The Big Freeze
A Reporter's Personal Journey into the World of Egg Freezing and the Quest to Control Our Fertility
“The most comprehensive book on the subject of egg freezing.”—The New York Review of Books
LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD • A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Ovaries. Most women have two; journalist Natalie Lampert has only one. Then, in her early twenties, she almost lost it, along with her ability to ever have biological children. Doctors urged her to freeze her eggs, and Lampert started asking questions.
The Big Freeze is the story of Lampert's personal quest to investigate egg freezing as well as the multibillion-dollar femtech industry, in order to decide the best way to preserve her own fertility. She attended flashy egg-freezing parties, visited high-priced fertility clinics, talked to dozens of women who have frozen their eggs, toured the facility in Italy where the technology was developed, and even attended a memorial service for thousands of accidentally destroyed embryos.
What was once science fiction is now simply science: Fertility can be frozen in time. Between 2009 and 2023, more than 150,000 women in the United States opted to freeze their eggs. Along with in vitro fertilization, egg freezing is touted as a way for women to “have it all” by conquering their biological clocks, in line with the global trend of delaying childbirth. A generation after the Pill, this revolutionary technology offers a new kind of freedom for women—career-focused ones in particular. But does egg freezing give women real agency or just the illusion of it?
A personal and deeply researched guide to the pros, cons, and many facets of this wildly popular technology, The Big Freeze is a page-turning exploration of the quest to control fertility, with invaluable information that answers the questions women have been afraid to ask—or didn't know they should ask in the first place.
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Release date
July 16, 2024 -
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781524799397
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- ISBN: 9781524799397
- File size: 3230 KB
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This ebook features mark-up that supports accessibility and enables compatibility with assistive technology. It has been designed to allow display properties to be modified by the reader. The file includes a table of contents, a defined reading order, and ARIA roles to identify key sections and improve the reading experience. A page list and page break locations help readers coordinate with the print edition. Headings allow readers to navigate the ebook quickly by level. Images are well described in conformance with WCAG 2.1 Level AA. There is a fully linked and navigable index. Colors meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA contrast standards. There are no hazards.
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Page breaks included
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Languages
- English
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Formats
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- English
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