
           | One of our other friends who had many eggs retrieved on a
           | single cycle actually got ovarian torsion which is supposed
           | to be outrageously painful.
        
             | tonymet wrote:
             | thanks for sharing that's helpful. I've heard similar to
             | more moderate ill effects from the therapy
        
               | bigtex wrote:
               | This video on YT explains the not much talked about side
               | effects and risks that can come from egg retrieval.
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAMrwAGR3GA
        
               | tonymet wrote:
               | thanks . yeah i had a close family member do the same and
               | it was a pretty long and painful process. it was > 10
               | years ago but I think the concerns are still similar.
        
               | tonymet wrote:
               | The video was helpful and addressed many of the clinical
               | and ethical concerns I have. Can you consent to a
               | procedure that has a 30+ year impact? Are these
               | treatments completely safety tested if long term studies
               | are not being done? What are the ethics of making women
               | take health risks for money, especially when health is
               | increasing in value, and money is losing its value
        
       | the_real_cher wrote:
       | It's wild that in the year 2026 modern science can't recreate a
       | SINGLE cell (which is what a human egg/ovum is).
        
         | jokowueu wrote:
         | it's possible to convert stem cells or skin cells into
         | functional egg cells (ova) in lab settings, though the
         | technology remains experimental and not yet ready for routine
         | clinical use
        
           | the_real_cher wrote:
           | I'm always reading about amazing stuff like this with modern
           | medicine. Things that work great in lab settings: cures for
           | cancer, organ scaffolding, regrowing teeth, etc etc.
           | 
           | Never hear about it again after the initial news.
        
             | njarboe wrote:
             | Lots of tech gets discovered, is heavily patented, and then
             | 20 years late,r when that large first round of patents
             | expire, people start working on and developing the tech.
        
             | bonsai_spool wrote:
             | > Never hear about it again after the initial news.
             | 
             | Perhaps it is because you're not a specialist--all of these
             | things are still worked on.
        
             | DANmode wrote:
             | Are you looking for an explanation,
             | 
             | or a fix,
             | 
             | for this?
             | 
             | (The fix is to consume less popular science types of
             | sources.)
        
             | greygoo222 wrote:
             | "Regrowing teeth" started human trials last June.
             | Development takes time.
             | 
             | And there is no single cure to cancer.
        
         | peddling-brink wrote:
         | Trees are high technology. I'm not sure we'll match that even
         | in 100 years.
        
         | arjie wrote:
         | Well, that seems a bit reductive because nothing can create a
         | single cell right now. All cells are self-copied-and-divided.
         | _Omnis cellula e cellula_ , as they say. There is no cell
         | constructor anywhere. Both Nature and Artifice use the same
         | device to make more cells: a previous cell.
        
         | benlivengood wrote:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoplasma_laboratorium describes
         | the closest we've gotten; synthesizing the DNA and swapping it
         | into an existing cell which then propagates the synthetic gene
         | line.
        
         | ravenstine wrote:
         | I honestly don't look forward to the day that we can do that.
         | It may redefine our very existence more so than even
         | automation.
        
           | greygoo222 wrote:
           | That's exactly why I look forward to it!
        
         | DanielHB wrote:
         | To encode all the atomic data and relative position of a single
         | human cell probably would take a good chunk of all the hard
         | drives in the world. A cell is not like a silicon chip where
         | 99% of it is just repeating the same patterns.
        
         | ekjhgkejhgk wrote:
         | It wouldn't be wild if you understood how complex cells are.
        
       | yosefk wrote:
       | The optimal age to have children is way before you need to rely
       | on frozen eggs (one reason among many being that this process
       | doesn't always work)
        
         | morkalork wrote:
         | My parents and my spouse's parents were all in their late 30s
         | having children, now we're in the same position due to
         | infertility and now finally going through IVF. We're happy it's
         | working but at the same time it's sad knowing they'll grow up
         | never really knowing their grandparents.
        
           | conductr wrote:
           | The grandparent situation is sad af. It's also pretty sad
           | being a mid-40s year old dad that doesn't have the energy to
           | keep up with their kid. I pitched a little league game
           | yesterday and it wiped me out. Also, the fact I (and you)
           | will not know our grandchildren very well also is quite sad.
           | 
           | If my son has his first kid the same age I had him, I'll be
           | in my 80s when that kid is starting little league (or that
           | age). Then, factor in the fact that I don't know of any men
           | in my family that have lived past 80 and it gets really grim.
           | They were all heavy smokers and drinkers I remind myself with
           | fingers crossed.
           | 
           | The most sad part for me, is I realized by delaying
           | parenthood - I was just being selfish - and the net result is
           | I minimized "shared time on earth" with the person I love the
           | most. It's easy to say I wouldn't have been a good parent or
           | I wanted X job/income first, but it's all just excuses and
           | selfishness.
        
