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Facebook and Apple are offering women employees the chance to put their dreams of motherhood on ice – by paying for them to freeze their eggs. The extraordinary perk is aimed at boosting the number of women staff by allowing them to focus on their careers without sacrificing the opportunity to have children later in life. The Silicon Valley giants – the first major employers to offer the procedure for non-medical reasons – are willing to pay £12,500 a time to cover the cost of putting the eggs on ice plus an additional £300-a-year for deep freeze storage. The eggs can then be planted into the patient’s uterus at time of her choosing when she may no longer be producing them naturally. According to NBC News, Facebook has begun paying for egg freezing and Apple will start in January. Preserving eggs has been described as a key to ‘levelling the playing field’ in the male-dominated tech industry and a possible game-changer for women who have traditionally had to choose between their careers and starting a family at a time when their male counterparts are climbing the ladder. ‘Having a high-powered career and children is still a very hard thing to do,’ Brigitte Adams, an egg-freezing advocate and founder of the patient forum Eggsurance.com, told NBC. ‘By offering this benefit, companies are investing in women and supporting them in carving out the lives they want,’ she added. Paying for the procedure can be seen as rewarding women employees for their commitment, said San Francisco specialist Philip Chenette. Women who know they want children someday ‘can go on with their lives and know that they’ve done everything that they can’. | 
