Science- Jennifer Aniston talked about her fertility experience in a profile for Allure.
- Aniston said she wishes she knew about egg freezing when she was younger.
Jennifer Aniston said wishes she knew more about egg-freezing when she was younger and trying to get pregnant.
During an interview with Allure reporter Danielle Pergament, Aniston shared the different ways she tried to get pregnant, including IVF.
Now 53, the "Friends" stars says she's come to terms with her child-free life after years of media scrutiny about her personal life.
Aniston said she doesn't have any regrets, but wishes she had more family-planning guidance when she was trying for a baby several years ago.
"I was throwing everything at it. I would've given anything if someone had said to me, 'Freeze your eggs. Do yourself a favor.' You just don't think it. So here I am today. The ship has sailed," Aniston said in the interview.
How does egg freezing work?
Egg freezing is an in-clinic procedure that involves retrieving a person's eggs from the uterus and preserving them to use in the future, usually through IVF.
One round takes four to six weeks, according to the University of Southern California medical school's fertility website. A round of egg freezing costs on average between $6,000 and $10,000, Dr. Jane Frederick, a board certified fertility expert in California, previously told Insider.
Since a woman's fertility begins to rapidly decline when she is 35, and more people are having children later in life, egg freezing has become an increasingly popular way to keep high-quality eggs viable. Women undergoing cancer treatments that affect fertility sometimes also opt for egg freezing.
It's not a surefire way to get pregnant, and there's little concrete data on its effectiveness. In one study of 520 fertile women under 30, researchers found they had up to a 90% chance of getting pregnant if they froze between 10 and 20 eggs.
For the best chance of getting pregnant with frozen eggs, women should aim to freeze them by the time they're 30, Cleveland Clinic fertility expert Dr. Jeffrey Goldberg previously told Insider.
Typically, fertility clinics recommend the number of eggs to freeze based on a patient's age. The older you are, the more you will likely be instructed to freeze, according to Goldberg.
Once a person has frozen their eggs, the clinic stores them in a cryobank, which comes with a rental fee that can cost more than $1,000 per year. Thawing out and implanting a once-frozen egg for pregnancy is also a separate cost, about $11,500 on average, according to the CNY Fertility website.