             | morkalork wrote:
             | >by delaying parenthood - I was just being selfish.. I
             | minimized "shared time on earth"
             | 
             | Exactly. My advice to anyone is not wait. If we hadn't, we
             | would have found out sonner that we needed to go through
             | that process. It's not a "wake up and schedule an
             | appointment tomorrow" kind of thing, it's a treatment of
             | last resort and you can burn years trying, going through
             | evaluations and alternatives first.
        
               | conductr wrote:
               | Yeah I give same advice, if you know you want kids and
               | found your partner just start soon. We didn't have many
               | fertility issues just weeding out some unfortunate
               | genetics, but I've seen people try for years and it's
               | really taxing on both the individual and relationship.
               | 
               | The stuff we weeded out was on my wife's side and the boy
               | ended up being my clone. We joke about it as if we weeded
               | out all of her genes. Even small things like his cowlicks
               | and how his teeth are coming it are exactly like mine
               | which I never would have expected to even be possible (I
               | never gave it much thought tbh)
        
             | greygoo222 wrote:
             | If you had kids earlier, you wouldn't get more time with
             | the specific person you love that is your son, you'd get
             | more time with a different son. No doubt you'd love your
             | counterfactual son too. But you shouldn't feel bad for
             | having done any wrong by your real kid. This is the only
             | timeline he could exist in.
             | 
             | Bit of a thorny philosophical argument, maybe, but
             | reasonable in this case.
        
               | conductr wrote:
               | Have considered that as well but shared time with that
               | person would have been more and I would be none the wiser
               | to the actual timeline, so I feel it's appropriate to
               | treat them as the same "child" instead of theoretical kid
               | vs actual kid and how I'm happy I waited because this kid
               | is so cool, pretty sure I would have felt the same
               | towards the other kid (who knows maybe not but even if he
               | was a jerk of a kid I'd assume a delayed child would have
               | also been a jerk too)
        
       | SoftTalker wrote:
       | It's also the optimal age to have children. Fertility is highest,
       | the woman is likely healthy and strong, lowest risk of
       | complications.
        
         | stavros wrote:
         | It's also the optimal age to not have children! You're still
         | figuring out your life, probably no stable partner or job, time
         | to do some stuff you'll regret later, etc.
        
           | delfinom wrote:
           | Biological optimal vs societal optimal.
        
             | umeshunni wrote:
             | I would reframe it from
             | 
             | > Biological optimal vs societal optimal
             | 
             | to
             | 
             | > Biological optimal vs personal optimal
        
             | like_any_other wrote:
             | "Societal optimal" should really include consideration of
             | whether that society can sustain itself.
        
           | SoftTalker wrote:
           | Yes, I was only speaking biologically.
           | 
           | "Figuring out your life" was not a thing when humans evolved.
        
         | wredcoll wrote:
         | Aside from the part where you have to raise them, sure.
        
           | jliptzin wrote:
           | If everyone had kids at 18-20, then the grandparents could
           | take care of the grandkids while in their 40s while the
           | parents build their careers from 20-40, then start taking
           | care of the grandkids as the cycle repeats
        
             | bad_haircut72 wrote:
             | Peoples 40s and 50s are their most productive years. We
             | would be better off just letting people take 10 years off
             | in their twenties - but most people would just party party
             | party (what they do anyway)
        
               | znpy wrote:
               | Given two parents, there are four grandparents. Sharing
               | the load across six people is much better than sharing
               | between two.
        
             | mfitton wrote:
             | And then you end up raising your grandkids instead of the
             | kids you gave birth to. It's not something that comes
             | without cost. And what if you don't particularly trust your
             | parents to raise kids? I suppose you would have no idea
             | whether you did or not, because they would not have
             | parented you...
        
