r/eggfreezing

Hi All!

This reddit has been a great resource for me while I was in the pre stim process, so I thought I would share my experience as I start the Stimulation Medication process leading up to Retrieval at the end of the month!

I recently turned 30 years old and have never been in a relationship (I generally identify on the Ace spectrum), and have thought since I was a teen that if I decided to become a mother, I would likely be a Single Mother by Choice.

I also knew from a young age I wouldn’t be having kids before the age of 35, probably closer to 40. This is because my own mother didn’t have me until she was 39 (she had me the Old Fashioned Way) and she has always been a role model for me that a person should “get their stuff together” and reach a place of financial, career, and emotional stability and maturity before having children. Because I knew I would likely be a SMBC, I feel that this especially applies for me since I will not have a partner to support me.

I’ve thought about doing egg freezing for several years. I initially applied for CoFertility’s Split program about 2 years ago, but was rejected due to my history of antidepressant medication use. That discouraged me for a few years, but when I turned 30 a little under 2 months ago, I decided I was in a financial and emotional place to finally do a retrieval where I would fully foot the bill and keep all the resulting eggs. I’m not getting any younger, after all!

I saw a lot of ads for Gaia (and was referred to them by CoFertility), and decided to use them for finding a clinic and planning the process. It probably cost a bit more than if I had done all the research and organizing myself, but I appreciate that I basically paid all at once and have only had to do some follow up/clarifications when it comes to costs. But, I haven’t had any surprise costs as of writing, and I appreciate how communicative Gaia staff have been. I’ll give my final thoughts on Gaia and if I feel it was worth it after the Retrieval.

I just did my first injection of Menopur this morning, and it went well!

My med schedule leading up to Trigger is:

Menopur 75 units AM

Follistim 225 units PM

Dexamethasone 1mg PM

I’ll probably do a follow up in few days to share how it’s going. Thanks for being such a supportive, open community!

Hi I was wondering how is HCG made/ manufactured. If your vegetarian or anyone who is how they felt about using HCG injections?

I had my retrieval today and they'll call tomorrow to say how many of my retrieved eggs are actually mature. Somehow, I had it in my mind that some of them mature over night. Do they sit in a little incubator and grow a little more? Did I imagine that? Does anyone know?

It doesn't really matter at this point, I'm just curious <3

I got out of surgery today and I'm feeling tired - my friends want to go out to dinner tomorrow but I'm not sure. What was your recovery like, esp beyond the first day?

Hi everyone!

I am starting the process of freezing my eggs with CoFertility. I got lab work done and a transvaginal ultrasound. My AMH is 2.74 and my follicle count is 16. They told me that I was approved to continue with the split program. The first retrieval is to be donated, and the second retrieval is mine to keep. Any retrieval that happens after those two; you keep half and donate half. I just wanna know from people‘s experience, is the first round of freezing the most lucrative? I’m just gonna be really pissed if I donate a bunch of eggs, and then when I do my round I get like half the number. TYIA!!

36F. My doctor called me with my AMH results (1.4) and described them as “on the lower side of what I expected given age”.

I’m not even sure if I want kids, I was pretty resigned to the fact I’d be child free after years of being single. But then I went through an unexpected breakup and it threw my vision of the future into disarray. Kids weren’t going to be in the picture in my last relationship and I was totally ok with that, but now I don’t know what the future holds.

Is it worth it to continue? Any positive or negative experiences with similarly low AMH?

Im single and 29 and I don’t know if I want kids. I do know that I would only have kids if I’m in a relationship with someone who I want to have them with. As far as I know I’m healthy and have no known fertility problems.

I’m thinking about freezing my eggs, but I’m worried about the fertility tests because I don’t want to know if I am likely to have fertility problems. I know that sounds strange, but I feel like it will negatively effect me in dating and put additional pressure on it. I also feel like I would then have to disclose that information to people I’m dating rather than just wait and see if we get pregnant when I find the right person - and that is likely to add a difficult dynamic to relationships when they are forming. of course, I may be absolutely fine and not find any issues when I’m going through the freezing process.

I’d be interested to hear anyone else‘s experience with this and how you found bad news about fertility affected you or not.

thank you!!

Hi everyone! I had my post-IVF appointment with my RE and wanted to see if anyone has had a similar experience.

