Happy birthday, dear frozen eggs, happy birthday to you

By Jessica Roy

Lauren Martinez was well prepared for a birthday party in her backyard in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She set out a tray of deviled eggs next to syringes filled with confetti; there were Eggo waffles, egg salad sandwiches, a quiche and onion dip with roe. There was also a bag of mini chocolate eggs and a tray of cupcakes, each decorated with white and yellow frosting in the shape of a fried egg.

Right before the event was supposed to start, her friend showed up with a homemade cake — “brat” green — with two fried eggs made of fondant on top.

If you’re sensing a theme, that’s because this wasn’t just any birthday celebration: It was the third birthday party for Martinez’s frozen eggs. On the invitation, which was dispatched to more than 40 friends, she called it her “cool mom bday party.”

“I’ve been throwing them a birthday party every year,” Martinez said, referring to the eggs she froze in 2021. “It’s summertime; it’s a good excuse for a party and to get together and have a bunch of people come.”

Martinez, 35, said that the decision to freeze her eggs was a difficult one for her. “I definitely spent, like, a year before I did it just feeling, almost, kind of bitter and pouty,” she said, adding that she felt as if it were a tax she had to pay for not having her relationship “figured out.”

But after going through the emotionally and physically difficult process of freezing her eggs (and working through her negative feelings with her therapist), she felt as if the successful retrieval was something to celebrate.

“I was also just really proud of myself for working through all those weird feelings and for being in a place financially where I could choose to make this decision and have it be, you know, not like a life-altering financial decision or something,” she said.

“Plus I just really like to throw a good party,” she added.

Martinez isn’t the only woman who decided that freezing her eggs was something worth celebrating, though she may be the only one celebrating it on an annual basis.

TikTok is full of women throwing and attending egg showers, in which they invite friends and family to celebrate their taking charge of their fertility futures.

“As women, we really only celebrate things like engagements, wedding anniversaries and baby showers,” Becky Hayes, a podcast host, said in a recent video that she posted to TikTok.

“A few of my friends, at the moment, are going through the process of freezing their eggs,” she continued. “This is such a big, stressful and expensive process. They are going through it all by themselves — funding it themselves, going through the actual logistics of it themselves. This needs to be celebrated.”

Martinez isn’t the only woman who decided that freezing her eggs was something worth celebrating, though she may be the only one celebrating it on an annual basis (Source: Freepik)

Kellee Stewart, an actress and writer, decided to freeze her eggs at 37 years old after her seven-year relationship ended. Since then, she has become an award-winning advocate of women’s fertility, hosting egg showers across the United States in partnership with fertility clinics and encouraging women to throw their own egg showers.

Last year, she worked with the online invitation company Evite to create an invitation template for women who want to throw their own frozen egg parties.

“I’ve gone to dozens of baby showers in my lifetime and spent thousands of dollars celebrating people’s pregnancies,” Stewart said in an interview with Evite.

“Is my journey not as worthy of celebration because it’s delayed?” she continued. “Is someone not worthy to be showered with love and support because they’re challenged with infertility?”

Martinez agrees, but she also enjoys having an annual celebration, if only as an excuse to throw a good party. It can, however, create some confusion among friends who aren’t up to speed on her fertility journey.

“There are always people every year that respond to my pictures and are like: ‘Did you freeze your eggs?’ ‘Are you getting pregnant right now?’ ‘Congratulations?’ ” she said. “I have friends who are like, ‘I have no idea what exactly you’re celebrating or at what stage of this egg process you’re in, but congrats anyway,’ ” she added.

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