Greetings, and welcome back to our newsletter inspired by the Journal’s Women In event series.

“I’ve been thinking about my eggs a lot lately.” So starts WSJ reporter Julia Carpenter’s latest story, a dive into the economics of egg freezing and a refreshingly personal take on personal finance.

Egg freezing entered the mainstream conversation a few years ago when employers like Facebook and Apple began offering it as a benefit intended to give women employees the option to pursue their careers and start families when they choose. Today, the business of fertility is booming. Startups and websites have sprung up to offer hormone tests, fertility assessments and calculate costs; one company’s “Grandbaby Plan” allows would-be grandparents to chip in for a client’s fertility treatments. Fertility-care company Carrot estimates the average woman will pay $15,000 for egg freezing.

The answers women really want are hard to find, though, such as when’s best to freeze eggs and when to start saving—further complicated by the fact that the best time to freeze eggs, between ages 20-35, aren't typically a woman's highest-earning years. Even more elusive are answers to deeper questions, such as the ideal timeline for starting a family. Carpenter, an LGBTQ woman, notes her own mother was married, pregnant and a homeowner at her age (28). Those milestones feel far away for younger people today, who often face student debt or uncertain career paths, and are waiting longer to settle down with partners, if they choose to do so at all.

Carpenter’s reporting helped her put a number on egg-freezing’s costs. Yet it left unanswered some hard questions about how she sees her own future, and that’s O.K. “Before you start saving for something, you have to know if it’s right for you,” she writes. “There’s time to figure that out, too.”

On to the news.

—Nikki Waller

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WSJ: How did you get the job?
Kamping-Carder: I came to this job via a circuitous, fortuitous route. Previously, I was the digital editor of “Mansion,” the Journal’s weekly section on luxury real estate. In the winter of 2015, I was asked to help out with the digital production of a new, semi-annual, glossy magazine the Journal was launching called The Future of Everything, which grew out of a special 125th anniversary issue. I continued to help out until March 2018, when I came on full-time as part of an expansion of the franchise that included launching a new, online home with digital-only coverage.

WSJ: What did you want to be when you were a child?
Kamping-Carder: I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was about 10 years old, but I always assumed I’d write fiction (and have a day job). When people asked me if I wanted to be a journalist, frankly, I turned up my nose. It wasn’t until a Creative Nonfiction class in my third year of university that I realized what journalism meant: You could pick up the phone and ask pretty much anyone pretty much any question. The stories would come from the outside world instead of from inside my head. I was hooked.

WSJ: What advice would you give to your younger self at the start of your career?
Kamping-Carder: Expect the unexpected. Change is inevitable. I studied culture journalism in graduate school, but my first job involved covering corporate litigation at a trade publication for lawyers. I remember a professor of mine wondering who would ever use a strange new thing called Twitter, and then for many years, my job involved running social media accounts of all kinds. This industry seems to undergo a 360-degree revolution every few years. At some point, you can’t pine for how it used to be. You have to find where you can do the work you enjoy and are good at, regardless of whether it looks like what you envisioned.

WSJ: Where do you go for inspiration outside of your beat?
Kamping-Carder: I love to visit art museums, both in New York and whenever I’m traveling. Looking at and thinking about art is one of my favorite, most restorative pastimes.

Do you have questions for our journalists? Send them to voices@wsj.com.

Stories in today's Women In newsletter were selected by Nikki Waller, Editor of Live Journalism and Special Coverage; with assistance from Ebony Reed, New Audiences Chief; Anne Michaud, Audience Voice Reporter; and Eleanor Miller, Newsletter Editor.

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