When Julie Mintz froze her eggs in 2011 at age 33, she had no idea it would take nearly 14 years, and a staggering series of setbacks, before she’d meet her daughter.
Now 47, the Los Angeles-based singer welcomed baby Ophelia Laurette this May. Her daughter was conceived from one of the 28 eggs Mintz froze over a decade ago. “I just knew that I really wanted to be a mom,” she told PEOPLE. “And living in a big city, it’s harder to meet a partner. I just thought it would be a really good insurance policy.”
Initially, Mintz assumed she wouldn’t need them. “I thought, ‘I am sure I’ll never have to use them, hopefully,’” she recalls. But by 39, still single, she considered freezing more. Her doctor advised against it: “You are essentially guaranteed two biological children from those 28 present eggs.” Having developed ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome previously, she decided against another round, something she now calls “the first error in my whole process.”
She met her partner Stephen at 41 and tried to conceive naturally, but PCOS made it difficult. At 42, she decided to use her frozen eggs. But a year after blood and genetic testing, she learned that both she and Stephen were carriers of Wilson disease, a rare condition that gave any embryo a 25% chance of inheriting it, per Mayo Clinic. A custom genetic probe was required before they could move forward, which caused months of delays.
At 44, her eggs were finally thawed, but none survived. Thankfully, she had insisted only half be thawed. “And thank God because they ruined all of them on the first try,” she says. A second attempt left just one viable egg.
Determined to carry the pregnancy herself, Mintz underwent surgery to remove a uterine polyp, only to wake up and learn the procedure had failed due to broken surgical scissors. Her doctor also discovered she had an incompetent cervix and a clotting disorder, and advised against carrying a pregnancy. “I felt like if you were reading [this], you’d be like, ‘This girl has to be making this up,’” she says.
From 44 to 46, she endured nine more egg retrievals across the U.S., hoping for a backup embryo, none worked. “It was basically psychological torture,” she says.
At 46, she matched with a surrogate she calls “a unicorn.” After multiple delays, the embryo transfer happened in September 2024, while Mintz was on tour in Europe. At midnight, during rehearsals, her doctor called: she was pregnant. “I threw my arms up in the air and then Moby threw his arms up… I think that he knew what it meant.”
On May 18, Ophelia was born. Mintz, who cut the umbilical cord, calls it “the ultimate gift.” She’s now launched the Midsummer Dream Grant to support others facing fertility struggles.
“One thing that I would tell myself is that I’m really proud of myself for having the forethought to freeze my eggs,” she says. “Ultimately, Ophelia came from my one 33-year-old egg that survived, and if I hadn’t done that, I would not have been able to have her.”