If all the women of the world had a collective wallet where we could put in a penny for every time we heard the words “your biological clock is ticking,” we could move to Venus and run our own planet.

But as unfair as it may be, it is true. There is an ideal time period in a woman’s life when she can have a baby. Or when she is the most “fertile.”

Unlike men who are biologically not limited by such constraints, women are born with a limited number of eggs. And turns out, this number of eggs sees a drastic decline after the age of 37. And when we say drastic, we mean drastic.

But in the 1980s, scientists figured out how to freeze women’s eggs. They developed a process called oocyte cryopreservation. It took thirty years for the procedure to become widely available. Today, a growing number of women are opting for the procedure.

Most people assume that women freeze their eggs so they can buy time to achieve professional success. Women who freeze their eggs are often envisioned as ‘career-driven’, ‘power hungry’, and ambitious. But, egg freezing is an intense process. It is invasive, it is painful. It takes a toll on women not just physically but mentally as well. Plus, it is expensive.

So why do women freeze their eggs?

Hosts Snigdha and Rahel went to Dr Marcia Inhorn, a professor at the University of Yale and author of Motherhood on Ice to find out.

Tune in.