Seated with her legs stretched out on her living room floor, Vivian Tung scrunched her bare stomach to find a spot where she could inject Rekovelle, a hormonal medicine used to stimulate egg production.
The 33-year-old Taiwanese brand marketing director had to inject herself daily over the two-week process it took to freeze her eggs.
Tung, who is single, is one of a rising number of women in Taiwan opting to freeze their eggs to give them the option to have a child later in life, even though under current laws they cannot use the eggs unless they marry.
“It’s my insurance policy,” she said, explaining that many women in Taiwan are independent, career-focused and not looking to solely find a husband just to have children.
“My family is very supportive and respect my choice. When they hear that I buy insurance for myself, they also feel very good.”
Self-ruled Taiwan has a fertility rate of 0.89 children per woman, less than half the replacement level of 2.1 and one of the world’s lowest just behind South Korea and Hong Kong.
Single women in Taiwan can freeze their eggs, unlike in China where it is banned. But it is only legal to use the eggs in a heterosexual marriage, which excludes unmarried women and same-sex married couples.
Doctors in Taiwan said the restriction has contributed to only around 8% of women using their eggs after they have been frozen, compared with around 38% in the United States.
Law changes
Tung is hopeful that authorities in the democratic island could change regulations to allow unmarried women to have children in future.
Before her surgery, Tung had to visit the hospital every two to three days for blood tests to check her hormone levels to see how the eggs were developing, often at irregular times like 9 p.m. due to her work schedule.
The effort was definitely worth it, she said.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/taiwan-fertility/