Jana Pit tman’s HEALTH WORDS OF WISDOM
CHILLING OUT ABOUT YOUR REPRODUCTIVE OPTIONS
Many women are now waiting longer to start their family, with the average age of first-time mums in Australia at 29.4yrs.
While ‘social egg’ freezing (cryopreservation) was once a taboo topic, it’s now offered at most private fertility clinics, and I have noticed it coming up in many more conversations.
As I write this now, it’s only been three weeks since I birthed my fifth and sixth babies, but this hasn’t altered my career aspirations as a doctor. Having previously struggled with relationships, two of my six kids were also as a solo mum. So, I understand the juggle between wanting family, finding love and chasing career dreams. But does egg freezing hold the answer to having it all?
The best advice I can give is get more information! Book an appointment with your family doctor or a fertility specialist and talk, explore and question your options – the earlier the better! Unfortunately, your ability to conceive a child naturally reduces as you age, with the number and quality of your eggs dropping sharply after the age of 35 years.
THE PROCESS
Egg freezing involves a similar process to in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) offered to couples who have had difficulties conceiving naturally. During your natural monthly cycle, each ovary produces several follicles, inside these follicles are the eggs. A complex cascade of hormones means only one of those follicles becomes dominant and the others disintegrate, leading to the ovulation (release) of usually only one egg.
With the egg-freezing process, your fertility specialist will hyperstimulate your ovaries using medications to allow as many of these follicles to become dominant, creating multiple eggs for collection. This means your ovaries will be in overdrive. You will have several blood tests and internal ultrasounds over a couple of weeks.
When the follicles reach a certain size, the doctor removes your eggs, usually via the vagina during a short operation. Your eggs are then cryofrozen for when you are ready to start a family. They are your eggs alone, meaning they have not yet been fertilised with male sperm.
MY EXPERIENCE
Having done this process seven times (as a solo mum and egg donor), it’s not for the faint-hearted. Most of the medications are administered via daily injections, the bloating and mood swings can be a pest, cost prohibitive and worry over egg numbers consuming. It’s also important to highlight it’s not failproof.
Your specialist can give you an idea based on other people’s experience of successfully having a baby from the retrieved eggs, but it’s not a foregone conclusion. I have a friend who did three rounds of egg freezing and assumed she had her ‘fallback solution’. Sadly, when the time came, none of her eggs were successful. Despite further treatment, she’s not conceived her much-wanted child.
PLAN FOR THE FUTURE
Get medical advice early in the ‘thinking’ process and weigh up your options and priorities. It can be a tough conversation to have with yourself, but a valuable one.