Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - The Cost for Women to Freeze Their Eggs

Episode Date: December 10, 2021

Nicole has already dug into some Money Rehab around the financial implications of caring for a baby (boy, can that little one have a big impact on your finances!). But depending on your situation, you can be hit with a ton of costs just to get pregnant—yes, even before you have that little bundle of joy. Today, Nicole talks about her experience freezing her eggs; the financial, physical and emotional costs, and gets real about the return on her investment.

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ready for some money rehab? Wall Street has been completely upended by an unlikely player, GameStop. And should I have a 401k? You don't do it? No, I never have. You think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well, it doesn't. Charge for wasting our time. I will take a check. Like an old school check. You recognize her from anchoring on CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg.

The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. Nicole Lappin. We've already had an episode about the financial implications of having a baby. That was episode 64. FYI, what to financially expect when you're expecting. And boy, can the little ones have a big impact on your finances. In that episode, we focused on the cost of taking care of a child. But depending on your situation, you can be hit with a ton of costs just to get pregnant. Yes, even before you have that little bundle of joy. I know this firsthand because about six years ago, I froze my eggs. From my late teens to my late 20s, I had no life, basically, besides work. I was a work addict

for a solid decade. I had nothing on my mind besides working and then working some more. And then I turned 30, and I became baby crazy. All I could think about was babies, babies, babies. So I did my homework, I weighed my options, and I decided to freeze my eggs. I felt time slipping away and my biological clock ticking. So I took matters into my own hands and tried to stop the clock. Being a boss bitch at work and being a mom someday didn't have to be an either-or proposition. I could have both, and I was in control of making that happen. Freezing your eggs has become a symbol of empowerment. It's a woman's way of saying, I'm going to have a baby when I'm ready and not let

anything else, not even my own body, not even nature, dictate my decision. Of course, the decision I made won't be for everyone. It's a difficult one, not only emotionally and physically, but also financially. Freezing my eggs was an expensive process in all the ways an experience can be expensive. It cost me a lot of time, cost me a lot of energy, and a whole lot of money. At the time, it felt like an investment in myself. But back then, I didn't know what I know now about the ROI on that investment. Women will spend thousands of dollars to freeze their eggs, but some research now shows that there's only a two to four percent success rate per thawed egg. I wanted to share all the information I wish I knew when I had started this whole process. There are two perspectives I want you to hear. First, a medical one, and second,

a personal one from someone who has actually been through the process herself. So in the first part of this episode, I call up my own fertility doctor to talk about the medical process of egg freezing. In the second part, I talk to my dear friend, Taryn Southern, and we share our own personal stories and experiences of freezing our eggs. So let's get to it. Here's my conversation with my fertility doctor, Dr. Brower. Dr. Brower, thank you so much for joining us.

A pleasure. Thank you for having me. So for those who don't know, can you explain the process of egg freezing? So conceptually, the idea behind egg freezing, which is a form of fertility preservation, is that we are trying to gather an individual's current eggs that are in their ovary and freeze them such that the quality of the eggs that are frozen is based on the age now, the age at the time they're frozen, and not the age at which that individual uses the eggs. So, you know, the problem in general is just right is the quality of women's eggs goes down as we get older, and we haven't figured out how to slow that down. So what we can do is to freeze eggs now. And so that's conceptually what

we're doing in the process. Logistically, what we do is that we need to stimulate the ovaries to make a lot of eggs at one time. So in a given month, a female will start with a group of eggs and the body will grow one big follicle and one mature egg will be released. And so we manipulate that by teaching you how to give yourself injections. And the purpose of those injections is to stimulate the ovary. And we're trying to stimulate the ovary to make as many eggs as safely possible at one time. the ovary to make as many eggs as safely possible at one time. And so there's a good, you know, 10 days, two weeks where somebody takes shots, and then we do a procedure to get the eggs out. And that procedure involves ultrasound and anesthesia and a tiny, tiny needle that needs to pass to the ovary. And then we take the eggs out of each of the follicles that have developed and we can either freeze them, and that's egg freezing, or you can actually technically fertilize them and turn them into an embryo and freeze an embryo, which is the other version of fertility preservation.

