"This story is part of an occasional series http As more women postpone motherhood into their s even s theyre hitting that ageold constraint the biological clock. Now technology is dangling the possibility that women can stop that clock at least for a while. In a Manhattan office building on a recent evening two dozen women  all in their s and s  sit in folding chairs balancing cellphones and glasses of wine. Theyre gathered for a seminar called Take Control of Your Fertility. Dr. Alan Copperman of Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York http wastes no time laying out this harsh reality By the time a woman hits her s  percent of her eggs are abnormal. The chances of a typical yearold getting pregnant in any given month Ten percent. Unless that is she gets pregnant with her younger eggs  eggs she had frozen years before. Copperman explains the procedure introduces someone who has gone through it and takes a flurry of questions. Afterward women crowd a counter to set up appointments with Coppermans clinic which offers egg freezing. Sally Montgomery is among the youngest here and the most upbeat. Her mom had trouble conceiving so she wants to be proactive. Article continues after this message from our sponsor Im  your typical New Yorker she says. Im single Im bouncing around and Id like the opportunity to have a family so I just figured Why not I dont think its a guarantee but its a nice insurance policy and I think it takes some of the pressure off. Others though slip out quietly. One yearold says she wishes shed learned about egg freezing earlier. Esther Montoro a yearold photographer looks a little stunned. I think its fantastic she says but I think its so incredibly expensive. The whole process  a week of hormones plus the procedure to collect the eggs  runs  to . And because it takes  to  eggs for a reasonable shot at success some may need to do this several times. Plus there are annual storage fees. Then when youre ready to use your eggs youll need in vitro fertilization another pricey procedure. All told costs can easily exceed  money Montoro doesnt have. I guess theres a big assumption that most women that need to do this are career successful rich women she says. And Im not Technological Advances In his office later Copperman empathizes and says he hopes the procedure eventually becomes easier and cheaper. Still he says freezing eggs offers many women the biggest game changer since the birth control pill  years ago. Women began to have reproductive choices he says. They got to decide when not to get pregnant. This technology has the potential to help women decide when they can get pregnant. Clinics in the U.S. have long frozen fertilized eggs or embryos. But eggs alone are more delicate and prone to damage. Over the years egg freezing has been offered mainly to cancer patients facing radiation but success rates were pretty dismal. Of late though the technology has exploded thanks to scientific leaps including a flashfreeze method called vitrification. In Coppermans lab you can hear the sizzle as a tiny tube is plunged into liquid nitrogen. Snap freeze snap thaw he says. And whats really impressive is that when it comes out it comes out looking just like it went in. Ironically much of this research was pioneered in Italy and Spain where Catholic influence discouraged the creation of too many embryos leaving fertility researchers with unused eggs instead. With the better survival rate from vitrification and other new freezing methods more and more clinics are now offering what they call fertility preservation. Meanwhile the early adopters are starting to come back and use their eggs. First Wave Of Babies In a New York high rise monthold Camden squeals in delight as she bounces in her walker. Shes here thanks to eggs her mom froze several years ago. My best friend and I made a pact together that at age  if we were both still single we were going to have a child on our own says Robyn Ross. When that time came Ross decided she wasnt ready for single motherhood. Instead she froze  eggs. Within a year she fell in love and soon got married. Her husband Mark Cohen says he wasnt at all put off by the fact that his new love had her eggs in the freezer. As it turned out his sperm was weakened by earlier cancer treatment so conceiving their baby in a lab was the perfect solution. And this is our miracle baby Cohen says planting a kiss on Camden. We are one little happy family. Ross has already evangelized to her younger sister. I made her promise me that if shes still single by the age of  she would freeze her eggs she says. The younger the better. Now before you run out to a fertility clinic there is a big note of caution. The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology http which sets industry guidelines still considers egg freezing experimental. If the question were just Does egg freezing and thawing work to achieve a pregnancy I think were close says Dr. Eric Widra a member of the societys executive council. But only  to  babies in the world have been born using frozen eggs. So far theyre fine  no abnormalities. Still Widra would like a largerscale longerterm track record. Its not clear when  or if  a bigscale study might happen. But Widra says women need to understand that success rates will never be  percent. Its an insurance policy that you may or may not actually ever need he says. And its an insurance policy that if you do need may not pay out. And yet even Widra agrees that egg freezing has appeal if it can help avoid the anguish of infertility. At Shady Grove Fertility http the Washington D.C. clinic where he practices he offers it to his own patients. The Challenge Of Setting An Age Limit Its quite a concept Put your eggs in deep freeze and disconnect from that nagging biological clock. But until when How old is too old to use your younger eggs There should be guidelines I think that are more clearly defined says Dr. Geoffrey Sher who heads the Sher Institutes for Reproductive Medicine httphaveababy.com and is based in Las Vegas. He says many clinics suggest a cutoff of  the average age of menopause. After that pregnancy can be riskier and the large age gap raises complicated social issues. But the limit is tricky to impose. Sher remembers one couple who wanted to use donor eggs to conceive. The husband was  his wife . Sher hesitated. And she said Thats discriminatory. If my husband was my age and I was his age you wouldnt hesitate. And she had a point Sher says. The woman was healthy. And the uterus doesnt decline like eggs do in some cases it can actually be coaxed back into working order. Shers ethics board said OK. And she went ahead and had a baby at  years of age without any problems whatsoever Sher says. I get a postcard from them at Christmas every year. The bigger challenge Sher and others say is reaching out to younger women  getting them to take action before its too late. They envision a time when society considers freezing eggs an act not of desperation but of empowerment. This story was produced for broadcast by Marisa Penaloza."