For years, I've railed against the accepted rhetoric that a growing number of women are freezing their eggs because they're prioritising careers over having a family.

So perhaps I should feel vindicated to read that a study, led by Yale University, has concluded the 'selfish career woman' is a myth, and that it's actually a shortage of eligible men that's driving the boom in fertility preservation.

But the research just left me feeling a bit sad.

I was 36 years old when I decided to freeze my eggs. I'd reluctantly split from the man who I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with, the man who I thought was going to father my children, and I saw egg freezing as a way of buying me a bit of breathing space. A way to stop me seeing each date as a potential father; a way to press pause on the runaway panic that any single woman in her mid-30s who thinks she might want children can't help but feel.

And I know that I'm far from alone. I set up a blog to document my experience (eggedonblog.com) and as a result have been in touch with many, many women just like me, doing exactly what I did for broadly the same reasons.