helped me when I was 31. I had so many crazy questions because I was really open talking about it. So I'd be in meetings being like, oh, yeah, I got to go like shoot myself up later. And I remember people saying like, well, if you take them out, are there any left? And I was like, oh, my gosh, there is not a lot of education here at all. I mean, I learned a lot as I was going. But what are some of the common misconceptions and how do you explain that to people? I think that you bring up probably one of the most common misconceptions actually is that there is a thought that somehow this process leaves you depleted, right? Because you come in and we say, look, you're born with a certain number of eggs and as you get older, you lose eggs and the

quality is declining. So then everybody feels like, oh, I got to hold on. The numbers are falling. Don't deplete me even further. And that is a really common conception or I guess misconception. But the reason it's not true is that in every month, your body gives you a group of eggs or follicles. And some people might have six in that group and some people might have 26 in their group. That depends on, that's a very personal number. And in a normal cycle and an ovulating woman who, who is not manipulating anything, one follicle or egg gets selected from that group and all the other follicles or eggs in that group actually die. And it's part of why we're losing

eggs all the time. So in these cycles where we stimulate the ovaries, we are just rescuing them from death. It's what we're doing is we're saying, okay, here's your group this month, and we're not going to get one. We want as many of those as possible to grow. We're going to capture as many from this group as possible. And so you're really sort of just rescuing the ones that would have died anyway. And so you're not any worse off or any way depleted after undergoing this process. When I was going through the freezing process, which is, I guess, half of the IVF cycle, I was really open about it. I documented it for Good Morning America. I was really open about it. I documented it for

Good Morning America. I was trying to tell other women how this was going, everything I was learning along the way and what my experience was like. But now I'm going through the other half of the process, which is the process of getting them, which I didn't even know where they were. I was like, oh, I have to find my frozen eggs somewhere in the freezer and now use them. And so I'm learning a whole bunch of other things around the process of becoming pregnant after freezing your eggs. Can you talk to us a little bit about the success rates? So the first step is surviving the thaw.

And then as you have watched, right, there is a normal attrition. So there's the expectations for each step and then the overall expected outcome. So the first, and people who are making embryos right out of the gate, they see this attrition at the time of the freeze, right? Whereas people who freeze eggs, you see this attrition later on. And each, as I describe each hurdle is, do the eggs survive the thaw? Does fertilization occur? So, you know, the average fertilization in a good embryology lab should be over 70%. We see our rates at about 80%. So that's what we use as our sort of our benchmark. And then of the embryos that, of the eggs that fertilize, that's the number of embryos

you start with. And on average, about 50% will continue to grow. So, and those are, those are just the averages and some people will be above and some people will be below. So those are the hurdles that you need to get over. And then obviously not all of the embryos will stick. So the chances of them sticking also depend on whether or not they're genetically tested embryos or whether, or, and also the age at which,

you know, the person was the, the female was when she froze the eggs. So that's kind of each of those hurdles and the expected averages at each step. Now, if you're just saying, well, I am, I am, I was 30 years old when I froze my eggs and I had X number of eggs frozen, those are the two most important factors in determining success rates is the age you are at which you froze and the number of eggs you have frozen. So in someone less than 35 years old, if they have 10 eggs frozen, we expect a one baby success rate of about 55 to 65%. And if you had 20 eggs frozen and you were less than 35 years old, that number goes up to about 80 to 90% or even 85 to 95%, depending on where you look. And it never reaches 100 because there's

always going to be outliers. So those are some numbers around success rates. Every sort of hurdle along the way, I kind of have been holding my breath and I've been learning a lot. I've also been spending a lot more money, which is something I want to ask you about. I know you're running between appointments right now. Thank you so much for squeezing us in. What should somebody expect financially through the whole process? What would you give as an estimate for egg freezing and then the complete cycle? Yeah, that's a good question. There's some variability in that. So I can tell you at KindBody, which is where I am now, our egg-free cycles are, I want to say like $6,950,

