Today is Part 1 of a series on my recent egg retrieval journey.
Let’s talk about eggs.
Eggs don’t stop aging just because we haven’t found Mr. Right. They have a certain shelf-life. And boy, I’m knocking on expiration’s door.
OK, so maybe not knocking yet, but I’m getting close. Like way too close for comfort. Can cause a girl to have some anxiety. And then of course there are friends and family that push the dating thing, marriage, having kids, etc. etc. It’s like, yeah, no, I am totally not interested in any of these things. Give a girl a break.
And then there was an article on CNN a few years back about a book called “The Big Lie” that amplified all those nagging voices (external and internal). (You can read the article here.) Basically, the book is about the “big lie” that all ob/gyns tell women…that you have plenty of time to have children.
Fact of the matter is, fertility in women is greatest when they are between 20 and 28 years of age. This is totally unfair because what exactly do you know about life (and raising another life) at 20 years old. But I digress.
By the age of 35, a woman’s chance of conceiving per month is decreased by half and by age 45, the natural fertility rate per month is reduced to only 1%.
So I asked my ob/gyn..as a thirty-something year old woman…did we need to sound the alarm? Without missing a beat, I got the “don’t worry, you have plenty of time” line. That was the last time I saw her.
I moved onto another doctor, who actually referred me to a fertility doctor so that she could run some tests and talk about some options. Hallelujah!! There isn’t anything I like more than a plan and some action items. Our plan – to freeze my eggs.
That was about 2 years ago. Probably not the smartest to delay for 2 years when my eggs are getting older by the day.
Part of the reason for the delay (and the reason I’m sharing my journey with all of you) is because I had to work through some potential hiccups with my neurologist (I have MS). In fact, it was actually my MS nurse practitioner that suggested I blog about my journey. Why? Because, while I’m sure I’m not the first person to pursue an egg retrieval while on MS meds, there isn’t much information or materials out there for doctors, much less patients. In fact, my doctor was unable to find any information on patients that went through an egg retrieval cycle while on my MS medication (Tecfidera).
What’s the big deal you ask? Tecfidera is considered a FDA pregnancy category C drug and it’s unknown whether it could harm a baby. Due to the potential unknowns, my fertility doctor wanted me to go off Tecfidera while I was going through the cycle. My neurologist on the other hand obviously wanted me to continue to take it. After a bunch of back and forth, we decided that I’d continue with the Tecfidera. Part of the decision-making rested on the fact that my MS has been stable for 2 years and we didn’t feel like I should jeopardize that (especially for more of an “elective” type of procedure). Now that we’ve reached a decision on that, all systems are a “go.”
So I hope ya’ll will join me on this journey. It’s sure to be an interesting (and exciting) one!
Leave a Reply