Women who chose the freeze their eggs, what was the process like for you? Did you experience any emotional aspects?

5 comments

1. [removed]

2. [removed]

3. I had it done a couple of years ago, when I was approaching 30 and had no possible “normal” dating/relationship options in sight.

   Side note – I am pregnant and married now, so I don’t think I’ll be using those eggs in the future. But who knows.

   Anyway. As for the injections, yes, they change your emotional balance a lot. Also, in my case, I have unfortunately had something resembling anorexia since teenage years, so the first round of injections didn’t really work well. I had to undergo two rounds. I gained some weight during the injections period, my belly skin became really sore and I was moody, irritated, sad, salty, overreacting and going up and down mentally all the time.

   I guess if you have a supporting partner, it can be easier. I was alone and lonely, but I had a goal, so I just took it day by day. When it worked, I felt a sense of relief, as if I established some sort of a solid thing for my future.

   Right now, I’m just paying the yearly cryo fee, without giving it much thought, but in the future, when I have to face the decision to either continue keeping them or getting them destroyed (I know I won’t donate them, mentally this is not an acceptable option for me), it’s going to be tough.

4. [removed]

5. I did it a few months ago in preparation for IVF (ended up freezing embryos, not eggs) — I was lucky and only had to do one round (great numbers, just “unexplained infertility”). Prep for the egg retrieval was a lot of shots (2 to 3 a day for 3 weeks I think), which weren’t too bad. I mostly felt fine and didn’t notice too much from an emotional perspective (but I also don’t really notice my period), but gained some weight and felt pretty bloated toward the retrieval. Because of how many eggs I produced I was at risk for OHSS and told to only drink electrolytes, eat salty food for a few days after and avoid sudden movements/running/jumping since it could lead to ovarian torsion. Tbh those were the worst days, I was bloated, spotting, and not being allowed to drink water was so weird. (And the suspense of waiting to find out how many eggs, then mature eggs and so on)

   The hormones I had to take for FET had a more obvious impact on me — but once again, more physical. Constipation, crazy dreams, increased vaginal discharge. Plus Progesterone is a huge needle for an intramuscular shot (all the egg retrieval ones are tiny needles for subcutaneous shots) and getting injected into the same muscles for weeks made my glute pretty irritated toward the end (some women feel burning and develop knots, mine wasn’t bad I guess.)

   One thing that I didn’t realize going into this is how “bad” the conversion rate is. You get X eggs, only a percentage of those will be mature, and of those only Y percent will fertilize, then further drop offs for how many mature into blastocysts by day 5 or 6, then if you choose genetic testing, how many of those are normal, then will implantation be successful. We’ve ended up with a little under 25% of my retrieved eggs as viable embryos (not sure how many will thaw well or implant well) — but that funnel has caused me a non trivial amount of worry.