As more Kiwis turning to medical experts to help extend their fertility, they are encountering the steep financial cost of procedures like egg-freezing. As Katie Harris reports, some are going into debt to keep their dreams of parenthood alive.
Hayley Carville, 33, has always wanted to be a mother.
And having found herself freshly single and forking out thousands to start over in a new city, she hopes that freezing her eggs will help her get there – even if it means remortgaging her home.
Carville had her first appointment at a fertility clinic last week, and was told the cost of her first egg-freezing round would be $13,130.
“The only way I’m going to be able to pay for this is by putting it on my mortgage. I don’t have the cash right there ready to go.”
While Carville still wants to freeze her eggs, she said having to pay the costs up front makes the decision more difficult.
Only a handful of organisations offer Kiwi women like Carville the chance to put their eggs on ice. The largest provider is Fertility Associates, which has six permanent clinics and 11 “satellite” clinics across New Zealand.
Dr Olivia Stuart, who took Carville’s first appointment at Fertility Associates, told the Herald that one round alone won’t guarantee a sufficient number of eggs will be collected, or that they will defrost well.
One cycle, she said, could produce a much higher or lower number of eggs than the next.
“It’s just the normal physiological variation in how our body responds.”
As well as this, Stuart said, one in 10 women’s eggs either don’t thaw or don’t fertilise well.
“There’s no guarantees, essentially.”
The Fertility Associates website noted that for some, 90% or more of their eggs survive, for others it may be closer to 50-70%. And in rare cases, the website said, 0% survive.
If Carville chose to freeze embryos with donor sperm, which has a higher success rate than egg-freezing, it would cost around $20,000 at the clinic.
If the first egg collection cycle is unsuccessful or doesn’t result in a suitable amount of eggs, pursuing a second round with the clinic would cost $10,500 if started within three months of the earlier treatment.
A third cycle would be $9190, with the same time restriction.
Stuart said clients getting egg-freezing have to make the full payment upfront when they collect the medication and there’s no payment plan option, though they do have deals with a credit card provider for some three-month interest-free finance.
There is some egg-freezing public funding available in Aotearoa, but only for people undergoing certain medical treatments.
Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand living well director Martin Hefford said publicly funded fertility preservation is provided to mitigate the “significant negative” impact on a person’s fertility from surgical or medical interventions such as chemotherapy.
He told the Herald a patient’s specialist must refer them for the fertility treatment.
“Patients must also meet the general eligibility criteria for fertility services including NZ residency status, being under 40 years old, BMI of under 32 for women and under 40 for men, and have no biological children.”
Gingernut’s Angels, a charity founded by entrepreneur Jaimee Lupton, awards grants of up to $10,000 to help. The service was named in honour of Lupton’s first daughter, Gingernut, who was born “still and perfect”.
Auckland designer and researcher Shereena Sumeran, 38, began the process of freezing her eggs during lockdown after getting a low Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH) test result.
The test helps estimate a woman’s ovarian reserves. A lower figure indicates fewer eggs.
“[The doctor] was like, you haven’t got much time to have kids.”
Initially, she felt hesitant about undergoing a medical intervention for her fertility, and freezing her eggs “wasn’t even an option” because she hadn’t planned financially for it at the time.
Sumeran, who has never tried to conceive, also has an interest in health and wellbeing, so initially thought she could find a solution naturally.
When she visited Fertility Associates in 2021, she said the specialist told her she was “in the red region” and she had a low ovarian reserve.
“I was just numb, even now I’m shaking talking about it.”
For months Sumeran was in turmoil and was unsure whether to go through with the procedure.
But a second AMH test, showing a lower result, prompted her to commit to freezing her eggs.
During this time she was also preparing to have surgery for endometriosis.
Her first round of egg freezing resulted in three viable eggs. Although four were collected, one was unusable.
“I was crushed, I was just broken, I know I should have been grateful for three eggs but in the doctor’s eyes that would be a low likelihood of a baby.”
She paid for the first round through savings and financial help from her parents.
Sumeran decided to attempt a second round of egg freezing, scraping together the money with savings and her credit card.
She had a better experience the second time, but she still ended up with three viable eggs out of the five collected, with her AMH levels dropping further.
In 2022 she committed to a third round, spending the last of her savings in the hope of extending her fertility.
“We got two eggs out of the five eggs collected.
“I gave it my all, and that’s the best I can do.”
She said this means she has about a 45% chance of having a baby through the frozen eggs.
Sumeran feels grateful she was able to go through egg-freezing, but said it took a toll on her mentally.
“This might be all I’ve got. So I’m happy that I did it, it just took a lot to get there.”
Repromed, which runs six fertility clinics across the upper North Island, said the number of people seeking egg-freezing at its clinics has more than doubled since 2019, with about 80 people now coming to them for the service each year.
Repromed’s medical director, Dr Devashana Gupta, said those who don’t have a qualifying medical issue end up self-funding the treatment.
“Sometimes I have young girls coming and their parents are funding that, some people have had inheritances left behind.”
Repromed charges $13,560 for one egg-freezing cycle and some patients use two-year interest-free lending to finance the procedure.
Freezing embryos with donor sperm at the clinic costs between $16,780 and $19,080.
There is also a transfer cost, $2755 plus medication, when the patient wants to use the embryos.
Repromed, Gupta said, was the first clinic in Aotearoa to have a live child born with the help of egg-freezing, and since then fast-freezing technology has helped improve its efficacy.
“Previously, with the slow freezing, they used to get a lot of ice crystals. So we are seeing increasingly more live births from frozen eggs.”
About a million babies had been born globally through frozen eggs, compared with between eight and 10 million through IVF.
“There’s not a lot of data out there because maybe 50%, if not more, [of] frozen eggs are done for emergency reasons. So, cancer treatment and those people might not come back or not be able to come back to use them.”
Gupta told the Herald egg-collection comes with a minor risk of infection, bleeding and a small theoretical risk of OHSS (Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome), which is minimised by trigger medication.
She said successful egg-freezing does not reduce the chances of conceiving naturally, as they are not reducing the egg reserve enough to make a “significant difference”.
“Even if one were to undergo multiple cycles.”
This is the third in a series of written and visual stories about Carville’s egg-freezing experience.
Katie Harris is an Auckland-based journalist who covers issues including sexual assault, workplace misconduct, media, crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2020.
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