So When Are You Having Kids by Jordan Davidson

Author:Jordan Davidson [Davidson, Jordan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FAM034000 FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Parenting / General, FAM000000 FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / General, PSY041000 PSYCHOLOGY / Psychotherapy / Couples & Family
Publisher: Sounds True

The Egg-Freezing Process

Egg freezing is essentially one-half of the IVF process. If you decide to use those eggs later in life, you will need to do the second half, which includes fertilizing the eggs to create embryos and then transferring those embryos. According to data from the UK about a fifth of those who freeze their eggs return to use them.3 Before you freeze any embryos, you will do a fertility assessment to check your hormone levels and AFC. Based on your numbers, your doctor will create a treatment protocol for you. There are several different types of protocols your doctor may use; however, protocols vary from doctor to doctor and patient to patient, so it’s not exactly helpful to discuss the nitty-gritty here because the dosages used during your cycle will likely reflect a number of different factors, including how your body responds to the medications.

The medications and procedures used for an egg retrieval are relatively the same for both egg freezing and IVF. Ovarian stimulation typically starts on day three, give or take a day, of your menstrual cycle. Some clinics will have you take oral contraceptives or another form of estrogen prior to your cycle starting to suppress the ovaries and promote uniform follicle growth. The first medications you take are stimulation medications, or as they’re more commonly known, stim meds, which help the follicle grow. Stim meds include injectable gonadotropin medications that act similarly to the FSH and LH your body produces naturally. Giving yourself an injection can seem scary if you’ve never done it before, but the injections are fairly quick and easy. The medication uses a tiny thin needle that goes into a small bit of skin pinched from your lower abdomen. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this, enlist someone who can help.

Research suggests the optimal stimulation phase length to produce the most mature eggs is 10–12 days, but you may respond faster or slower depending on your body.4 To start you may have appointments every few days, but as you get closer to the retrieval, you may be in the office every day or every other day. These appointments, called monitoring, take place in the morning and consist of bloodwork and a transvaginal ultrasound. The ultrasound measures your follicles as they grow. Once a follicle reaches 14 mm or your estrogen rises significantly, you will take another injectable medication, either a GnRH agonist or antagonist, to prevent your body from ovulating. You will take the ovulation blocking meds daily, using the same method you use to take your stim meds, until it’s time for your trigger shot. Trigger shots use hCG, the hormone you produce when pregnant, to cause a surge in LH, telling your body it’s time to ovulate.

If you are at risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS)—risk factors include PCOS or a high AMH—your doctor may use a different medication, an agonist trigger shot, instead. OHSS is an overresponse to stim meds that causes the ovaries to swell. It can

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