On elective egg freezing during COVID-19

‘Do you have a partner?’ the woman from Monash IVF asks through the phone. I’m on my home-office lunchbreak in my small Thornbury rental. Autumn sun strains through the overgrown front window and patterns the floor. The muted news is an endless stream of COVID-19 deaths: 1 million, 2 million, 3 million—individual lives hard to comprehend.

‘No partner,’ I respond, easily; and it’s one of the first times—answering this question—that I don’t feel a hint of shame.