ASRXXX10.1177/0003122418796807American Sociological ReviewBrown and Patrick 7968072018 American Sociological Review 1 –24 Time, Anticipation, and the © American Sociological Association 2018 https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122418796807DOI: 10.1177/0003122418796807 Life Course: Egg Freezing as journals.sagepub.com/home/asr Temporarily Disentangling Romance and Reproduction Eliza Browna and Mary Patricka Abstract This study examines women’s use of egg freezing as a tool to renegotiate the relationship between romantic and reproductive trajectories and temporalities. We interviewed 52 participants who were considering freezing their eggs, were in the process of freezing their eggs, had already frozen their eggs, or had considered freezing their eggs and chose not to do so. We find that most of our participants used egg freezing to disentangle the trajectory of finding a partner from the trajectory of having children, with the end goal of bundled marriage and childbearing. For some participants, this temporary disentangling is an intermediate step toward fully decoupling these trajectories through single parenthood. Using this critical case, we move beyond previous work on sequencing and timing in the life course by focusing on (1) individuals’ subjective experiences of time and (2) the ways women manage and manipulate time in the life course. Finally, we show how these theoretical tools can be used to better understand other empirical cases in the life course. Keywords egg freezing, life course, reproduction, temporality, union and family formation Union and family formation are occurring at decades (Livingston 2018). In the midst of increasingly older ages for women in the these demographic changes, increasing num- United States. From the 1940s through the bers of women are using reproductive tech- early 1970s, women’s average age at marriage nologies—including in vitro fertilization (IVF) was 20; it has now crept up to 27 (U.S. Census (CDC 2017) and egg freezing (Society for Bureau 2017). Over the past few years, the Assisted Reproductive Technology 2018)—to average age of first birth has reached record manage and manipulate time in the life course. heights (Mathews and Hamilton 2016). Birth rates have simultaneously declined for women in their teens and early 20s and increased for aNew York University women in their 30s and 40s (Martin, Hamilton, Co-authors have equal authorship and are listed and Osterman 2017). Trends toward later tran- alphabetically. sitions are even more pronounced for women with higher levels of education, who are now Corresponding Author: Eliza Brown, New York University, 295 Lafayette more likely to begin childbearing in their 30s Street, Fourth Floor, New York, NY 10012 compared to their counterparts in earlier Email: [email protected] 2 American Sociological Review 00(0) Egg freezing is a new reproductive tech- trajectories in their lives—in our empirical nology that involves extracting and preserv- case, whether having children in the future is ing women’s reproductive cells in anticipation seen as tightly connected with or contingent of future infertility. The use of this technol- on finding a partner. In the case of individu- ogy to “stop time”1 by pausing the progres- als’ management and manipulation of time, sion of a critical life-course timeline raises we attend to how individuals create and revise important questions for sociologists of the life trajectories as they move through them, course. What draws women to egg freezing, including attempts to manipulate the relation- and what can egg freezing tell us about the ships among different trajectories in their management and manipulation of time in the lives, such as modifying the relationship life course more broadly? In this article, we between finding a partner and having chil- analyze how women use egg freezing to man- dren. We introduce the concept of disentan- age their anticipations of the future, and in glement of trajectories, a theoretical approach particular, to modify the relationship between that is critical for understanding the appeal of their reproductive and romantic trajectories egg freezing and that allows for a richer while still preserving the ideal of eventually understanding of individual actors’ progres- having children with a romantic partner. Our sion through the life course more generally. analysis, using conceptual tools from the We conducted interviews with 52 women sociology of time, allows us to rethink the in different stages of the egg freezing process. role of time in life course research while pro- We found that our participants used egg freez- viding useful conceptual tools and theoretical ing as a tool to manipulate subjective experi- insights for future work in the sociology of ences of time and to remake anticipations of the life course. the future. Women were fearful that rushing “Time, context, and process” (Elder 1994) to find a partner with whom to have children are critical elements in the study of the life was rationalizing their search for a romantic course, but researchers in this area have tended partner, making