When you think about, it would be a total miracle. I mean, I know science has done everything possible to optimise the chances – I’ve been given hormones to optimise the development of my eggs; my thyroid function has been checked and tweaked; the – one assumes – weakest eggs will have been weeded out by the freezing and defrosting process; I’ve not just got any old sperm but sperm that has been rigorously – I hope – health-checked; and nobody’s left it to chance that this sperm will fertilise the eggs, Continue reading
Category Archives: Egg freezing
Doing things differently…
I just realised you probably thought that this post was a reference to the fact that, as I’ve mentioned a few times before, this whole trying-to-get-preg-on-my-own type thing wasn’t exactly Plan A. Or maybe to the fact that what I’m doing is, as I’ve mentioned before, not exactly the norm within my group of predominantly hetero, predominantly married-with-children friends. But it’s not (well, it kind of is, because everything I write on this blog is basically about the same thing.) No, this is something I wanted to write before I’m actually mired in the depths of the treatment. As a marker, maybe, as a reminder of why I’m doing this. So here goes… Continue reading
A leap of faith…
I’ve been thinking this for quite a long time — in fact I feel like I probably wrote about it when I was freezing my eggs — but this whole thing from start to finish is, if you think about it, totally fucking insane. I have — to date — paid out the best part of £20,000 — twenty GRAND! And what do I have to show for it? I have taken SO MUCH on trust.
Seriously, think about it. Normally when you have medical treatment Continue reading
Defrosting…
So, I went to the clinic, and I talked to my consultant and I had a scan, and it mostly looked fine, and so we discussed a few things, like whether we’d try IUI (Intra Uterine Insemination – or what I like to think of as PTB — Posh Turkey Baster — where you get the sperm and stick it in and hope for the best…) or IVF (In Vitro Fertilisation — where the egg and sperm meet in a test tube (actually a dish rather than a tube I think) and mix there to make the embryo which is then put inside you. Continue reading
Cognitive dissonance…
I was recently talking to a friend of mine, who had been going through IVF, about her experiences, and she was talking about the cognitive dissonance that seems inherent in all this.
You might never have done IVF, and you might not call it cognitive dissonance, but if you’ve ever been a teenager, you’ll know what she’s on about.
Maybe it was just me (I assumed it was everyone) who, as a teenager, Continue reading
Permission to procrastinate…
So I wrote about the fact that I was going back to the clinic on a bit of a fact-finding mission. And that’s exactly what I did. I’d made a point of booking to see the consultant that I’d really liked when I was freezing my eggs. I didn’t just trust her from a medical perspective, but from an emotional one. (She’s the one that I cried on in all of my first three consultations.) I felt like she totally understood my reasons for freezing my eggs, and she was really positive about what I was doing.
And, when I saw her, I felt totally vindicated Continue reading
It’s not just me….
(Oops sorry, I just realised regular readers might have got excited that one of those interminable dates of mine had actually worked out – so apologies if the title of this post got your hopes up, in that particular instance it IS still just me, but who knows what will happen tomorrow/round the corner/when I’m least expecting it? No, in this particular instance, the “it’s not just me” refers to the fact that someone else froze their eggs and wrote about it….)
I wildly applaud anyone writing about the reality of egg freezing so all the cheers and adulation to Eleanor Morgan, who’s written about Continue reading
Have I been exploited?
The title of this post is a bit of a rhetorical question. Or, as some would have it, when referring to headlines in a certain newspaper (“Are immigrants causing cancer?” “Could this £10 pill cure obesity?” “Would YOU wear a dress made from fish guts?” etc etc) QTWTAIN (Questions To Which The Answer Is No). Because no, I don’t think I have been exploited, but undoubtedly some people would.
Front page headline on The Times today “Top clinics exploiting women who freeze eggs”
Women who freeze their eggs in the hope of having children are being exploited by clinics which fail to disclose that the chances of pregnancy are “scarily” small, a leading fertility expert warned yesterday.
The piece went on to talk about people being charged Continue reading
Egg-freezing research…
Quick post – and bit of a different one from usual – but… last month I received this email from someone called Abbie-Louise, she said…
I am currently at the University of Cambridge studying Human, Social and Political Sciences and as part of my dissertation and a project financed by Baillie Gifford Investment Bank, I am looking into the ethical, business and social implications of egg freezing. After a great deal of research I have come to realise the many positives of egg freezing – a process which I believe empowers women by allowing them to take control of their reproductive autonomy. I was particularly inspired by your post which reads: “egg freezing was a way of feeling like I was taking charge of my future, rather than just waiting for my future to happen to me.”
As part of my project I look to compare attitudes of women in England and in the US with regards to egg freezing – I will travel to California this summer to undertake this. If there is any way we could have a chat about your experiences/ blog (via skype/ email/ I could meet you in London – or wherever is convenient) then I would be so grateful.
Now I am all about the evidence, and all about talking about egg freezing so OBVIOUSLY we had a chat, and I was totally impressed by Abbie-Louise, by her questions, and insight and asked her to stay in touch.
She got back from California Continue reading
What am I waiting for?
So I’ve sort of mentioned to a few people that I’m thinking that my birthday next year might be the point at which I accept that maybe, after all, I’m not going to go down the conventional route of meeting someone and having children with them. And that maybe, despite my myriad concerns about going it alone, I might have to resign myself to the fact that if I really want a shot at this motherhood lark – which let’s be honest, I’ve had my doubts about – I might just have to find myself a donor, and, as Nike might have said, “just fucking do it” – ironically, of course, without Continue reading
Egged On 