Helen Perry was the first woman in Britain to have a child from a frozen egg. Her daughter Emily, now a happy five-year-old, was “in the freezer” for six months before being fertilised.

Mrs Perry, 41, chose to freeze her eggs after she and her husband, Lee, were unable to conceive naturally. They were also unable to use the NHS IVF service as it involves producing more embryos than are needed — something to which she and Lee, both Jehovah’s Witnesses, morally objected. So the couple decided to use “natural IVF”, in which individual eggs are fertilised one by one. But after Mrs Perry’s eggs were collected, she was found to have hyperovarian stimulation. The many extra fresh eggs could either be thrown away or frozen until she was able to go ahead with the IVF.

The process of egg-freezing was an “emotional rollercoaster”, Mrs Perry said, and she cautioned: “It’s not something you should go into unless you’ve really thought about it.” But physically, she said, it was relatively painless.

Mrs Perry has no regrets about her decision. “I’ve wanted kids since I was little. It was absolutely worth it.”

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