The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has both made it harder to meet a partner and provided time for introspection, fueling some new decisions among single women in their 30s and 40s.

A number of fertility clinics across the country say they have seen an increase in egg freezing retrievals. The team at the NYU Langone Fertility Center reported a 33 percent increase in women starting egg-freezing cycles year-over-year between June and November 2020.

“We thought we’d see a decrease in people coming to us as starting a cycle might not be a priority in a pandemic,” says Brooke Hodes-Wertz, MD, MPH, a reproductive endocrinologist, infertility specialist, and assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at NYU Langone Health.

Dr. Hodes-Wertz tells The Wall Street Journal she has seen more single women coming to her since this past summer. “A lot of women in New York City who have stable incomes have had time to reflect during the pandemic, and they’ve also had the physical time to start a cycle because they’re not traveling.”

Read more from The Wall Street Journal.