How egg freezing can help you find true love…

Have you always wanted to have a family?

And have you also worried about the ticking time bomb that is your body clock (not helped by your family reminding you of this ticking body clock)? It is easy to feel very powerless in the matter of having a family, especially if you are single, and feeling like the potential of starting a family someday is a distant dream. 

The dating game

Dating is hard work. I remember chatting to my good friend Rachel who lives in Australia about this. When I was newly single in 2017, turning 30 with no boyfriend to show for myself, she had been in the dating game for a while and was sharing her experiences with me. I remember the conversation so vividly and she shared how when it comes to dating it seems that everyone is just so busy. You may find a really nice guy (on dating apps of course!) and then by the time you figure out both of your schedules it can be weeks before you even get one date in. If you manage to get that far, you still have to face up to the fact that he is probably messaging or dating multiple other people at the same time (fair enough given the times we are in). All in all, these challenges can mean it takes a very long time, and a lot of effort, to get to the point that you are invested and committed to someone. This synopsis of dating in the 21st century hit home with me and it honestly made the whole thing feel like an impossible task.

I remember I was surrounded by beautiful couples who were (and still are) very much in love. My brother and his gorgeous wife Lucy, my closest friends, and even the people who weren’t that bothered about settling down, were in that happy place. The good thing about this, however, was how this all helped me to still believe in true love and I used these ‘role models’ to help me to keep the faith.

How fertile am I anyway?

In spite of all this, when I became single in 2017 I had this horrible gut feeling that I wouldn’t be able to have a family. I cannot tell you where it came from, but I felt it so strongly and it was the most dreadful feeling, because having a family has always been so important to me. I obviously didn’t know if I would struggle to have a family for sure, but the intuition I felt was something I couldn’t shake off.

My mum had my brother when she was 23 and had me when she was 25 so I had always wanted to be a young mum. I was, at this point, 30 years old, so a good 3-5 years away from any kind of settling down and starting a family situation… The idea of this made me scared for the future and whether I would ever fulfil that dream of having a baby of my very own. That’s not to say I wouldn’t have considered adoption or various other great options for starting a family. I just knew that I would love to have my own if I could.

Instead of ignoring this concern about my fertility, I decided to do something about it. This was encouraged by my amazing mother who is great at the whole ‘take action’ thing. I, on the other hand, may have buried my head in the sand forevermore.

I don’t remember the first step feeling all that scary. I simply found a local fertility clinic and booked in a fertility consultation for a couple of hundred pounds. This was essentially an opportunity to get my ovaries scanned (yes, you do have to have something up your vagina) and have an AMH blood test (this checks the level of anti-mullerian hormone in your blood which identifies your ovarian egg reserves). These test results are then coupled with your lifestyle factors (alcohol, smoking, drinking, etc), and a consultant discusses your options with you. Luckily I had lots of support and my mum came with me to my appointments. I would highly recommend taking someone with you - it’s quite an emotive experience and having someone who loves you there really helps. They can also decipher all the complicated things that are being said and ask questions too which is great.

Anyway, my results were (as I unfortunately expected) not as positive as I would have liked. My follicle count in my ovaries wasn’t as high as they would have expected (value judgement by the sounds of it but I had to take the expert opinion). My AMH blood test was also quite a bit lower than average for my age group. I cannot remember the exact numbers but I remember thinking it really didn’t sound that great. Combined with this was the fact that my family has a history of early menopause. I had no worries in the ‘lifestyle factors’ area, - I don’t smoke, drink minimal amounts of alcohol and I am overall healthy and do regular exercise, so that was one positive!

So I was left with the results that I had (weirdly) expected. My fertility did appear to be low for my age. This didn’t mean I couldn’t have a baby naturally, it just meant that along with the other factors (early menopause in my family, etc), it could be harder to have a baby naturally, especially as time went on (my body clock was ticking).

To freeze or not to freeze?

