They Weren’t Sure They Wanted Kids. They Froze Their Eggs Anyway. 

Egg freezing is almost always framed as a race against the clock—the logical next step for women who know they want children later.  

But for many women, the choice isn’t born out of certainty. They just want to keep their options open until they’re ready to make that call.  

When Krista and Lauren froze their eggs at Extend Fertility in their early 30s, neither had a definitive master plan. But they knew they wanted to buy themselves extra time to figure it out.  

Krista: “I felt a little less rushed.” 

Krista bought a home in her late 20s and lost her job shortly after. It was the third layoff in a row. So she went out on her own, built a business, and spent her early 30s finding her identity as a single entrepreneur  

“My priority has been me,” she says. “It has to be for now. The pressure of meeting someone and ‘settling down’ just like the closest people in my life was really getting to me.”  

Egg freezing gave Krista something she could do about it. She saw it as a way to ease the pressure of her biological timeline and hold onto future options, even with her romantic life still unfolding and her career demanding most of her attention.  

She found Extend through an Instagram Story ad. Hearing Paige DeSorbo talk openly about her own egg freezing experience on her podcast finally made Krista schedule an appointment. DeSorbo struck Krista as someone with high standards who wouldn’t associate herself with a clinic she didn’t trust.  

A few months after Krista began following Extend, she received an invitation to an event with Gaia. Though Krista wasn’t able to attend the event, she expressed interest in freezing her eggs and got on a call with a fertility advisor shortly after.  

Krista never anticipated how personal the experience would feel.  

“Right off the bat, I felt like I wasn’t just one of a billion patients,” she said.

She valued the in-person medication class and appreciated how the clinical team encouraged her to focus on her mental and physical health, with no pressure to share her experience publicly.  

“Everyone at Extend made me feel comfortable and seen, and that’s the biggest flaw in the medical world. Yes, health is serious, but we’re all human.” 

The physical symptoms were more manageable than Krista had prepared herself for. Bloating set in toward the end of stimulation and carried into the days after retrieval. She also felt exhausted. Looking back, Krista recognizes there was an emotional weight to the process she didn’t fully register at the time.  

“I’m happy I focused on slowing down and relaxing more. Women really can do hard things and look back like, ‘Wait, that was actually kind of nuts, and I did that?’”  

Krista retrieved 11 eggs—a solid number for a 33-year-old with her AMH level, and one that gives her a realistic shot at one child, possibly two, if she ever pursues IVF. Women who want more than one child or a larger reserve to work from may find that a second cycle gets them closer to their goal. 

Krista is keeping an open mind. “It’s possible there’s a round two in my future,” she said. “We’ll see where I’m at in life next year.”  

She still doesn’t know if she wants children, but she made a decision that took the urgency out of figuring it out.  

“I feel a little less rushed,” Kristen said.  

Lauren: “There’s something really beautiful about freezing for myself.”  

Lauren had knowledge that most women don’t have when they walk into a clinic. She’d donated her eggs in her mid-20s, which meant she already knew what to expect from stimulation and retrieval. When she decided to freeze for herself at 32, the clinical process was familiar. But the emotional weight was completely different.  

A decade into a freelance creative career in New York, Lauren had moved nearly every year in search of the right apartment. Her work is unpredictable by nature, and she’s built her life around that reality.  

“I’m in no place to stop what I’m doing career-wise and shift gears into parenthood,” she said. Lauren was drawn to egg freezing for the same reason as Krista: she wanted to preserve her options while she figured out what she wanted.  

At her fertility assessment, Lauren learned her AMH was in the lowest 10th percentile for her age group. That number stung. The experience also came with an important revelation: the hospital had never told Lauren what her AMH was or how many eggs they’d retrieved. She went home without information that was hers to have.  

“They honestly treated me like a number versus a person,” she said.  

Lauren’s experience at Extend couldn’t have been more different. She’d heard good things from friends who had cycled there multiple times. When she met with Dr. Douglas for her assessment, she immediately felt at ease. Every question Lauren brought to her appointment was answered in full.  

“I knew that I’d be in good hands and wouldn’t be treated like a number the way I had been in the past,” Lauren said. “I never felt like I was left in the dark throughout any part of my cycle.”  

Lauren’s AMH results gave her a better idea of her fertility, including what it might take to build toward her family size goals. For women with lower AMH, a single cycle may be the starting point rather than the finish line. And that knowledge is often reassuring—it was for Lauren.  

“It felt like I was connecting with my past self who donated, not knowing whether or not I’d want to have kids. There’s something really beautiful about having the experience of freezing for myself versus freezing for another family.”  

Lauren’s 32-year-old eggs are in storage, allowing her to focus on her work and keep moving. She’s not sure if she wants children. But egg freezing gave her the ability to stay in that uncertainty without her biological clock deciding for her.  

Plan for Your Future on Your Timeline 

Egg freezing doesn’t require a foolproof plan. You just need a window of time when your eggs are at their healthiest.  

If you’re curious about what this means for you, we’re here to help. Schedule a consultation with one of our fertility advisors. 

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