$6,900, almost $7,000, which includes everything except the medication. And the medication can be anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000. Now that rate, because of our sort of our mission of trying to be more accessible, it's probably 20 to 30% market value with intention. So it could run, that's probably on the lower end, there are some centers that are that sort of operate a little differently. But that's, that's probably that's about, you know, the about... Again, medication standardly $3,000 to $5,000. And then the egg-free cycle is probably going to be anywhere between maybe $6,000 and $10,000, depending on where you go. And generally, that will include a year of storage. But you probably remember you get a bill for your eggs after that first year. And an average storage is about $500

to $700, I would say, for the storage fees. I think our storage fees are $600 a year. And then there's a cost when you thaw. And that also will vary a little bit from clinic to clinic, but there's a cost to thaw, fertilize, grow the embryos, and genetically test the embryos. So that's the other half. People think of egg freezing as being cheaper than making embryos, but it's just paying half of it now and half of it later. It really doesn't end up being that... It doesn't end up being cheaper to just freeze eggs once you add up the cost. So yeah. And then the thaw portion is probably... I think our thaw is about $7,000 plus the genetic testing is $4,000 for us. Now, you probably know better.

Because of my movement, you ended up flying somewhere else. I'm not sure if that was comparable. But that's the other thing to note is that I think as much as I know it was challenging to figure out the logistics of getting your eggs thawed, I always feel as though eggs

are probably best served being thawed where they were created. Because, you know, in general, we're all flash freezing eggs. But the actual details of the protocols are a little bit different from clinic to clinic. And so, you know, it's nice to leave your eggs in a place where they know exactly how to best warm them or thaw them. So which actually, you know, has worked out really well for you, which I'm so happy about. Hold on to your wallets, boys and girls. Money Rehab will be right back. Now for some more Money Rehab. The medical perspective is an important one, no doubt. But it's one thing to say you have to give yourself injections, and it's another thing

to actually hold that needle, or many of them. So I wanted to make sure you hear from women who have gone through the experience Dr. Brower just described. So now I'm going to bring in my brilliant, brilliant friend, Taryn Southern, who is an all-around boss bitch, a creative director, investor, breast cancer survivor, and a general pro at tech and telling stories about it. Her niche storytelling chops make her a great person to talk about egg freezing. Here she is. Taryn, this is so exciting. Welcome to Money Rehab. Yay, I can't believe I finally get to be on the show. So talk to me a little bit about why you wanted to freeze your eggs. Oh man, And it's

so funny to think that I did this four years ago, because if I were to do it again today, my reasons would be, it would be a little different, put it that way. I was 31 when I froze my eggs. And at the time I was in a relationship with someone who did not want more children. And I was really concerned about that and not knowing if I was going to be okay with that. And so I chose to freeze my eggs to take some of the pressure off in that relationship, figure out what it was that I really wanted. And also a bit of an insurance policy to say, if this doesn't work, that I will be able to have my own children later in life. that I will be able to have my own children later in life.

What I didn't know at that time was that three years later, I would be diagnosed with stage three breast cancer and go through chemo and radiation and surgery and antibody therapy. All of these therapies that wreck havoc on the body and don't just kill cancer cells, but kill healthy, fertile baby cells too. So I was really lucky that I had frozen my eggs when I did because my cancer was a highly aggressive subtype. And it was also a hormone positive cancer, which means if you are doing things like freezing eggs and injecting yourselves with hormones, that's like adding gasoline to the fire of cancer. So I was probably not in a position where I would have been able to freeze my eggs at that time. And so it's like this, oh my gosh, what a crazy, beautiful thing that I made this

decision four years earlier and did it knowing that I was doing it young. I mean, most of my girlfriends, I think we were the youngest girls, at least in my group of friends who froze their eggs. The topic of conversation hadn't yet infiltrated the space. And so I felt like I was jumping the gun a little bit and I was like, maybe I don't need to do this. But it ended up being one of the best decisions I ever made. Do you remember how much you paid for it? I know the total cost was less than $10,000 for me. I went to a clinic in New York called Extend, which I know does cheaper extractions. I think right now it's $5,000 or $5,500 to do an egg freezing with them. With them, you pay additional for your medicine. So a lot of other places, it comes as a full package, your medicine and the eggs extraction.

