Why I’ve put my eggs on ice at 41... by society It Girl Lady Victoria
As a society It Girl, she partied like there was no tomorrow. Now, fearful of a childless future, she’s praying for a little miracle
IHAVE six very special reasons to be optimistic about the future as we enter into this New Year – and they are sitting in a deep freeze in a secure, earthquake-proof laboratory in the US. In fact, they are almost invisible, but they embody a dream I’ve held off for far too long.
Just before Christmas, I had six eggs removed from my ovaries and frozen in a fertility clinic. At the end of this month, I intend to go through the exhausting procedure again in the hope that I will produce another half-dozen or so eggs. It will, I hope, fill what has become rather a hole in my life.
For the eye-watering price of $15,000 (£11,000), and at the age of 41, I have become one of thousands of women across the UK and America who are determined to prolong their chances of motherhood. Like many women, I’ve realised – nearly too late – that I am desperate to have a child. In fact, I want two. Which is why I’m hoping science might be able to stop the clock until I can find the right man to be a father to my babies.
Yet egg-freezing is controversial and, I’ve learned, still subject to so much stigma that women rarely discuss it – let alone admit to having had the procedure. It has been described as the biggest breakthrough in fertility since the birthcontrol pill. The scientific jury is still out on how effective it is. And society, it seems, still disapproves of women who choose to – quite literally – put motherhood on ice.
But there is no time for me to waste. Being 41 seems impossible as I still feel 29. I’m told I still look young, despite my years in London high society as a hard-partying IT girl. Since then I’ve worked as an actress, appeared in reality shows and co-produced a televised celebrity poker tournament in Cannes featuring Dennis Hopper, Woody Harrelson and Goldie Hawn. But through all this – which has been great fun – my biological clock has been gradually ticking down.
A major part of the problem is that I’m still single. Despite some intense relationships in my early 20s – the longest being four years with Danish restaurateur Mogens Tholstrup – they all fizzled out eventually. With some of those men, I’d spoken about having children. It was always something I’d assumed would happen at some point, even if, I’ll admit, I had no burning desire back then to settle down.
My father, Victor Hervey, the 6th Marquess of Bristol, turned 61 the day I was born, so my frame of reference was rather more extended than most. But men don’t have to think about it in the same way, do they?
I suppose I was also a bit of a realist. I’d seen friends’ marriages break up – my own father was married three times and there is heartache in my family. My half-brothers John and Nicholas died young – John from complications with a tragic drug addiction and Nicholas who sadly took his own life.
Given my own failed relationships, there was a part of me which was determined not to get hurt. But at the same time, the fantasy persisted – I always assumed the man I was supposed to be with would just sweep me off my feet.
Gradually, I came to accept an old truism: the sands of time stop for no man, or woman for that matter. There comes a point when you want something more. My friends are starting to have children and my sister, Isabella, has two little babies now. It made me realise just how much I wanted children myself. Back at home, my mother has kept all these handmade, beautiful clothes that I wore as a child. I’d love to imagine my own daughter wearing them.
So, instead of being like Bridget Jones and sitting at home with a bottle of wine, depressed about not finding a boyfriend, I decided to do something practical about it. I knew that freezing my eggs brought no guarantees, but starting as early as you can is vital. I’ve seen friends in their mid-40s go through seven rounds of IVF unsuccessfully. Those who wait until 45 have really struggled; those who started just five years earlier have had a much easier ride. It’s hard not to be affected by that.
It was when I was 38 and taking part in Channel 4’s ski show The Jump that I grew close to my fellow contestant, Loose Women panellist Stacey Solomon. She’s a mum of two boys, but she confessed she’d been considering freezing her eggs because she was worried she would go through an early menopause as her mum did.
Stacey encouraged me to face up to the fact that time was running out for me. So I got the details for the Southern California Reproductive Center in Los Angeles. It took me a year to make the call – I was terrified. The cost, too, was considerable. The pre-testing alone is $1,500; the procedure itself a further $7,700. Add in the $5,000 for medication and $600 for a single year’s storage and it’s nearly $15,000.
