Boulder author Natalie Lampert explores egg freezing in her new book

When Natalie Lampert woke up feeling pain in the left side of her abdomen so severe it made her vomit, she immediately had a sense of déjà vu. It was the same pain she had felt eight years earlier, at age 12, just before she was rushed to the emergency room—just before doctors told her they would have to remove her ovaries.

Doctors discovered a large cyst on her right ovary. Although it was benign, her weight caused her ovary to twist (a condition called ovarian torsion). Like a kinked tube, the blood supply had been cut off for so long that her ovary had lost its function. Doctors were forced to remove it.

At age 20, Lampert knew time was running out. She rushed to the hospital, where medical staff confirmed her suspicions: She had a cyst on her only remaining ovary, and it was beginning to twist under the weight.

When Lampert had to undergo the operation in middle school, her biggest concern was that she would not be able to learn fractions in math class. Now the young woman was faced with the possibility of becoming infertile.

Ultimately, doctors were able to untangle and save her left ovary, but advised Lampert to freeze her eggs if she wanted to have biological children in the future. The horrific medical emergency sent the aspiring journalist on a personal—and professional—quest: to find out everything she could about the world of egg freezing. And hopefully her reporting would help her make an informed decision about her own fertility.

Her debut book, The Great Freeze: A reporter’s personal journey into the world of egg freezing and the quest to control our fertilityout July 16, documents this endeavor and follows several other women trying to control their fertility using reproductive technology. We caught up with the Boulder-based author to take a look at the American femtech industry.

Editor’s note: The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

5280: Your book begins with a scene that will surely stay with many readers. Tell me about your first egg freezing cocktail party in New York City.
Natalie Lampert: I’m in my mid-20s. I was at an egg freezing party at the Crosby Street Hotel and there were a lot of women in their 30s and early 40s. I was the youngest, by at least five years, probably more. I thought to myself: What am I doing here? Because it was like a scene from Sex and the Cityjust glitzy and glamorous. We’re drinking champagne out of beautiful glasses, eating popcorn and listening to these doctors on stage talking about eggs and ovaries and cryogenic storage. It was just bizarre.

But I remember feeling this sense of belonging, partly because when I looked around, the women seemed to know as little about these basics as I did. It’s like we’ve jumped ahead a ton of years and are now learning all these things we never learned in school and sex ed classes. I remember being impressed by how eager these women were – they were so keen to learn more about this trick that would help them have it all.

What were the most surprising things you learned about egg freezing while researching this book?
First and foremost, it was easy to witness the incredible rise in egg freezing. In 2009, 482 women in the U.S. froze their eggs, and in 2022—the latest data was just released—that number was nearly 23,000. That’s an increase of more than 4,000 percent. What was also interesting to me was that today—and this wasn’t the case a decade ago—women under 25 are freezing in droves. It’s very popular among Gen Z women. Another big change that surprised me is the number of employers that are adopting it now. So many companies are doing it, from Walmart to Disney to the New York Times to SpaceX, and that’s really encouraged more women to do it because it’s incredibly expensive (one cycle costs an average of $10,000 to $15,000).

Some femtech companies seem to market egg freezing as a guaranteed method of fertility preservation, but in your reports you’ve found that this is far from a guarantee. What have you learned about the success rate of egg freezing?
I remember expecting that if so many women are freezing their eggs and this technology is becoming more and more popular, surely it is partly because it works and we have the data to support it. We not We don’t have the data – yet. And the reason we don’t really have a lot of long-term, reliable data is because more than 90 percent of patients worldwide who have frozen their eggs have not tried to thaw them.

So if it is not the prospect of biological children that prompts these women to undergo the procedure, what is it?
The psychological impact of freezing is worth it, even if a woman knows she won’t use those eggs or is aware that it might not work. The peace of mind it offers many women is incredible. It’s very interesting when we think about how much it relieves us: the pressure to date and find the person we want to have children with, the pressure to focus on our careers, and the pressure to think about the constant tick-tock, tick-tock of our ovaries. Freezing gives us a break from that; the research shows that.

Egg freezing, IVF and women’s reproductive health have been big topics of conversation since the Roe v. Wade decision was overturned in June 2022. Did this landmark decision have an impact on your book?
The book took on new meaning for me. I would like to say that it has always been important for women to be more informed. But now, and especially since Roe v. Wade was overturned, I would say it has never been more important for a person with ovaries to understand their body, their options, their reproductive autonomy, and the forces that threaten it.

What do you hope people will take away from your book?
(The egg freezing industry) is oddly this troubling intersection of medicine, money and marketing, which is why the global femtech market is estimated to be over $100 billion by 2030. Egg freezing and IVF in particular are money machines, and the marketing follows that. It’s very glitzy and empowering, and that’s beautiful in a way. But I hope the book gives people with ovaries all the information about egg freezing in one place so they can better separate the science from the hype, because I think their marketing does a very poor job of that. There’s too much at stake to have such poor and limited information.

Natalie Lampert’s book, The Great Freeze: A reporter’s personal journey into the world of egg freezing and the quest to control our fertilityis out Tuesday, July 16. The author will be speaking and signing copies at the Boulder Bookstore on Wednesday, July 17. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased online.