At that stage I had a decision to make. I could take these results and ignore them, or I could take action (with the next step being getting my eggs frozen). Both options seemed nerve wracking to me - if I did nothing I knew that it would be an underlying worry and it would be constantly in the back of my mind. Going out dating guys and thinking ‘right is he going to be the father of my child?’ seemed like a recipe for disaster and not an approach that seemed great for me or fair on the poor guy! Or the other option was I take the plunge and get my eggs frozen. This option wasn’t as simple as that. Because of my results, it was likely that one cycle of egg freezing wouldn’t be enough. It’s hard to put numbers on this but from my experience and reading a lot on the subject, I felt that I would need minimum 10-15 frozen eggs but ideally more than this (20-25 perhaps). This may only allow me to have one baby but I felt that I would be happy with that at this stage. Because of my results I would be unlikely to get this level of eggs from one round treatment, and because three treatments was better value for money than two, it was a more sensible option to go with three.

Something I have failed to mention so far is the cost. Trust me, I spent a lot of time analysing the costs and I developed a detailed spreadsheet for this. There’s the cost of the treatment, but also the cost of all the medication, anaesthetic and god knows what else! At the time (2017) I think the 3 rounds of treatment worked out at about £12k all in. Not cheap by any means. Again, mum to the rescue as she funded pretty much all of this for me. I cannot put into words how grateful I am that she was willing to do this. Having grandchildren is a huge deal to my mum and I am so thankful that she was able to help me with this.

Whilst going through the thought process I also considered (although not for long) the option of embryo freezing. This is a step further along in the process than the egg freezing as it takes your egg, you choose a sperm (by browsing a website full of sperm profiles!) and your eggs are fertilised to the point of creating an embryo, which is then frozen. The embryo is a more progressed cell than just the egg and therefore this could prove more successful. However this meant that if I did meet someone I wouldn’t be able to use his sperm with my eggs, as I will have already had my eggs fertilised by a random sperm that I had selected online. As you can see this was a complicated decision making process, but in the end I decided on the three rounds of egg freezing for me.

I cannot say this was an easy decision. Mostly in terms of the financial outlay as it really is a very expensive thing to spend money on. However after reflection and knowing how much I wanted to have a family some day, I felt it was the only way I could give myself an insurance policy for my future.

Alongside this, I also decided that if I got to 33 I would take the plunge and have a baby by myself (using a sperm selected through a sperm bank online). This was something I knew I would find so hard to do, as it seemed in some way at odds with ‘societal norms’, but I wanted to make a promise to myself for my future family to make this all worth it. 

What does egg freezing actually involve?

So off on my journey I went. Three egg freezing treatments ahead of me and I was quite nervous. I didn’t really know what was going to happen exactly. I had been told the process (injections, consultation appointments, scans, followed by the operation), but I am someone who learns by seeing things in real life, so the best way to get my head around the process was to go through it!

I remember getting all the medication delivered the first time around. I had to store some of it in the fridge, which felt weird as it didn’t feel normal to casually have a needle in your fridge alongside your pint of milk! In fact I remember during my third round of treatment I was dating at the time and I was petrified that the guy I was seeing would spot the medication in my fridge (alongside the beers we were drinking!) - that would have been awkward!

Then it was a waiting game, waiting for the first day of my period and going from there. When my period came I went for an initial scan of my ovaries to check everything was okay and it was time to start the medication. This involved injecting myself morning and night in my tummy. I am not one who loves injections so this was by no means fun for me and actually one of the things I had to really overcome. I remember one evening my cousin helped me with one of the injections and it turned out to be a bit of a disaster! I then went back to doing them all myself, as much as I hated doing it! It really was a case of mind over matter! After a number of days of the injections it was then time to go back to the clinic to see how the follicles in my ovaries were doing. The idea was that the medication was stimulating my egg follicles to develop and mature. At a certain point, where the consultant felt that I had enough follicles at the right size, this triggered the next stage, which was the procedure (or perhaps you would say minor operation).

I went to Harley Street in London for my operation and again mum came along (you had to have someone with you due to the fact that anaesthetic was involved). I was on a ward with a number of other women but all the curtains were drawn so I had my privacy. I had a chat to the anaesthetist, which brought a bit more anxiety into the process for me because I have a history of malignant hypothermia in my family (a life threatening reaction to anaesthetic). Anyway, he was great and put my mind at rest, although there was a part of me that was so scared I would never wake up after the procedure. 