Eventually, I plucked up the courage to book my first appointment in early September last year. The clinic is tucked away on a side street off Santa Monica Boulevard – it was all very discreet. Thrillingly, I’ve learned it’s frequented by a number of Hollywood A-listers – many of the celebrity twins you see are a result of treatments here. It was reassuring to a point, but I was still desperately nervous. The reality was that this was never something I could have imagined myself doing. Does any woman? But sitting in the clean, white waiting room, I bumped into an old neighbour whom I knew well. It’s easy to think you’re the only person in the world doing something like this, but as we talked I realised that it’s more common than we think.
My specialist, Dr Hal Danzer, was also encouraging and sympathetic
I’m desperate for a child... in fact I want two
to my situation. Suddenly I was having blood taken, to assess the levels of a hormone produced by my ovaries. The greater the hormone levels, the more eggs you have left and the better your fertility. Then I found myself staring at the inside of my uterus on an ultrasound monitor. There were my follicles, from where my eggs develop. They were not quite as shrivelled as I might have expected and, apparently, good to go. The eggs have to be matured before they can be retrieved, which meant facing daily hormone injections.
The process begins on the second day of your monthly cycle, at which point you take a birth-control pill for six days, which encourages as many follicles as possible to mature. After a two-day break, the hormone injections begin. Being pumped with so many hormones, my body was beginning to think it was pregnant. I became bloated, light-headed and had very little energy. Dr Danzer tried to make me laugh on days when I just wanted to burst into tears but I couldn’t help it – I was an emotional wreck. I’d start crying out of nowhere. Any movie I watched, I had tears streaming.
My sleeping pattern was strange, too. I woke up a lot in the night with very vivid dreams. For the first time, I was experiencing the world the way a pregnant woman does. Hell, I just wanted chocolate. But disappointingly, my only treat was walnuts because of the strict regime the doctors advised to make the most of my eggs.
I’d already cut my drinking to three glasses of wine a week, but during those weeks as my eggs matured I wasn’t allowed to drink at all: you’re advised not to smoke, no caffeine, no dairy, no wheat, no sugar and, yes – no chocolate. I lived on eggs, avocado, nuts, salmon, chicken, greens and fruit and got so bored of the whole thing. I couldn’t even exercise in case I damaged the eggs, or twisted my ovaries, which was particularly hard with my highly energetic Norfolk terrier, D’Artagnan. My brisk walks turned into slow potters and a lot of lounging around.
By day five or six, small tiny bruises were appearing and my stomach was swollen. It was getting harder. There were blood tests every couple of days and ultrasounds to monitor the eggs’ progress. I crossed off every day desperate to have the finish line in sight. Interestingly, I also decided to post about my decision on Facebook and the reaction stunned me. While some friends lamented not having done it sooner, others admitted they’d already banked their eggs – they’d just never talked about it. It made me feel so much less alone. On day 13, the eggs were finally retrieved, under a general anaesthetic in a procedure which took about 20 minutes. Six were mature enough to remove, which is exciting, but the reality is it’s probably not enough. Not every egg will survive the freezing process. Of the remaining eggs, not all will lead to viable embryos once they’re fertilised. And not all of those will end up as a successful pregnancy. To maximise my options, I’m going to go through the process again, at the end of this month, to see if I can get another six to eight eggs. I’m dreading it, but I’m hoping that, long-term, it’ll have been worth it.
I’ve paid for only a year of storage, and the doctors have advised that it’s not good for the eggs to be frozen for longer than five years. Not that I want to wait that long. I need to do this before I turn 45, before it starts to get really tough. I don’t want to be a much older mother. There’s just one thing missing: a man. I’ve considered going ahead by myself, and just paying for a sperm donor. But who really wants that? I want to feel supported; I need the emotional aspect of a relationship. A friend with a newborn told me pregnancy was ‘the easy part’. I know she’s right.
I do have a back-up plan if my Prince Charming doesn’t materialise. I’ve got friends who’ve said they’d be prepared to father my child, and I’m considering that option very seriously. At least there’s a connection, some stability. It would, of course, be hard.
But I’m so in awe of the way science has made all this possible. I just wish I’d got to this point earlier, when I still had so much more time.
I just pray the miracle of science can transform these tiny specks of potential into little bundles of joy.
There’s just one thing missing – a man