fewer children overall: Pew Research Center, “Key Facts About Moms in the U.S.,” May 9, 2023, pewresearch.org/​short-reads/​2023/​05/​09/​facts-about-u-s-mothers/.

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

15 percent to 30 percent: U.S. Census Bureau, “More Women in Early 30s Are Childless,” November 30, 2017, census.gov/​library/​stories/​2017/​11/​women-early-thirties.html.

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

86 percent of American women: Pew Research Center, “They’re Waiting Longer, but U.S. Women Today More Likely to Have Children than a Decade Ago,” January 18, 2018, pewresearch.org/​social-trends/​2018/​01/​18/​theyre-waiting-longer-but-u-s-women-today-more-likely-to-have-children-than-a-decade-ago.

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

“refers to any woman”: Pew Research Center, “They’re Waiting Longer.”

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

birth rates have declined: U.S. Census Bureau, “Stable Fertility Rates 1990–2019.”

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

earnings take a significant hit: Center for Economic Studies, “The Parental Gender Earnings Gap in the United States,” November 2017, www2.census.gov/​ces/​wp/​2017/​CES-WP-17-68.pdf.

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

only 83 percent: U.S. Department of Labor, “5 Fast Facts: The Gender Wage Gap,” March 14, 2023, blog.dol.gov/​2023/​03/​14/​5-fast-facts-the-gender-wage-gap.

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

“motherhood penalty”: American Association of University Women, “The Motherhood Penalty,” accessed April 20, 2023, aauw.org/​issues/​equity/​motherhood [inactive].

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

“Having a first child”: National Center for Health Statistics, “Fertility of Men and Women Aged 15–49 in the United States.”

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

about one in five babies: National Center for Health Statistics, “Births: Final Data for 2021.”

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

nearly 20 percent: National Center for Health Statistics, “Births: Final Data for 2021.”

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

“subsided in 2020”: Sabrina Tavernise, “The U.S. Birthrate Has Dropped Again. The Pandemic May Be Accelerating the Decline,” The New York Times, May 5, 2021, nytimes.com/​2021/​05/​05/​us/​us-birthrate-falls-covid.html.

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

nine million babies: Anne-Kristin Kuhnt and Jasmin Passet-Wittig, “Families Formed through Assisted Reproductive Technology: Causes, Experiences, and Consequences in an International Context,” Reproductive Biomedicine and Society Online 14 (2022): 289–296, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/​pmc/​articles/​PMC8907601/.

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

nearly 80 percent: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “ART Success Rates: 2021 Preliminary Data,” last modified May 31, 2023, cdc.gov/​art/​artdata/​index.html.

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

has been heralded: Julia Calderone, “10 Years of Fertility Advances,” New York Times, April 19, 2020, nytimes.com/​2020/​04/​19/​parenting/​fertility/​fertility-advances.html.

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

“If women had the power”: Eig, The Birth of the Pill, 6.

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

mid- to late thirties: E. Chronopoulou, C. Raperport, A. Sfakianakis, G. Srivastava, and R. Homburg, “Elective Oocyte Cryopreservation for Age-Related Fertility Decline,” Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics 38, no. 5 (2021): 1177–1186, doi.org/​10.1007/​s10815-021-02072-w.

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

“The average age”: Naomi May, “Gen Z Are Freezing Their Eggs. Why?,” Vice, July 20, 2023, vice.com/​en/​article/​bvj7nz/​why-gen-z-are-freezing-eggs.

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

In 1965, after seeing promising results: James L. Burks, M. Edward Davis, Aimee H. Bakken, and Jerry J. Tomasovic, “Morphologic Evaluation of Frozen Rabbit and Human Ova,” Fertility and Sterility 16, no. 5 (1965): 638–641, doi.org/​10.1016/​S0015-0282(16)35710-7.

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

In 1986, in Australia: Christopher Chen, “Pregnancy After Human Oocyte Cryopreservation,” The Lancet 327, no. 8486 (1986): 884–886, doi.org/​10.1016/​S0140-6736(86)90989-X.

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

the Church’s denunciation of embryo freezing: A 1987 document known as Donum Vitae (The Gift of Life), an authoritarian proclamation on reproductive science, addressed the morality of many at-the-time-modern fertility procedures, and specifically IVF. The Vatican’s declarations guide Catholic doctors and hospitals around the world, and the Donum Vitae governed the Church’s stance on embryo freezing while Dr. Fabbri and Dr. Porcu were doing their research in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2008, the Vatican issued a new document, Dignitas Personae, which gives doctrinal directives on certain embryonic ethical controversies that had emerged since 1987, after Donum Vitae was released. The thirty-five-page document denounces most forms of fertility treatment, including egg freezing, which it deems immoral when used for artificial procreation. (The Vatican hadn’t commented on egg freezing in its 1987 document.) In addition to being against egg freezing, the Catholic Church still condemns IVF and other forms of assisted reproductive technology (as well as contraception and abortion).

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

Dr. Fabbri tried adjusting: R. Fabbri, E. Porcu, T. Marsella, G. Rocchetta, S. Venturoli, and C. Flamigni, “Human Oocyte Cryopreservation: New Perspectives Regarding Oocyte Survival,” Human Reproduction 16, no. 3 (2001): 411–416, doi.org/​10.1093/​humrep/​16.3.411.

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

a new method, called intracytoplasmic sperm injection: ICSI was the first truly successful treatment for male infertility and today is often used when prior IVF cycles have failed or a couple is confronting unexplained infertility.

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

a baby born from a frozen egg using ICSI: The child was born February 17, 1997, from an egg that had been frozen for four months. Later that year, the first successful pregnancy in the United States from frozen eggs resulted in the birth of twins, in Georgia. Eleonora Porcu, Patrizia M. Ciotti, Raffaella Fabbri, Otello Magrini, Renato Seracchioli, and Carlo Flamigni, “Birth of a Healthy Female After Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection of Cryopreserved Human Oocytes,” Fertility and Sterility 68, no. 4 (1997): 724–726, doi.org/​10.1016/​s0015-0282(97)00268-9.

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT

Until 2003, when it was proven: Tae Ki Yoon, Thomas J. Kim, Sung Eun Park, Seung Wook Hong, Jung Jae Ko, Hyung Min Chung, and Kwang Yul Cha, “Live Births After Vitrification of Oocytes in a Stimulated In Vitro Fertilization–Embryo Transfer Program,” Fertility and Sterility 79, no. 6 (2003): 1323–1326, doi.org/​10.1016/​S0015-0282(03)00258-9.

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT