Making decisions is hard. This we know for sure. Especially $10,000 decisions that will impact your hormones and your time and are loaded with so many expectations and unknowns. On top of the big decisions we need to make, there are also somewhere around 35,000 (holy fuck) other mini decisions that we make in a given day. This produces the obvious result of decision fatigue (actual scientific fact), making even the most insignificant decisions (what shoes to wear) feel impossible to make.
This past week was supposed to be the week of the Golden egg. You see, I had FINALLY decided (we’re talking after many years, 5, of contemplation) to freeze my eggs. And it didn’t go so well. Let me explain by taking you through the process.
Step one: Give it to me straight!
It all starts with an exciting round of cycle monitoring. I spoke a little bit about this in an earlier post, but pretty much every time you’re checking up on your fertility, or starting Egg freezing/IVF, it starts with this on day 2 or 3 of your cycle. It’s a lot of action. Blood work and then a trans-vaginal ultrasound. Every woman loves having another women insert a cold vibrator covered in a condom mid-period, and rooting around inside, looking for hints of good-to-go eggs. At this stage they are looking for a starting count of follicles. Maybe at some point in the past you’ve also had an AMH test which is meant to test the quality of your eggs. Some combination of (not exact science) your number of starting follicles (quantity) and the results of your AMH test (quality) gives you an indication of whether or not it’s a good cycle to get started with. Because these numbers, the follicles at least, can vary a great deal from one cycle to the next based on a number of different factors.
The clinic opens at 7 A.M. and the earlier you get there the sooner you get to see the doc. A line has fully formed by 8 A.M.! People literally run out of the elevators to beat each other when writing their names down on the list. It really brings out the best in all of us. Despite the work-friendly start of 7 A.M., most appointments, once you’ve seen everyone you need to see, take about 3 hours. The doc reviews your results and gives you a plan of action. Even though this cycle produced one of my lowest follicle counts, the doc indicated that they would only get lower as I aged, so we decided to go ahead (more decisions…so many decisions). I left of course feeling shrivelled and geriatric.
Step Two: Doesn’t everyone love injecting themselves with hormones?
Once you decide to go ahead, things start immediately after you’ve seen the doc. She sets out a plan of medication (there are some different variations in medication you can take and I won’t get into the details of what I was given on this first round as they all work differently for each person). Then you head in to see the nurse who provides you with your arsenal of meds and instructs you on how to inject yourself in the arse (actually way less painful and scary than I thought possible). She advises that you take a video of her doing it (I did and watched it every day to help with the medication mixing and needle insertion. I didn’t want to mess anything up).
And then you inject daily and go back in every other day to see how the follicles are growing. Follicles accompany eggs that your body deems decent enough to put effort into developing into THE golden egg. The medication you are taking at the start is meant to increase the quantity of those that are given a chance to develop, and later in the cycle the medication switches to one that helps increase the quality of those that remain in the race. In a normal cycle, only one egg wins the race and develops fully to ovulation (I know, my descriptions are oh so scientific). In this process, of course, you want to avoid one egg being the sole winner, so you at some point take another hit of medication to stop ovulation. This allows the doc to go in and extract those that are large enough to be effectively frozen or made into embryos.
What’s up doc?
By day 6 of this cycle it didn’t really look like very many of my eggs were growing to a size that would be appropriate to retrieve. I had to make another decision in terms of whether or not I should continue this cycle. They generally like to get about 10 per cycle, and I was tracking at much less that that, making for some veeeery expensive eggs. Some stats say that you should have about 16 eggs frozen to guarantee a live birth, and each single frozen egg has a 2-12% chance of resulting in a live birth. In any case, I felt it was too low. The doc tried to convince me to finish it out as there was no guarantee that my next cycle would be better, but I didn’t want to pay the crazy expensive extraction fee if I thought the chances of getting more than a few eggs was impossible. I decided to pull the plug and wait for my next cycle, fingers crossed for better results.
Why weren’t they developing?
My low numbers could have been the result of this cycle having a bunch of low quality eggs (doesn’t preclude them being better the next time), my body not responding to the medication, or just my general age and stage.
So now I’m all hopped up on meds and hormonal and sad and feeling alone. I’m currently eating frozen pizzas and Haagen Daaz in unhealthy quantities. But with the remaining hormones in my system, the dashed expectations of this session, and the pure exhaustion with all of these decisions I just need a little bit of a binge.
Support systems don’t have to be partners
When I left the clinic I didn’t want to look anyone in the eyes. I felt ashamed and alone. Luckily my Mom came to a bunch of my appointments with me, despite them being so early and her living a bit far. It’s so strange that as I plan for some insurance to have a kid of my own, the person I want to hold on to most is my own mother. One of my dear friends lost her mother when she was quite young, and said that one of the reasons she knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that she wanted to have kids was because of that intense bond shared between mother and child. More on that in another post.
So lots of thoughts flying around right now. A bit sad. A bit resigned. But ready (I think) to try again next cycle. In between, I need a bit of a break, but suspect I’ll still be trying to go on dates and to figure out what my next step is. No rest for a woman in her late 30s.
Dating on a Deadline 
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