A fascinating investigation into the lucrative, minimally regulated, fast-growing industry of egg freezing, from a young reporter on a personal journey into the world of cutting-edge reproductive medicine

Ovaries. Most women have two; journalist Natalie Lampert has only one—and 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 the billion-dollar femtech industry, and egg freezing specifically, 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 countless 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 2021, nearly 100,000 women in the U.S. 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 guide to the pros, cons, and many facets of this wildly popular fertility technology, The Big Freeze is a page-turning exploration of the profit-driven femtech industry, with invaluable information that answers the questions women have been afraid to ask—or didn't know they should ask in the first place.