Brigitte Adams remembers feeling an incredible sense of empowerment after she froze her eggs at 39, despite the USD$19,000 cost. Her plan was to keep working, find Mr Right, inject his sperm into her frozen eggs, then ride off into the sunset. Love in the 21st century is messy, she told herself wryly, and never runs according to your timeline.

Adams’ story made waves around the world when she appeared on the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek in 2014, under the headline “Freeze your Eggs, Free your Career”. Here was a single, attractive, highly-educated marketing executive, who had taken control of her fertility in the quest to “have it all”. “Not since the birth control pill has a medical technology had such potential to change family and career planning,” trumpeted the magazine.