           | znpy wrote:
           | It really seems you have no idea what you're talking about.
           | 
           | I have a couple of friends married for about 4-5 years, with
           | a 4-years old son and a one year old daughter. They both have
           | graduate degrees and stable jobs. They are near 40 years old.
           | 
           | Man, they are two zombies. They are drained. They push
           | forward for the immense love of their kids but it's
           | incredibly evident they're drained.
           | 
           | And the thing is... having kids at almost 40 should really be
           | discouraged. They simply don't have the same energy they had
           | when they were 20, of course. Heck, i'm 33 and it's evident
           | to me I don't have the same energy as when I was 23.
           | 
           | This modern idea that one should postpone having kids is
           | incredibly stupid, I hope at some point society will self-
           | correct somehow.
        
       | davidelettieri wrote:
       | Having done IVF with my wife I think this is the most underrated
       | fertility advice available today.
       | 
       | I don't understand why governments of countries with increasing
       | average age and low birth rate don't pay for this for all women.
       | This is one the best pro-family policies that can be implemented.
        
         | CrossVR wrote:
         | That money is better invested in providing affordable family
         | housing. Even if IVF is available no one is going to actually
         | have kids if you do nothing to make it economically sustainable
         | to start a family.
         | 
         | Do we really want to rely on IVF to solve the fact that people
         | can only afford a family home once they're well into their 40s?
         | It's insanity if you ask me.
        
         | Aurornis wrote:
         | > This is one the best pro-family policies that can be
         | implemented
         | 
         | Hard disagree on that. You're coming from an angle of someone
         | who wanted to have kids and do it in a mathematically optimal
         | way. A lot of people see egg freezing as a way to delay having
         | kids until they're older, which can become a disincentive to
         | raising families when they're young and healthy enough to do
         | it. If you want a pro-family policy, you should be spending the
         | money on _people with families and their children_ , not on a
         | tool that is used to delay having children in common use.
         | 
         | Another huge problem with this proposal is that freezing eggs
         | is only a small part of the cost. The cost of IVF later in life
         | could push into six figures depending on how many rounds are
         | needed. If we're talking about pro-family policies that can
         | cost upwards of $50,000 to $100,000 per family, there are many
         | more effective places to spend that like on childcare options.
        
         | drakonka wrote:
         | Most 19 year olds probably wouldn't opt into injecting
         | themselves twice a day for weeks and dealing with the side
         | effects of the injections, then the subsequent extraction
         | procedures (likely for multiple rounds) even if it was paid
         | for. Which is reasonable, considering most women who want
         | children will have them without IVF and don't need to go
         | through any of that.
        
           | moralestapia wrote:
           | Thanks for bringing in some common sense.
        
           | ElevenLathe wrote:
           | Doesn't that just make it a cheaper policy to implement,
           | since very few will take advantage of it?
        
             | fweimer wrote:
             | It still might end up as yet another thing we do to women's
             | bodies.
        
               | ElevenLathe wrote:
               | To be clear: I agree that it's not great policy to
               | pressure women into doing this (which, arguably, making
               | egg-freezing free would tend to do), bodily autonomy
               | concerns chief among them. It's also not great policy to
               | withhold this as an option from poor women while allowing
               | rich ones access to it (the status quo). The third option
               | would be to ban it, but that has obvious problems too
               | most notably that womens' reproductive health is already
               | surveilled and politicized enough without adding another
               | new crime to police for around it. Allowing it in certain
               | circumstances (a "medical waiver" or similar) just
               | reproduces that same issues as banning it, and would
               | probably be just a waystation on the way to a full ban.
               | 
               | I've yet to see a good proposal for how to regulate or
               | handle this as a society, so my best guess is that we
               | keep the status quo (it's expensive so only rich people
               | can do it) for the foreseeable future UNLESS it becomes
               | some kind of culture war issue for MAGA, which seems
               | honestly pretty likely. Presumably they would want to ban
               | it, but allow exceptions for certain cases that amount to
               | "but is the patient a married white woman with acceptable
               | politics?" in a more legally palatable form.
        
             | projektfu wrote:
             | Then it's not a very good population policy.
        
             | m00x wrote:
             | It's not only hard and painful, but potentially damaging to
             | the woman's body and could leave them with permanent
             | hormonal issues.
             | 
             | So, no. It's not a good policy.
        