I’m 27. We had 37 eggs retrieved, 27 mature, and 19 fertilized with ICSI, but unfortunately only 3 out of the 19 made it to blastocyst.

The good news is that we did PGT-A on all three and all 3 came back euploid, which we’re extremely grateful for:
Day 6 4AB - euploid
Day 6 4BB - euploid
Day 7 5BB - euploid

My doctor explained that most of our embryos were already poor quality (grades 2–3) on Day 3, and based on how the cycle went, she feels our low blastocyst conversion was most likely related to egg quality rather than sperm quality.

She said that if we decide to do another retrieval, she would consider adding growth hormone (HGH) to my stimulation protocol to potentially help with egg/embryo quality.

Has anyone had a similar cycle with lots of eggs and good fertilization, but poor Day-3 embryo quality and a very low blastocyst rate? If you added HGH for your next retrieval, did you see a noticeable improvement in embryo quality or blastocyst numbers?

Also, what side effects did you experience from HGH? Were they mild/manageable, or did you find HGH noticeably harder on your body compared with a cycle without it?

I’d love to hear both positive and negative experiences, especially from anyone with a similar cycle pattern. ❤️

I'm preparing to do my first cycle, and I'm trying to keep myself very calm and stress-free, but have recently been through a break up and am experiencing major grief as a woman in my late 30s with all my friends around me having babies. How are we all keeping things peaceful in the lead up to this?

I am really not doing well. I think I messed up my trigger shot (2x Diphereline/Decapeptyl). I watched several YouTube tutorials, but I still didn’t do it correctly. I managed to get a leak between the needle and the plastic part. I guess I didn’t attach it firmly enough or maybe I pressed it too hard. There was no additional warning about this, and I had never done it before.

From that point on, I got extremely shaky and emotional. I had no one to call because the clinic isn’t operating at this time. I had my doubts about administering it myself, so at first I thought I should go to a hospital. But then I watched the videos, and it seemed okay to do it on my own. I understood that everyone administers it themselves.

There were several drops that I just didn’t get into my body. I had no one to help me, and I trusted myself to do it. Now I just feel so stupid and completely desperate, and I can’t understand how I managed to mess this up. I really tried to prepare as well as I possibly could, but I still managed to make a mistake.

It’s my body going through all of this, and I have borrowed money to pay for this. I also hate that I was trusted with something so important, but I understand that the whole process is treated as something I have chosen and am responsible for.

I just feel so alone and almost unstable right now.

Hi all, I’m scheduled to start stims on Wednesday. I had my TSH tested for anesthesia last week and both results came back on the higher end (5 and 7). I think I was slightly under the weather and stressed about egg freezing so that may have impacted my results as I have been tested regularly and have always had TSH in the 2-4 range. I was also tested for T3/T4 and both results were normal.

My nurse wrote me a prescription to start levothyroxine 75 mg to get my TSH back into range. I’m a bit nervous about this as I’ve heard this is a life long medication and I don’t want to be on it if not required. Has anyone been in a similar situation and been put on this medication just for egg freezing and then come off of it? Is that something that is possible? Preferably I would have liked to be retested in a months time to see if my TSH was back in line but was told I should start it before stims.

Has anyone worked with Dr.James Nodler
At CCRM, Seattle? Thinking of starting our process truly need feedback

I’m 28, pretty healthy individual and was optimistic going into the process everything was looking great no underlying issues. Was excited to probably be one cycle and done. AFC was 18, throughout the process they counted 12, were only able to retrieve 10 and only 5 were mature. I’m disappointed and shocked at how low the result is, given I know people who are older / had more success in this process despite that. Dr said it probably was just a bad batch of eggs and that he can’t really guarantee a much better outcome if I decided to do one more round. Feel like what happened to me is pretty rare and generally just feeling confused..

Everyone said the trigger shot was bad. I thought they meant it burned a lot and took a long time. Well, I did mine last night and within an hour and a half I was very dizziness and vomiting everything in my stomach. Felt like alcohol poisoning. I was in hell. I took Dramamine and feel better after a good night's sleep.

I wish I had hydrated a lot the day before the shot.... I did ok, but not a good as I sometimes have been. I feel pretty crummy.

