Simultaneous to the news of a successful human birth from a previously-frozen egg, now it seems that if your daughter has cancer, it's not necessarily predictive of later infertility. Eggs have been successfully "harvested" (that word totally creeps me out, sorry) and matured, and as such are virtually indistinguishable from the eggs of adult women. Since chemotherapy in childhood often renders a girl infertile later on, this could be a way to ensure the potential of having children upon reaching adulthood. And since the cure rate for childhood cancer can be as high as 90 percent, it only follows that many of these girls will likely grow up to become healthy women, women who will one day want to have children.
The true test will come in some ten years or so when the frozen eggs are thawed again and determined to be viable or not, and there are obviously some ethical questions here as well. It's one thing to agree to have your own eggs sucked out and frozen, but what prepubescent child can really understand the possible ramifications of such an invasive surgery? Which means it's the parents making those decisions.
Still, with so much else going on with dealing with a cancer diagnosis, life or death stuff, it's nice to know that there may be options and that there may be one less thing to worry about.
