Since the birth of the world’s first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, in 1978, it is estimated that over 8 million children have been born through IVF and other advanced fertility treatments. These days, employers such as Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, and even JP Morgan and several big law firms, offer oocyte cryopreservation – egg freezing – as a job perk.
There are a number of estate planning issues that arise for families with frozen eggs, whether it is you, your daughter, or your granddaughter. For example, imagine your daughter has her eggs frozen, but dies before she can have a child. Her husband inherits your daughter’s eggs and decides to have them implanted in a gestational surrogate. Is that your grandchild?
Forbes magazine published a very informative article that discusses how egg and embryo freezing affects estate planning and how estate planning lawyers can better serve their clients.
The article provides five helpful tips to ensure your wishes are carried out:
- Find out if your adult daughter or adult granddaughter is freezing her eggs or intends to.
- Once you learn that egg freezing has happened or might, decide how you want to handle this in your estate plan.
- Be specific in your estate documents.
- Don’t settle for generic documents.
- Be sure to bring up the subject with your estate lawyer.
Make sure you talk to your estate planning attorney about possible egg freezing. And if you are planning on freezing your eggs, embryos or sperm, make sure to provide for who should get them and how they should be treated in your estate plan.
Nielsen Law PLLC provides family focused estate planning to individuals and families in Austin, Round Rock, Cedar Park, and the Central Texas area. For more information and to learn about our firm, please contact us.
