As I have mentioned in previous posts, I have already been through a cycle of egg freezing. I started this blog is to share my experiences from the second cycle, I figure I may as well give an overview of the procedure while talking about my first cycle as well. I think of egg freezing as being divided into 5 main parts:
1. Consultation and pre-testing
2. Preparing for stimulation phase
3. Stimulation phase
4. Egg retrieval
5. Recovery
I’ll do a post on my experiences with each part.
Consultation and pre-testing
Prior to my first appointment, I stopped taking birth control pills for several weeks so that if hormone tests were necessary, they wouldn’t be distorted by the birth control pills. During my first appointment, Dr. Westphal went over my medical history, my reasons for wanting egg freezing, how the egg retrieval procedure works, the risks of the procedure, etc. She did a vaginal ultrasound to look at my ovaries, and said everything looked good with them. I was a bit nervous about the vaginal ultrasound, but for no reason--it didn’t hurt at all. Much more comfortable than a normal pelvic exam.
Dr. Westphal said it looked like I was a good candidate for egg freezing, but that we would need to get some lab tests done to be sure. Normally the tests for FSH and estradiol are done on the third day of your period. I was a little past that but she thought it was close enough that we could do the tests that day anyway, so she sent me down to the lab.
A few days later, a nurse called to let me know that my blood work was normal and that I was a candidate for egg freezing.
At that point, I delayed for over a year before actually proceeding with the egg freezing. I was moving to take a new job and thought I would do egg freezing in my new city, but I was so busy with the job that I didn’t get around to it until I moved back to the Bay Area more than a year later.
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