Why Women Of Colour Need To Talk About Egg Freezing
When women get together, they talk about everything. We dissect stories like Sherlock Holmes. We pour out our trauma as generously as we share our wisdom, but despite all of this, there’s one topic we don’t discuss enough: fertility
For me, my brown background made it worse. You’re expected to go from singledom to marriage to children with little discussion about what happens in between. No warning of things potentially going wrong, or not according to plan. So many taboos.
The first time I thought about egg freezing was when my cross-cultural Indian-Jewish wedding turned to unhappily never after. I got demoted from Future Wife to Ex-Girlfriend. Even though I was in my prime baby-making years, it felt like an umbilical cord was cut, leaving my ovaries stranded in thirtysomething singledom, while he could go forth and multiply for as long as he pleased. Note: Al Pacino became a dad at the grand(pa) old age of 83.
My female friends’ advice was to eat, pray and selflove. The hot topic was what I’d do with my engagement ring, rather than my egg reserves. Perhaps it was too sensitive a topic, but I wish someone had started The Conversation. Instead, it took moving from London to Dubai and meeting successful, smart, single women for me to take egg freezing seriously.
When an Asian friend discussed dating in Dubai, she revealed she had been single for six years. So she froze her eggs – and suggested I should, too. At first, it felt like an affront. But as she continued, I realised it was the first time an everyday woman of colour was talking to me about the subject. But to start off with, it originally felt like survival of the richest, where the red carpet was rolled out for celebrity cryopreservation with treatments starting from a cool Dhs19,000.
Suddenly, I discovered a whisper network. Everyday women shared how they had frozen their eggs; some did it in secret and some were ashamed. The more I heard, the more it became clear: conversations around egg freezing need to be had out loud, and for all women to hear. Women of colour are used to being firsts in their family. For me, this meant being the first generation to go to university, live alone and date. Now, that includes freezing eggs.
Every time I researched the subject, I saw the same white faces. In the western world, the message I received was that a white wealthy woman’s fertility is safeguarded, but a woman of colour’s fertility is controlled. Whether it’s The Great Replacement Theory or recent race riots in the UK, I found a fear of people of colour reproducing.
I refuse to be silent. There is a domino effect that happens when women talk. Since I’ve spoken about egg freezing, women of colour in my friendship circle have undergone the procedure. Let’s stop the shame. normalise the process, and talk. If you talk the talk, people may walk the walk with you. When it came to my workplace, they worked around my scans, surgery, and side effects. No doubt, it will be easier for the next employee. When it came to my parents, it helped that the Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra just so happened to reveal that she had frozen her eggs. And, both my mum and dad came on the day of surgery.
As much as egg freezing offers hope, there are not enough conversations about its success. According to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, egg freezing offers an 18 per cent success rate, while frozen embryos have a higher success rate of up to 42 per cent. Even the age you undergo egg freezing is a complicated, catch-22 situation. While egg quality is better when you’re younger, you’re unlikely to have the funds and likely to feel optimistic about finding a partner. However, as you get older, your bank account increases but your egg quality decreases.
In the UAE, human embryos can be frozen for up to five years, and for longer with mutual consent. Single women can freeze their eggs, and use the eggs after marriage with their husband’s sperm. At this moment however, surrogacy, and egg and sperm donation are illegal.
When it comes to your body, don’t shy away from talking to your family, friends and fertility experts. Don’t wait for the right partner, don’t wait for the right time, and definitely don’t wait as long as me. When my engagement ended, it took me five years, eight months and six days until I froze my eggs, and felt empowered about my fertility. And it all started with a conversation.
Photography: Efraim Evidor
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia Junior’s Autumn/Winter 2024 issue