If you go to a place that separates the actual extraction process and the payment for that from the medication, sometimes you can save money because everyone's needs on medication are different. And some women need a lot less hormones to get to the levels that are necessary for extraction. And those hormone drugs are super expensive. You're talking about $3,000 to $5,000, $3,000 to $6,000 on top of whatever the surgical price is. I did find in LA when I was searching around, most of the places gave me a one-stop shop number that seemed at that time anyway to be to be quite a bit higher yeah mine was a little bit higher i went to ucla and i think it was like around 12 to 15 and then storage fees which i didn't realize you also need around 600 a year $600 a year. I paid that every year. I actually did end up doing the 10-year plan for

$3,500. So I haven't been paying storage fees for a couple of years. But I remember making that decision and being like, am I really going to make a bet on the next 10 years of my life right now? But I did it. And I guess if I do use them or save them that period of time, I'll have saved a couple of grand. Yeah, that was shockingly one of the more unexpected hard parts was figuring out how long I wanted them to be frozen for. And then you have to think of all these permutations. Like, am I going to use them for my first kid? Do I want more than one kid? And then I was single at the time. And so there was all these existential questions. Do you donate them

if you die? Like, do you want a child posthumously? Sort of like the organ donor thing. You have to make all of these decisions. And that, I think, was the culmination of what was already a really hard process. It's so expensive. Do you think it's worth it? I would say that because of my cancer diagnosis, it was worth it for me. Yeah. I think that we do have a narrative that women need to be concerned about this, and they need to be concerned about it the second they hit 30. And I think that narrative is an unfortunately toxic one that doesn't really serve us very well. So I appreciate that egg freezing is an option. And in my own story, I have been nothing but grateful to have that option given how,

where I'm at with my body now, but I do not think that every woman should have to feel like this is their, that this is their only way to, to get cozy with their age and their status and their, their career and whatever it is that they feel that they will eventually have to put on hold to have children. I think that that is more important that we develop a different narrative that takes some of the pressure off. Amen. Amen, sister. Yeah. I mean, it's not covered by insurance unless it's for medical reasons, which is ridiculous, which is ridiculous.

Absolutely. Cause, cause a lot of women also have many issues, whether it's PCOS or cysts, things like that, that do make it harder to get pregnant. And the fact is when men are at their peak career age, women are at their peak childbearing age. And that alone is a handicap, I think, for women. And the fact that our insurance companies are not covering this to make it less of a stressful endeavor, because we're really talking about cost benefit analysis, right? And if I'm staring at the cost, this is not an affordable process for most women. I do have a funny story though on that note from the clinic that that did our shots i think so many women went to that clinic because it was it was trying to amortize the cost of the medication

that they told you look if you're willing to take more sticks to the stomach you'll save money because because the medication vials let's say you've got 800 cc's and you only need 600 cc's if you're willing to just do the 600 and then save the 200, then you can save it for the next day, but then you're gonna have to double stick. So it got to the end where I was like triple sticking. To save money? To save money. Oh my God. Where are your eggs now? Do you know? A really good question. I need to find out where the freezing facility is for extend. I think it's at Harvard, but I need to double check. I know that it's at a top-notch facility. Great. But I've heard some horror stories.

Oh my God. Yeah. A freezer is going down? Yeah. A bunch of Google employees lost all their eggs. What advice would you give someone who's considering freezing their eggs? Oh man. I guess the advice I would give is to really, really take stock of your current set of circumstances and your future priorities and see where those things line up. And if you are planning to be really focused on your career for the next 5-10 years, if you're not in any relationship that looks as though it could be moving forward in a real way, I think it's a really viable decision. And of course, if you have the financial stability to be able to cover the cost, knowing

that there's still risk involved, I think it's a very unique decision for anyone to make and is based on very unique circumstances. For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. I think that freezing your eggs is still an option that feels empowering, but take your blinders off. You should know what it costs and what the efficacy rates are estimated to be based on your age and health. Here's my recommendation. Keep doing your research. If you're considering freezing your eggs, read the modern love essay in the New York Times called Don't Put Your Frozen Eggs in One Basket, which also happens to be the most shared Modern Love essay ever. Or you can read my article that was in Redbook that details my whole process with pictures and video. I'll link both of the articles in the show notes.

I'll link both of the articles in the show notes. Money Rehab is a production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Our producers are Morgan Lavoie and Mike Coscarelli. Executive producers are Nikki Etor and Will Pearson. Our mascots are Penny and Mimsy. Huge thanks to OG Money Rehab team Michelle Lanz for her development work, Catherine Law for her production and writing magic, and Brandon Dickert for his editing, engineering, and sound design. And as always, thanks to you for finally investing in yourself so that you can get it together and get it all.