Next, the nurse came and bought some more medication for me. This was a pessary and some gloves. This came as a bit of a surprise to me as I didn’t realise I would have to do this myself. Anyway, needs must and there was no way I was backing out now over this. After all the drugs kicked in I was then taken to the operating room. Everyone in the room was super lovely and made me feel very relaxed, despite the fact I had my legs akimbo on a hospital bed! This part of the process was where they used a needle to extract the egg follicles from my ovaries so that they could be frozen. 

So off I went to sleep from the anaesthetic and the next thing I remember is waking up and sobbing my heart out! I don’t know why but I can safely say that this happened on all three times I went through the treatment. Ultimately I had been putting copious amounts of hormones into my body, feeling the emotions of how much I longed to have a family and topped off with my nervousness around the anaesthetic. These, I think, were all contributory factors. Seeing my mum waiting for me was wonderful and all I needed was a big hug from her. 

The next part was all a bit of a blur, but the nurse told me how many eggs were extracted and then (and more importantly), how many eggs were able to be frozen. This was something I didn’t realise before the treatment, but after they are extracted, your eggs are analysed and not all of your eggs will be good enough quality for freezing (or perhaps that was just the case with me!).

Egg freezing - the results are in...

Through the three cycles of egg freezing treatment I had got 15 eggs in storage. I was pretty happy with that, although I remember being frustrated after my second treatment when I didn’t get as many eggs as I had hoped. It is a very strange feeling going through the process and assessing how ‘successful’ you have been in producing ‘good quality’ eggs. I remember overhearing one of the patients who had produced a huge amount of eggs - around 25, in just one round of treatment. I definitely felt jealous and wondered if there was something wrong with me, but there was nothing I could do to change my situation. It really is such a weird process to put yourself through, especially when so many of your friends have kids already.

Actually, the other thing I found extremely hard about the process was the fact that there really was no one to talk to who could understand what I was going through. I genuinely believe that a support group of women all going through the same thing would have been really useful for me. I have an amazing family and friends who I could confide in and get love and hugs from, but it wasn’t possible for them to relate to this process and truly understand why I had chose to go through it.

Back to the dating game

So once the three rounds were done (and this took me at least 18 months, to ensure I gave my body a rest in between each cycle), it was back to the dating game. In spite of this, I took time out to really look after myself and do things for me. I had moved into my own place, living alone for the first time during this 18 months and this was such a great step for me. I knew in the back of my mind now that I had the eggs in the freezer (literally) and if and when I met ‘the one’ I had a back up plan if things didn’t work naturally. I also knew that if I didn’t meet ‘the one’ I would just do it alone and use my eggs with a donor sperm and bring up a child on my own. I also knew that this second option would involve more money but I would have to cross that bridge when I came to it.

Around nine months later I was lucky enough to meet Ben. It was via an introduction from a mutual friend (thank you Tracey!) and our first date was a Park Run together (maybe I will share that story another time). What was ahead of me just 9 months later I could never have imagined. Ben and I were on holiday in Switzerland visiting my friends and I was two weeks late on my period with very sore breasts. After my friend persuaded me, I did a pregnancy test. Actually, I ended up doing 3 pregnancy tests because I managed to do two of them wrong (don’t ask!). Turns out I was 6 weeks pregnant. I was both in shock and over the moon. After all that anxiety and worry about if I could ever get pregnant naturally, it had happened much easier than I ever imagined.

I honestly put it down to the fact that I was so relaxed about the idea of a family, as because I had frozen my eggs I knew it was possible (even if not probably!). But also I was in a really happy place and not overthinking it.

I wanted to share my story because I hope it helps someone who is thinking of going through the egg freezing process, or who is struggling, like I was, with the idea of feeling single and a bit helpless. I am by no means saying it is what every single woman in her 30s should do, and I appreciate the financial burden can put it out of people’s reach. However I would say it is worth the research, the consideration and a clear and confident decision on if it’s right for you.

I’d love to hear from you if you want to chat more on this topic or ask me any questions .

Jennie, With Love xx