The 15 Thousand Dollar Egg
Putting your body, wallet and heart through the wringer and getting exactly one egg.
This is now my third piece on egg freezing, let’s say it’s on my mind. First I wrote about contemplating egg freezing, then I wrote about deciding against it, and now I’m writing about how I made a go for it.
If I had felt intense fertility cliff anxiety at 38, when I turned 39 a few months ago I reached new limits. About a month after my 39th birthday I made an appointment at a local fertility clinic for an initial consultation, but then proceeded to cancel it. Two months later I called again and this time kept the appointment. What ensued in the next four months as I went through two egg freezing cycles were a great number of emails and phone calls to coordinate appointments and meds, about twenty early morning appointments, about forty self-administered shots, and shelling out about $14.5K for copays, medical fees, fertility drugs and supplements.
Too bad I didn’t have a crystal ball to look into the future and tell me that a single frozen egg would come from all this. But I did it, it’s over, and perhaps others can glean something from my nightmare experience…
· Don’t wait so friggin’ long: There are hundreds of medical articles on the right age to start freezing your eggs, but most list it as before the age of 35. I should have done egg freezing eons ago.
· Make a plan: If you’re in your early 30s and thinking of starting egg freezing a year or two from now, do an at-home fertility test and research supplements and vitamins to start taking now even if your fertility levels are normal for your age. In the case of getting at-home results that indicate that your fertility levels are lower than the norm for your age, be proactive about starting egg freezing earlier than anticipated and/or about making lifestyle changes (diet, supplements, exercise) to improve your fertility over the next year or two.
· Understand that it will always be complicated: Making it to early morning appointments is tough when working full-time, but it’s not impossible. Egg freezing is quite expensive, but there are more fertility financing options than ever before for medical fees, fertility drugs and egg storage.
· Fertility meds are super expensive, so get to know how your fertility drugs pharmacy works: Since pharmacies that specialize in fertility drugs offer overnight delivery options, with some planning you can order your meds as you need them instead of all at once and avoid getting stuck with unused medicine that of course can’t be returned. My first egg freezing cycle resulted in only one egg mature enough to freeze and I wouldn’t have even gone ahead with a second cycle had it not been for the almost $2.5K of unused meds that I had at home and didn’t want to “waste.” By the second cycle, I understood what steps to take to avoid getting stuck with excess meds, but unfortunately none of the eggs from my second cycle were mature enough to freeze. I really wish fertility clinics and pharmacies dedicated some time to explaining best practices for ordering meds since meds are actually the most expensive part of egg freezing.
· Above all, read up and be realistic: Freezing eggs before the age of 35 does not guarantee that a baby or babies will come from it. There are many steps along the way to get from thawed frozen eggs to a successful pregnancy, and as a general rule eggs are lost as you move through those steps. It’s not easy but in addition to this piece go ahead and read all the real life stories about egg freezing that you can find, they can help with managing expectations but also with pitfalls to avoid. For example, not too long ago I read a horror story about a woman who had moved by the time she used her frozen eggs and these eggs were damaged when they were transported from her old city to her new city. Suffice to say, if I ever use my frozen egg, I will definitely go directly to the town where it’s stored.
Honestly, considering all the steps involved to go from thawed egg to successful pregnancy, I have about 0.2% hope that a baby will ever come from my almost $15K egg. But if it turns out to be a Fabergé egg of sorts, you can expect another article about it!
