I froze my eggs ... because my partners weren’t ready to be dads

TOWARDS the end of last year, aged 38, I paid thousands to freeze my eggs (storing seven in total). I wish I’d done it sooner; the difference in the quality of your eggs aged 30 as opposed to eight years later is significant.

My late mother had suggested it when I was 34, but I felt I still had time so used my savings as a deposit for my first flat. Four years on, though, I feel there is nothing more important I could spend money on than the chance of having a child.

Even though I’ve always been career-focused, qualifying as a GP in 2013 and appearing regularly on ITV’s This Morning and BBC’s Trust Me I’m A Doctor, I’ve never prioritised work over becoming a mother.

This idea that women give precedence to education and career is a common misconception in society, which then tacitly blames them when they are unable to conceive later down the line.

Research has found that for most women, the reason is the same as it is for me. I haven’t yet found the right partner, making me a classic case of social infertility. In my last two serious relationships, neither man felt as sure as I did that they wanted children.

I’m dating at the moment and when I do meet someone new, I’m pretty upfront about my desire to have kids. I don’t see the point in pretending.

I find people are often illinformed when it comes to fertility. It’s drilled into us at school how not to get pregnant. This will rile some, but as a GP I feel children should also be educated, in schools, about how to get pregnant — and the importance of considering their fertility before it’s too late. A woman is born with all the eggs she will ever have. As she ages her eggs age with her, and their number and quality reduces over time. Her chance of having a baby also reduces over time, especially for women older than 35.

Men need to consider their fertility, too. They are often surprised to learn a significant proportion of miscarriages occur because of the sperm, and sperm quality is linked to age. They don’t always feel the same time pressures women do, and so delay fatherhood.

All of this can be exacerbated by advances in fertility treatment, but there are no guarantees, and IVF success rates decrease as we age. As a result of all of this, we’re on the cusp of an infertility epidemic. Women in Ireland have the fourth highest rate of childlessness in the developed world so are more likely to end up without them than most.

An international league table found a fifth of Irish women are childless at the age of 45.

I’m speaking out because it’s time we looked the issue of infertility square in the eye, investigating why babies continue to elude many women of my generation. The process of egg freezing is an emotional and physical rollercoaster. First you must inject yourself with hormones for two weeks.

You may experience sickness and abdominal pain. By the end, I felt like I had two cricket balls in my pelvis and my hormone levels were more than 100 times the normal level.

Then there is the egg retrieval procedure, which requires sedation.

Doctors were able to extract seven eggs that were good enough quality to freeze — which I was told is average for my age. The eggs are then frozen and stored in liquid nitrogen until you wish to try to create an embryo, and conceive. There is a risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS), a potentially serious complication that can arise from an excessive response to fertility drugs. Then there’s the cost — potentially up to €10,000 including the egg freezing, scans and procedures).

I’m now considering using donor sperm so I can freeze embryos as well as eggs.

Egg freezing isn’t for everybody, but I want women like me — who can’t imagine their lives without a baby — to know it’s out there. And to act sooner rather than later.