ALL THE VITRIFIED EGGS DIED ON THAW

7 years later, I went to use the frozen eggs, and 100% died immediately on thaw. They were supposed to survive thaw with over a 90% success rate. Instead, every single one died. These were not slow freeze - these were vitrified. These eggs were so good, Dr. B told me at the time that he wouldn't let me do another freeze cycle because I had so many perfect 32 year old eggs. This is unfathomable. I cannot begin to explain the grief I am feeling. I have a call with Dr. B on Monday morning.

2.5 years later

If you'd like to read this blog from the beginning, you can start HERE (and click "newer post"):

As always, you can contact me at eggfreezer@gmail.com

Also, nothing in this blog should be taken as medical advice. Talk to your doctor. :)

Picture of my frozen egg

Here is an actual egg from my retrieval. (the whole thing is the egg and the spot is the nucleus). Life is a pretty crazy thing. This egg was inside me (in a premature state) for 32 years - even before I took my own first breath as a newborn. Had I not had the retrieval, this egg would have just never developed and died off last month - just another one of the many millions that die off over a woman's lifetime. Instead, through modern medicine, it was able to be matured and extracted and it is now quite literally frozen in time alongside 27 others, potentially to be the starting building block of a future human being. And this egg is what is fully sufficient and necessary to make that human my biological child. This is the tie - the everything and anything that is what a woman prefers when she wants "her own" biological baby. Whatever it is that she wants - what I want - it's in there. Part of me is in there.

Final Appointment (to review results)

So today was the day I went in to meet with the doc and really review my results.

Dr. B was smiling ear to ear, and greeted me happily, saying something like "I told you when you first came in that we really like to see younger patients - you can't get better results than what you got"

So what we already knew was that 31 eggs were retrieved, of which 28 were frozen. Some more data

- the reason there were more eggs than follicles, was just because the little follicles weren't counted, this is normal
- The 3 eggs that weren't frozen were just simply not mature enough to even try to freeze
- Of the 28 frozen, 27 were "spindle positive" - which sorta means mature normal spindles, which is apparently very important. I asked if that meant the other was mutated or something, and Dr. B said it didn't mean that, but that it just wasn't as good/mature and had poorer pregnancy results or something though it could still totally produce a normal baby, but that spindle positive eggs were the very best
- so of the 27 spindle positive eggs - they were perfect - couldn't get more perfect

Now here's the wonderful numbers that almost made me cry. Dr. Noyes, one of the egg freezing pioneers and another doctor at NYU, published research that says that you should use 8 spindle positive eggs for a good IVF outcome. I have 27 spindle positives. 8 is a good solid IVF attempt. That means I have over 3 GOOD IVF attempts. NYU's success rate is between 50-60% per good ivf attempt with frozen eggs (and that's in 2008 - who knows how much better results might be 8 years down the road when I could need these). And that doesn't even take into account that fact that my odds should be better because the eggs are 32.

Dr. B says based on my results he's comfortable saying that my odds are better than 8/10 for a baby from these egg and he could not in good conscience suggest I do another round unless money was no object, because I was just as ideal as ideal could be. And he's a doctor, and he needs to be conservative. Every published anything online suggests the odds are like 20 or 30% per egg retrieval. So for Dr. B to say I'm better than 8/10?! Awesome. And when I do the math, I see 3 IVF cycles, and even with the lower bound 50% success rate, that's still over 88% that at least on cycle is successful. If my odds are closer to 60% per cycle, we're looking at 94% odds that there's a baby in there.

Dr. B. says this is why young people are just the ideal candidates. I got 31 eggs, 27 spindle positive. The typical egg freezer might be 40 and get 7 or 8 eggs, and those may not be spindle positive.

Anyway, I also asked all my other questions - like my nagging uncertainty about whether I had PCOS based on words thrown around- Dr. B. says I don't have PCOS and that I do ovulate. I have Polycystic ovaries and that's it - so I have irregular period and makes lots of eggs, but beyond that, I ovulate, and I'm normal and all that.

And I got to get a full genetic screening in this whole deal, and I'm not a carrier for a single typically-tested recessive disease.

And even though my mother went through an early-ish menopause, there is no indication whatsoever that I am headed down this path - I look like a very fertile 32 year old. So says Dr. B.

Not a bad bit of news no matter how hard I tried to get it! Perfect eggs, No need for a second round, No PCOS, No early Menopause indications, no recessive genes .....!

And they're going to try to send me a photo of an ACTUAL EGG - I'll totally frame it on my wall :)

If you want to contact me directly

It's really exciting to me that a couple of egg-freezing planners have contacted me through comments. I live in NYC, and I'd really be glad to meet anyone who wants to have a support buddy in this process. There really isn't a lot online that isn't commercial, and as far as I know, my blog is the first step-by-step blog documenting egg freezing. As this grows, there's no reason we can't have a broader community for egg freezers the way IVF'ers do, etc. Could be good to keep up through the years.

If you want to contact me and are willing to share at least some information (even if just an email address you create for the purpose of contacting me) you can email me at eggfreezer@gmail.com

I think it would be cool to help people with their HCG shots or if they need someone to pick them up post surgery. I mean, at least until requests get out of hand .... I'd love to get to know more egg freezers. So if you're using my blog as a reference for your own process, send me a note!

Completely back to normal

My skin is back to normal. My weight is exactly what it was before I started this adventure. I have no side effects or any lasting anything.

The weight gain/loss is really odd to me - 2 weeks ago I was 10-11 lbs heavier and not believing that could all just disappear and that it was just water weight. Especially since I used the shots/process as an excuse to eat whatever I wanted.

I did interrupt and ongoing diet to do the egg freeze. Now that that's done, it's back to the diet, and I'm back to where I was for my 2008 goal .... 6.5 more lbs to lose before year's end, which isn't all that scary. This might be a year where I actually meet most of the goals I set for myself (move to NY, freeze eggs, lose 25 lbs ...)

Goal for 2009 - make these frozen eggs an unneeded insurance plan :)

Almost back to normal

So I'm on day 3 of my period, and it's still bad, but it's almost like a "normal" day 1 (where, for the boys amongst you, day 1 is typically the worst - so I'm about at a normal day 1 whereas day 1 and 2 this time were far worse). Usually by day 3 things are almost wrapping up. Definitely not this time.

Weight wise: I was up about 10 lbs at one point, and I'm now down to about 3 lbs up with still potentially more water weight to go. This is without dieting, so it's good to know that most (if not all) of the weight gain was fake and temporary.

Skin wise: I think I'm not getting any new breakouts. Mind you, I've been wearing makeup, so it's not like most poeple could tell I was breaking out, but I was. As far as I can tell, new breakouts have stopped and I just need the existing breakouts to heal up.

I started shots a little over a month ago, and perhaps symptoms about a month ago. I would say I'm almost back to "normal" in all senses - skin, weight, bloating, etc. So all in, it was a month worth of side effects.

I have an appointment Dec 2 as a final post-retrieval consult. This is where I'll discuss the results formally with the doctor (as opposed to just the nurses reporting to me) and ask any questions I have about statistics, second rounds, and chromosome normalcy of the eggs retrieved. I'll probably also get a prescription to go back on the pill - I haven't been on the pill since around 2006. But since I just had a full gyn workup, I'm sure this doc can just write it up for me.