Traveling to Estonia to Freeze My Eggs Was the Most Empowering Trip I've Taken

"After Zooming with doctors who were all women (their warmth, she says, “exuded through the screen”), she booked a rapid schedule and followed a clear protocol: go on birth control the month before to control the cycle; inject yourself with medication for two weeks (two different hormone drugs — one in the evening and one in the morning once they start); the first dose is timed to the second day of your period; the clinic monitored follicle growth by ultrasound because if eggs are too big the body will drop them; and they advised when to take the trigger shot (usually about 12 hours before retrieval). She found the staff reassuring despite language barriers — translators were brought in when needed — and felt the team “made the process feel normal and low stakes.” The procedure itself, she emphasizes, is short: “The procedure is 20 minutes long. You get up and leave after.” Cost details are concrete: the retrieval was about 1,800 euros (plus medications and consultations), storage ran roughly a euro a day, and she estimates her total spent was a little south of $5,000; by contrast, the U.S. would have been roughly $13,000–$15,000 for a similar cycle with about $1,000 a year for storage. She observed that most people need one to two rounds (“generally, the more eggs you have, the better”), and reflected that the experience felt small in the moment — “it just felt like a blip, almost like a teeth cleaning” — while also recognizing its potential future significance if she has a child from those eggs. She also highlights a broader emotional point: “The taboo around this topic is ridiculous,” and values the friends’ ritual support (an egg-shaped cake reading “Bon Voyage Eggies”) as meaningful celebration of this alternative milestone." - Tess Murphy and Rachel Chang