[...] the controversial part of the equation: some say that the problem is that women are waiting too long to have children and then finding it increasingly difficult without fertility treatments. Dr. Sherman Silber, a [...]

Freezing eggs can be a good idea. According to stilltasty.com they may only stay fresh 3-5 weeks in the refrigerator.

Honestly, I am getting bored with all the fear mongering and the backlash against women having a career and/or a life beyond marriage and children which keeps being peddled in the mainstream media. Why focus on the women who want careers? Why not attack Disney for peddling the notion that every girl wants to be a princess and, subsequently, we should all have unrealistic views of relationships and hold out for Prince Charming? Why not attack the business environment and culture which makes it difficult for a woman to take maternity leave and makes woman feel they will be penalized (in terms of promotions and raises) for getting pregnant? Some women never met “the right guy” (either because they were too picky, they were too busy being with the wrong guy, they were not looking, etc) and now are sad their eggs are approaching their expiration date and they never had children. Some women chose a career over kids and wish they had made other choices. But there are also women who are happy to be childless, women who have kids and wish they had spent more time focussing on their careers, women who ditched any of their hopes and dreams and married the guy they thought was right only to realize he wasn’t, women who only ever wanted to be married and have kids and it still never happened for them and they are fine with it (or not fine with it)–but we never hear about them because that wouldn’t fit the agenda of telling women that they are wrong to think anything but a man and babies will make them happy. Only the most self-centered, narcissistic individual believes they can or should get everything they want in life or doesn’t understand that choosing one option may mean closing the door on others. Should we just raise the next generation of girls to be strong people who can make their own choices, or should we tell them that having hopes and dreams beyond husbands and babies are a big waste of time and that they shouldn’t worry their pretty little heads about it?

Woah, alison, I think you’re reading way too much into this. Babble has written about Disney princesses and about lack of maternity leave. This happens to be a story about women who wished they had thought about their fertility earlier. Nobody is saying they should have skipped having a career or that the “wrong women” are getting pregnant (that’s for steelrigged). I don’t believe in fear mongering either, but I think women need to realize that if they want to get pregnant, they should think about how to get there before they reach 35 or so.
Of course, there are all sorts of women out there in all sorts of situations. Nobody is generalizing here.

Like allison, I am seeing a lot of these stories in the media and feel they are framed poorly. What I have been reading is often along the lines of “women have waited too long” or “women should have kids when they are younger”. I think the information should be out there (fertility declines as you age) and then we can make a decision that is best for us. Personally, I would have been a terrible mother in my 20′s. I wasn’t ready at all. I knew there would be a possibility that getting pregnant would be harder for me, but I decided I could accept that and would adopt if I couldn’t have biological children. The personal experiences I had as a single person were amazing and I am glad I did not have to give those things up.

Also, you really don’t know who has waited too long. Often women you think are waiting are just having problems getting pregnant. (I know many women whose fertility problems started in their 20′s.)

I hate that this conversation is framed as an issue of individual choice. I’d rather we lived in a society that demonstrated a collective valuing of parenting and children by supporting families with paid medical & family leave, infrastructure like community and family support centers such as existed during the Rosie the Riveter days of WW2, and sane and balanced career expectations for males and females alike. To say that women are making the wrong choice implies that somehow we have a delightful menu to choose from! I opted to get pregnant at the beginning of my career, right after graduate school because I was nearly 30 and knew what was going to happen to my fertility in the next decade. We knew we wanted kids and I knew I don’t have a personality that would cope with infertility very well at all. I got pregnant w/in 3 months and 1 month with my kids, respectively. It is only in hindsight that we know whether or not we are fertile. Waiting had costs I wasn’t willing to take, but I’d never judge another woman for getting a different answer to her equation.