         | conductr wrote:
         | I went through it with my wife too and expecting a 19 y/o women
         | to go through the IVF process as an insurance policy is a bit
         | insane to me. In our modern, western society, this is age is
         | still solidly childhood with not much definitive thoughts of
         | future family, marriage, etc.
         | 
         | Governments need to make COL more affordable, birth rate will
         | go up naturally
        
           | phyzix5761 wrote:
           | We definitely need better COL but I'm not convinced it's is
           | the main factor for low birth rates as most countries living
           | in poverty have very high birth rates. I think its a cultural
           | difference that values earlier marriage and heavy family
           | involvement in raising children which, the latter, reduces
           | the stress of having to parent by yourself.
        
             | conductr wrote:
             | I think there's a middle ground where in the US many people
             | would be having kids around 30 if they could afford it. Our
             | recent past reflects that. Even the number of kids have
             | been reduced as the cost has become too high, so it's not
             | parenthood or responsibility alone people are avoiding.
             | Comparing to poverty situations introduces a whole plethora
             | of variables. Kids are seen more as assets than
             | liabilities, as they will care for you in old age and/or
             | can contribute to the household after the first dozen or so
             | years. This is not really a comparison to the rich nations.
        
           | greygoo222 wrote:
           | Calling 19 "childhood" is crazy. Most teens have an
           | understanding of what they want their life to look like.
        
             | xboxnolifes wrote:
             | At least with people in my circle of the US, it feels like
             | there's an increasing infantilizing of people (frequently
             | themselves, I'm a bit guilty of this), particularly in
             | regards to things like marriage and raising a family. Yet,
             | by 19 you'll have either made decisions for yourself or
             | someone else has for you, that will likely put you on track
             | for your entire future career direction (education,
             | interests, college choice, maybe even enlisted in the
             | military).
             | 
             | You don't need to have given "definitive thought" to your
             | entire future to not be a child anymore.
        
             | conductr wrote:
             | It is crazy but it's also quite true. People eschew true
             | adult responsibility for much longer these days. It's a
             | macro trend.
             | 
             | I know there's a lot of "whys" but not getting married, not
             | having kids, living with parents, etc all compound to
             | remaining a child in some sense and this is continuing well
             | into the 20s and even 30s for a large portion of the
             | demographic.
             | 
             | When it comes to 19 y/o women the fact most internet people
             | would find it gross that 1) highly fertile and 2) desired
             | by old men - is a reality. We tell old men these women are
             | too young yet also won't admit it's because they are in
             | some sense still children.
        
         | alistairSH wrote:
         | We, in the US, don't even have universal day care, or hundreds
         | of other sensible things that would make child-rearing
         | easy/less expensive. Jumping straight to "let's cover expensive
         | IVF programs" is... well a big leap.
        
           | znpy wrote:
           | Of course, there are too many "learing" centers draining
           | resources...
        
             | zzrrt wrote:
             | Then I look forward to DOGE funding more pro-family
             | benefits by eliminating those cases of wasted resources. /s
        
       | stavros wrote:
       | I don't see a very big reason mentioned: You might not need it at
       | all. Sure, the optimal age to freeze might be 19, but if 80% of
       | women are done with children by age 30, why would you have every
       | woman spend the equivalent of buying a small car on something
       | they're overwhelmingly not going to need?
       | 
       | Waiting to get a good balance of "your eggs are still reasonably
       | healthy" and "if you haven't had kids until now, it'll probably
       | be a while still" is probably the reason behind the current
       | advice.
        
         | fweimer wrote:
         | Apparently the harvesting procedure typically (but not always?)
         | involves general anesthesia. That alone is never entirely risk-
         | free. In this context, the temporary loss of bodily autonomy
         | could be particularly problematic. All that comes on top of the
         | required hormone treatment. It's not a trivial procedure.
         | 
         | On the other hand, it may be a useful tool to resist
         | expectations to become a mother until it becomes socially
         | acceptable to say no. So it might be important even if the eggs
         | are not getting used.
        
           | greygoo222 wrote:
           | There's no way it's a worthwhile investment to invest
           | thousands of dollars and take on significant risk and
           | discomfort just for a tool to "resist expectations." You
           | should invest that in a therapist. Or moving to a different
           | state.
        
