Rhea Chakraborty Wants To Freeze Her Eggs; Here's What You Need To Know

Becoming a mother and everything that comes with it can be a wonderful yet daunting task. And if you feel that you are not in that stage of life where you are ready to become a mother, freezing your eggs is an option. However, at whichever stage of life you decide to undergo this, it is an emotional and expensive endeavour.

Recently, actor and chat-show host Rhea Chakraborty opened up about the possibility of undertaking this medical procedure in order to become a mother sometime in the future.

In a conversation with her friend, actor Huma Qureshi, on her podcast, Rhea said, “I am 33, and I recently visited a gynaecologist for egg freezing. I am thinking about doing it.”

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Reflecting on the pressures

women face, Rhea added, “It is such a weird place to be. Your body clock is telling you that you need to have kids, but your mind is telling you that you already have a kid – your brand, your business – and you have to nurture that baby.”

What you need to know about freezing your eggs

Egg freezing, also known as oocyte cryopreservation, is a fertility preservation technique that allows women to store their unfertilised eggs for future use. The process begins with hormone injections to stimulate the ovaries to produce multiple mature eggs over 10-12 days, followed by a minor surgical retrieval under sedation, where eggs are retrieved.

The eggs are then flash-frozen, a rapid cooling method that prevents ice crystal damage and then stored in liquid nitrogen tanks, potentially for years.

Whenever the woman wants to get pregnant, the eggs are thawed and fertilised via IVF to create embryos for implantation.

This is ideal for women who want to focus on their careers, haven’t found someone to settle down with or might be facing treatment for diseases like cancer or endometriosis, etc. However, the number 1 reason for women undergoing this procedure is their “biological clock”, as the number of eggs they have and their quality decrease as they get older. Eventually, you stop ovulating (releasing eggs from your ovaries for potential fertilisation) when you reach menopause (commonly between 45 and 55 years).

Pardis Hosseinzadeh, a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist with the Johns Hopkins Fertility Center, says, “Your egg supply starts to decline more rapidly around age 37. By 43, 90% of a woman’s eggs are abnormal, which means they don’t have the potential for pregnancy.” Women who freeze their eggs before age 40 have a greater likelihood of achieving pregnancy with those eggs in the future.

Rhea Chakraborty on her plans for marriage

In an interview with Humans of Bombay, Rhea opened up about her thoughts on marriage. She shared her unconventional opinions on the topic, and she said, “First of all, there is no right age for marriage. Secondly, I’m reaching this place, ‘Karni hi kyun hai? Why do you want to get married?”

Women mostly feel the pressure of getting married, as they feel that their biological clock will run out. However, Rhea feels, “Why should this be a pressure on you only? Men don’t feel this pressure.” She goes on to add, “[If you think it is] Because of the biological clock. Great, you can freeze your eggs. That is also a bit torturous, but please do it because it’s available.”

Rhea doesn’t feel this pressure anymore, as the people around her have also got married later in life. “Most of my girlfriends either got married in their 40s or got pregnant in their 40s and had children in their 40s. The majority of them did it then,” she adds.

The actress went on to share that she wants to explore more professional opportunities in the coming years. “I already have a bunch of friends who did it in their 20s and 30s. When I weigh the two, that side’s winning (who got married in their late 30s and 40s). In my Excel sheet of pros and cons, the 40 category is winning. I’m 32 and I don’t think I’m ready yet because I want to do a lot of things in my professional life,” she concluded.