Did this happen to anyone else? My clinic said it's just part of the estrogen shock. Does this mean I'm more likely to vomit a lot during pregnancy?

It’s my first round of embryo freezing
CD4 today and day 3 of stimulation injections

I started acupuncture before my AF started
My acupuncture therapy is certified and qualified for fertility treatments. She is using infrared light on my abdomen area along with the needles.

She also suggested to do red light therapy at home for 20 min. When I asked Gemini and chatgpt it was saying to avoid it. Waiting to hear back from my RE.

Did anyone of you try infrared light therapy during or after your treatments to reduce inflammation??
Was it useful?

It’s my first time and I don’t want to do something that works against the ER process.

Looking for guidance
Thank you 🙏 for your support

Hello ! I have a few questions as I am a bit stressed-out by this new adventure. I am 34 and unfortunately single again..

Did you gain weight during the hormonal injections ?

How did you do your injections, by yourself or with the help of someone else (I don't like needles so much). And where ? In the belly, the leg ?

Do you need to do the injections at the exact same hour ?

How the retrieval is going to happen ? Did you feel weird and very tired after all ? Did you need to stay a bit in the hospital/clinic ?

And finally, what about the hormones ? Did you feel them during the process and after ? Was it terrible (like depression ++) or manageable ?

Thank you so much for your help !

Anyone has experienced empty follicles and only 1 egg retrival out of 7 follicles at age 34?

Hey everyone,

I posted here about a week ago, the night before my retrieval, and I just wanted to come back with an update because so many of you were incredibly kind to me on that post

18 eggs retrieved and 16 were mature!!! 😭
I’m genuinely SO happy with the result and mostly just relieved. After everything, knowing that it’s actually done and that I have 16 mature eggs frozen feels a little surreal.

Recovery has definitely been more intense than I expected though. I had a lot of cramping and was VERY bloated after the retrieval. I was also absolutely exhausted for pretty much the entire week and, emotionally… all over the place lol. I don’t know how much was the hormone crash vs just everything catching up with me, but I definitely underestimated that part.

Then my period arrived on day 5 post-retrieval and OH MY GOD It is probably the heaviest period I’ve ever had and the cramps are painful. It’s manageable, but definitely not my usual period.

The good thing is that I’m with my family right now, which I think has made such a difference. I don’t really think about the discomfort when I’m talking to people, laughing, doing things etc. It’s mostly when I finally sit down or lie in bed that I suddenly realise how exhausted and sore my body still is.

So I guess my ovaries gave me 16 mature eggs AND an emotional life lesson 😭

And ALSO, I think the biggest relief is knowing I don’t have to constantly think about my biological clock anymore. As a woman it takes SUCH a huge weight off my shoulders now I can just focus on myself, my life, what makes me happy and actually have kids when I feel ready, instead of feeling like I’m running out of time.

thank you again to everyone who commented on my first post. I was reading your replies before my retrieval and they genuinely made me feel so much less alone.

For anyone currently going through stimulation or waiting for their retrieval: you’ve got this. And please give yourself permission to be absolutely useless for a few days afterwards if your body asks for it !!

Hi everyone! I’m in my mid-30s and looking for some personal experiences/advice before I speak to my doctor later this year.

About three years ago, I had laparoscopic surgery to remove ovarian cysts, and I was officially diagnosed with endometriosis. I already suspected I had it because of my symptoms. Since the surgery, I’ve been taking a progesterone-only pill, and honestly, I feel much better on it. My symptoms and flow have improved significantly.

I recently ended a five-year relationship, and it has made me start thinking more seriously about my future fertility. I’m considering freezing my eggs, but I’m a little unsure about how the process works when you have endometriosis and are currently on hormonal medication.

For those who have been through this:
Did you stop your progesterone pill before freezing your eggs, and if so, for how long?
Is it generally better to freeze eggs sooner rather than later with endometriosis, or is it reasonable to stay on the pill and only stop when you’re actually ready to try to conceive?
How long did the entire egg-freezing process take for you, from the first appointment to the retrieval?
How many eggs were you able to freeze, and did you need more than one cycle?
Is there anything you wish you had known before starting the process?

I know everyone’s situation is different/unique and I’ll obviously discuss this with a fertility specialist, but I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has gone through egg freezing, especially with endometriosis.

Thank you! ❤️