August 12 2026 - 6:55pm
There’s a telling moment in one of the social media videos shared by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez documenting her egg-freezing journey. The congresswoman sits on her sofa, about to give herself a hormone injection. She takes a deep, nervous breath in preparation. She then pulls up her shirt, pinches her stomach flesh, and gives herself the injection, looking incongruently vulnerable and alone. The moment will spark sympathy in many mothers: it’s a lonely, vulnerable process, and despite or because of generations of feminism, it hasn’t become any easier.
AOC is 36 years old and, for her, egg freezing is an insurance policy in case she wants to reproduce later. Her decision to do so in public has been widely lauded as normalizing such decisions and bringing visibility to a taboo aspect of women’s reproductive health. The supporters aren’t wrong: all aspects of women’s fertility and reproductive choices remain difficult to discuss, even in a culture of overexposure. AOC’s decision to go public may be a PR stunt, but it will still resonate, making many women feel less alone with their choices. In the videos, viewers see the politician confidently fitting a process that many women find opaque and challenging into a brisk, professional life.
Since she posted the videos, it has come to light that the congresswoman split from her long-term fiancé Riley Roberts months before she began the egg freezing process. In this respect, she is even more representative of a category of women who could use support, as she faces a dwindling fertility window without a partner.
Statistically speaking, however, egg freezing isn’t an insurance policy but instead the end of the road. In contrast to glowing photos of happy celebrities who froze their eggs and now have babies, a UCLA study from 2025 revealed that from 2014-21 only 5.7% of women returned to use their frozen eggs within five years. The numbers are slightly higher for women who froze eggs between the ages 38-42, with around 8% returning. An unknown percentage of those who freeze eggs conceives naturally, of course. Numbers are also hard to come by on how many of the 8% who do return end up becoming mothers; at age 36, the chance of pregnancy per IVF cycle in general is around 30-40%.
For many women, then, the decision to freeze their eggs is really a decision not to have children at all. We can assume, possibly, that they didn’t really want to: an insurance policy in case you change your mind on the off-chance is really on the off-chance. Perhaps most brisk, confident fitters-in of children among other priorities don’t change their minds. But it’s also hard not to see that the narrative of brisk, confident fitting-in is inimical to the motherhood project, which is messy and totalizing, even when you “do it all”. The real cultural demand revealed by AOC’s videos is for an appreciation of that vulnerability, and an encouragement of a woman’s willingness to risk it. This could be fostered by greater support for motherhood — and by a partner in the frame.
