More Than a Decade After Freezing Her Eggs and 10 Rounds of IVF, Singer Details Journey to Welcoming Baby at 47 

When Julie Mintz decided to freeze her eggs back in 2011 at age 33, she had no idea her journey to motherhood would span nearly 14 years.

Now 47, the Los Angeles-based singer and her partner welcomed their baby daughter, Ophelia Laurette, this past May. Though Ophelia was born in 2025, her embryo was created from one of the eggs Mintz froze almost a decade and a half earlier — a testament to a long and unpredictable path to parenthood.

“I just knew that I really wanted to be a mom,” Mintz shared with PEOPLE about her decision to freeze her eggs. “And living in a big city, it’s harder to meet a partner. I just thought it would be a really good insurance policy.”

“Like most people who freeze their eggs, I thought, ‘I am sure I’ll never have to use them, hopefully,’” she added. “But I just felt good having them.”

In 2011, Mintz was able to freeze 28 eggs. When she turned 39, still single but hopeful, she consulted her doctor about freezing more eggs.

“He advised me, essentially, ‘Your 39-year-old eggs are going to be much poorer quality, and you have 28 eggs from when you were 33,’” Mintz recalled. “He said, ‘You are essentially guaranteed two biological children from those 28 present eggs. So unless you want more than two biological children, I really don’t recommend going through that again.’”

Having experienced a severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome during her first egg-freezing process, Mintz decided not to risk it again and opted against freezing more eggs.

“Of course now in hindsight, I think that was the first error in my whole process,” she said. “But I was just taking the doctor’s advice.”

When Mintz met her partner Stephen at 41, the couple initially hoped to conceive naturally. However, Mintz’s polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) made conception difficult. By age 42, she turned to her frozen eggs.

“And I kind of thought in the back of my mind, ‘God forbid, what if something happened and my frozen eggs didn’t work and I needed to do IVF?’” Mintz admitted. “I never really thought that would happen, but I wanted to leave the option open.”

During the process of thawing and fertilizing her eggs, Mintz discovered an unexpected obstacle: both she and Stephen were carriers of a rare genetic disorder called Wilson disease, where excess copper builds up in the body, potentially harming organs. Because both were carriers, their children had a 25% chance of inheriting the disease.

Before thawing her eggs, doctors needed to create a special genetic test, called a probe, specific to their family DNA. This required DNA samples from their parents and six months of waiting.

“That delay was a huge setback,” Mintz said. “We couldn’t thaw my eggs until I was 44, which got us really late in the game.”

When the time finally came to thaw her eggs, a devastating blow hit: none of the first batch survived.

“That’s the most horrible thing that’s ever happened to me,” Mintz recalled. Fortunately, she had only thawed half of her eggs at once. The remaining eggs were thawed successfully later, yielding just one viable egg — which did not carry Wilson disease.

Mintz faced further challenges when her doctor discovered a uterine polyp and an incompetent cervix during attempts to prepare her for embryo implantation. Coupled with a blood clotting disorder, doctors advised her she shouldn’t carry the pregnancy herself.

After four second opinions, Mintz accepted she would need a surrogate.

Determined, she pushed to create another embryo despite being told at 44 her chances were slim. From ages 44 to 46, Mintz underwent nine egg retrievals across the country, enduring anesthesia 13 times and trying experimental treatments — but none of the over 100 eggs produced normal embryos.

Finally, at 46, Mintz and Stephen matched with their surrogate — a woman Mintz calls “a unicorn.”

In early 2024, they planned the embryo transfer carefully around Mintz’s upcoming tour with musician Moby. The transfer was delayed multiple times to ensure the surrogate was in peak health, but on September 6, 2024, the embryo was implanted.

Ten days later, while on tour in Europe, Mintz received the life-changing news: the surrogate was pregnant.

“I had to run because the music was so loud,” Mintz said, describing the moment she answered her doctor’s call. “I threw my arms up in victory, and Moby threw his arms up too because I think he knew what it meant.”

Reflecting on the journey, Mintz said, “Every single thing went wrong except for ultimately the one thing that had to go right. I feel like I’m the luckiest person alive that it worked.”

Ophelia Laurette was born on May 18 in Oregon, surrounded by her two parents. Mintz even cut the umbilical cord — a unique experience she embraced.

“If I can’t give birth myself, this was a once-in-a-lifetime moment I wanted to take,” she explained. “It is very surreal seeing someone else give birth to your child, but it’s also the ultimate gift that I can’t even put into words.”

Now, Mintz hopes to help others through the Midsummer Dream Grant, launched in partnership with BabyQuest. The grant supports families in need of IVF, surrogacy, and rare genetic disease screening on their path to parenthood.

Looking back, Mintz feels grateful she made the choice to freeze her eggs at 33.

“One thing I would tell myself is that I’m proud of having the forethought to freeze my eggs,” she said. “Even though parts of my story are scary — especially my eggs getting ruined in the thaw — ultimately, Ophelia came from my one 33-year-old egg that survived. Without that, I wouldn’t have been able to have her.”