Breaking the silence: my journey into egg freezing

‘Having done it, I’m so glad I did. I just wish I’d frozen my eggs earlier'

I first encountered egg freezing when I was living in the US. Fertility preservation is very normalised in America, it’s almost as commonly talked about as brushing your teeth! Everyone I knew was talking about freezing their eggs and suggesting it to me, but I didn’t feel ready, for either a baby or to freeze my eggs. Truthfully I felt pretty scared about the whole process, and had irrational fears and judgments about those who froze their eggs. I used to think perhaps it was a sign of failure that someone hadn’t found the right person yet, and I didn’t want to admit that. Many of my friends were having babies with their husbands and I just didn’t have that option. So I put off thinking about it. 

A good family friend is an obstetrician, and when on holiday with her last year she said many times to me ‘‘freeze your eggs today.’ I turned 35 this year, and back living in London I made the decision in January to go for it, and look into freezing my eggs. I was fortunate to be covered through my company’s health insurance scheme, though egg freezing required a GP diagnosis of infertility or a condition. I had long had symptoms of PCOS including irregular cycles and acne, and following a consultation with a gynaecologist I had both the diagnosis confirmed and a referral to proceed with Apricity. 

Despite this, it was actually after a friend came round for dinner that I took the leap and got started. She’s a few years older than me and out of the blue she asked me if I’d frozen my eggs. ‘Funny you should ask that’ I said, and opened my drawer of medication to show her..  I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. She shared with me that at 38 she’d recently discovered that lots of her other friends had frozen their eggs, but not talked about it, and she felt that in her late 30s she’d missed the boat. 

Egg freezing seems such a taboo subject still - there seems to be judgment about who does it, and nobody talks about it.

I’ve now had two rounds of egg freezing cycles with Apricity, and I have one more to go. I had my egg collection treatment at the partner clinic Aria where I couldn’t fault the care. The consultant and anaesthetist were really professional and put me at ease. I found the Apricity app really responsive and helpful to manage my appointments and treatment, it was easy to know where I had to be at what time, what medicine to take and the journey ahead. I didn’t have to call up and hope a message was passed on to a doctor, everything was there in the app. I was lucky that my body returned to normal fairly quickly and I had no side effects.

Having done it, I am so glad I did. It’s made me so much more compassionate towards people with fertility issues, and also about my own body and what it’s capable of. I’m also in awe of the technology and science behind fertility treatment. I now feel a lot more relaxed knowing that I can have a child when I want rather than feel pressure to have one with the next man who comes along, and while I’m in a relationship now, my partner fully understands and supports my decision. I did it at the right time for me, but I do wish I had frozen my eggs sooner. At the time I felt that the treatment process would have too big an impact on my social life, but actually it was really worth the sacrifice. 

If I could offer advice to anyone thinking about egg freezing, I would say to really look at the information and stats around fertility after 35. I was really shocked to learn just how much my fertility would decline after this point. It’s also become apparent that after sharing my decision to freeze my eggs so openly with some of my older female friends, how many of them shared that they’d had help conceiving. One friend shared that she wishes she’d frozen her eggs in her early 30s, as by the time she started a family at 40 and wanted more than one child, her only options were through IVF. 

Social egg freezing is on the rise, and I believe this will continue as women are educated and have the opportunity to have careers. I hope there will be no judgment on this in the future and that it becomes the norm.

If someone has the option and the means to freeze their eggs, I’d say get a test and explore egg freezing.

No woman knows right now with full certainty how they will feel in the future regarding becoming a mother but you can guarantee now that in the future you will be grateful to at least have the option to make that choice.