       | Aurornis wrote:
       | This is an article that you need to read critically, beyond the
       | headline.
       | 
       | Even a few paragraphs down they say this:
       | 
       | > The optimal age to freeze eggs varies depending on the source
       | and metric, but almost all sources agree it's sometime between 19
       | and 26.
       | 
       | So there's some heavy bias inserted already into the title.
       | 
       | The next chart shows a peak around 19, but if you read the fine
       | print it's not a chart about eggs at all. The subtitle says it
       | shows:
       | 
       | > probability of getting pregnant for couples not on birth
       | control
       | 
       | Not the quality of eggs frozen. They're saying one thing in text
       | and showing a chart of something else. If you can't imagine why
       | couples in their early 20s might have a higher rate of pregnancy
       | than couples in their 50s then you might want to think a little
       | deeper about the factors that go into that.
       | 
       | The writeup then goes into polygenic embryo screening, which then
       | jumps to improving IQ by selecting embryos, which gets to their
       | final argument which is that it's easier to collect more eggs
       | when younger. So freezing a lot of eggs when you're younger
       | allows for more boosting of your child's IQ through genetic
       | screening based on a company called Herasight's data. Herasight
       | has been widely criticized for overselling their abilities. Also,
       | why do so many rationalist writeups end up back at a conversation
       | about genetics and IQ?
        
         | rsynnott wrote:
         | Well, the website is called lesswrong.com, and not correct.com.
        
       | tonymet wrote:
       | Employers encouraging egg freezing by offering egg freezing
       | benefits is an abysmal conflict of interest. Employers reap
       | tremendous medium-term benefits and the woman bears all of the
       | long-term risks -- in this case the biggest risk of all .
       | 
       | Employers should be required to pay for future maternity
       | disability care insurance e.g. 2-3 years of maternal leave fully
       | paid, elective at any time, even after they separate from the
       | company. Also disability compensation in the event that fertility
       | fails. e.g. $500k / missed fertility .
       | 
       | That would reveal the true success rate of the procedure. If
       | employers or fertility clinics believed it to be a deterministic
       | process, the risks for the employer would be low.
        
       | prmoustache wrote:
       | Since having kids is so tiring in the early years and often lead
       | to a divorce, it is better to have them early when you are still
       | fresh and handle better the lack of sleep, divorce early and then
       | enjoy part time parenthood when you are still youngish.
       | 
       | I feel I am a better parent now that I am sharing custody of my
       | kids and can better balance personal life and hobbies and
       | parenthood.
       | 
       | A cheaper option would be to find someone looking for kids with
       | no romance and agree on having shared parenthood.
        
         | bena wrote:
         | I have to ask, what's the custody split?
        
           | prmoustache wrote:
           | 50/50
           | 
           | The main downside is relocating is impossible until your kids
           | reach adulthood if you want to keep it that way so that is
           | something to consider.
        
         | kleiba wrote:
         | I had my kids late in life and I always thought my life
         | experience was a bonus when it came to raising the kids and wrt
         | keeping it together with the wife.
        
           | bdangubic wrote:
           | Same and feel the same (in addition to financial stability)
           | but oh so often I wish I had my kid earlier in my life
        
         | UncleMeat wrote:
         | I'm vastly happier having had kids in my 30s rather than my
         | 20s. Greater emotional and financial stability as well as a
         | strong foundation for my marriage were boons.
        
         | ytoawwhra92 wrote:
         | Rather than accept divorce as an inevitability, there is also
         | the option of discussing the possibility with your partner and
         | making a mutual commitment to do what it takes to stay happy
         | together.
         | 
         | Which is much easier with the added emotional maturity and life
         | experience that comes with age.
         | 
         | Not to mention if you chose your partner after the age of 25.
        
       | Traster wrote:
       | This article is answering a different question to what it is
       | asking. It's asking "What is the most effective strategy to
       | freeze your eggs if you're absolutely certain you will need to".
       | 
       | The reason women freeze their eggs in their early 30s is because
       | they still have a good chance for it to be effective _and_ they
       | now have a strong idea they 'll need to. You don't have that
       | second piece of information at age 19.
       | 
       | Or to be specific: What is the size of the cohort of women you
       | are expecting to freeze their eggs at the age of 19, who will use
       | those frozen eggs. How many of them will give birth to children
       | without the help of IVF, and how many will choose never to have
       | children.
       | 
       | I think this article is a good example of rationalism. Which is
       | basically getting very mathsy about 1 specific very of the data,
       | without viewing the data in the context of the decision that is
       | being made.
       | 
       | For example, what is the percentage of women you expect to freeze
       | their eggs at age 19, who you then expect to be unable to afford
       | the $500 every year to keep those eggs frozen over the next
       | decade?
        
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