the process calculative and to analyze time as an impersonal, linear meas- contrived. This prompted them to situate new ure progressing chronologically, using “clock relationships on a long-term time horizon, as time” or “calendar time,” to study phenomena they sought to temporarily disentangle their such as aging, birth spacing, and union dura- partner search from long-term childbearing tion. These impersonal conceptualizations of goals. By temporarily disentangle, we mean time are useful for certain research purposes. cognitively isolating the different strands of However, as we will show, we cannot ade- experience and action so they could move quately understand the appeal and use of egg forward according to their own desired tem- freezing without attending to individuals’ sub- poralities. By pushing their imagined child- jective experiences of time and their anticipa- bearing timeline further into the future tions of the future, and without conceptualizing through egg freezing, women hoped to time as both something that actors experience bracket their childbearing goals and pursue as outside of their control and something they romantic partnership for its own sake, rather actively work to reshape. than pursuing partnership as a means to have Specifically, we go beyond examining children. They hoped that temporarily taking time in terms of objective, chronological apart these strands of experience and action measures to look at (1) individuals’ experi- would allow them to protect their romantic ence of time and (2) individuals’ management life from the rationalizing force of a ticking and manipulations of time. In examining indi- reproductive clock; participants aimed to viduals’ subjective experiences of time, we eventually rejoin these trajectories, that is, attend to actors’ sense of the flow of time, have children with the “right” partner. Lever- their anticipations of the future, and their aging these insights, we show that attending sense of the relationship between different closely to actors’ experiences of and attempts Brown and Patrick 3 to remake trajectories and temporalities in the have high incomes, and are in their late 30s life course opens up new lines of inquiry for (Baldwin et al. 2015; Hodes-Wertz et al. life course scholars and provides new ways of 2013; Myers 2017). Existing literature on egg thinking about older lines of inquiry. freezing has focused on a broad range of social implications of the technology. This includes the medicalization of anticipated THE CASE OF EGG FREEZING infertility (Martin 2010), the ethical issues Egg freezing, medically referred to as oocyte raised by the technology (Baldwin et al. cryopreservation, is a new2 and rapidly grow- 2014), the enactment of “responsible” repro- ing3 reproductive technology that potentially duction (Carroll and Kroløkke 2017), and the preserves women’s ability to produce genetic potential for egg freezing to reshape kinship offspring. We focus on women who are freez- structures (Schuman et al. 2013). ing their eggs because they anticipate having Egg freezing researchers disagree over difficulty getting pregnant and giving birth as whether the procedure is empowering (Goold they age. Women may also elect to freeze and Savulescu 2009; Homberg, van der Veen, their eggs for other reasons, such as cancer and Silber 2009; Mertes and Pennings 2011; patients or female-to-male transgender indi- Robertson 2014) or exploitative (Harwood viduals preserving their genetic material 2009; Smajdor 2009). Among studies geared before treatment. The process of egg freezing toward analyzing the appeal of egg freezing, includes one to two weeks of hormone stimu- the technology is occasionally framed as a lation. This is followed by an outpatient pro- way to delay childbearing until conforming to cedure to retrieve the eggs that bloomed intensive mothering ideologies is possible during that cycle. If a woman chooses to use (Baldwin 2017; Myers 2017). In contrast, her frozen eggs, she must fertilize them and evidence from survey research suggests implant them in her uterus (i.e., the second women do not use egg freezing to purpose- half of the IVF process). This may or may not fully delay childbearing. Instead, most women result in a viable pregnancy. The likelihood of who freeze eggs do so because they are single one round of IVF using frozen eggs resulting and looking for a long-term partner with in a live birth is between 3 and 30 percent whom to have children (Baldwin et al. 2015; (Cil, Bang, and Oktay 2013). Success depends Greenwood, Pasch, and Huddleston 2017; on the age at which the patient froze her eggs, Hodes-Wertz et al. 2013; Seyhan et al. 2017; the method of freezing used, and the number Stoop, Nekkebroeck, and Devroey 2011). In of embryos transferred.4 Egg freezing is what follows, we aim to adjudicate these con- rarely covered by insurance. Women gener- flicting accounts concerning why women ally pay upward of $10,000 for each cycle, in elect to freeze their eggs. addition to annual storage fees of around In addition to being a phenomenon worthy $1,000 and, if used, the cost of IVF.