November 12, 2025 • 33 mins
Consider this your fertility Q&A, minus the misinformation you might see on social media. Hope sits down with Dr. Lucky Sekhon to talk egg freezing: When is the right time to do it? What's a man's responsibility in all this? And most importantly, how can we plan for the future without freaking out about it?
To learn more, be sure to pre-order Dr. Lucky's book The Lucky Egg (out Jan. 13, 2026).
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
When people come into your office, what do you really
have to like rework their thoughts on I'm assuming.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Maybe as pretend it's you.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Yeah, right, I walk in.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I'm twenty nine, and this is something I tell the
team all the time. I would love a baby at
thirty two. This is the number I'm throwing around, right,
because if I say I'm going to have a baby
at thirty two, maybe I'll have one at thirty four, right.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Like if I just sort of have it on the timeline.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
You're penciling it in so that you think about it
and prioritizing. Right, that's actually really smart.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
You know, I've said I'll do it without a husband.
I've said I'll do it without a partner. I've thought
about maybe going to a bar and maybe close to
like in Boston, find a bar near Harvard or something, and.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Try to find a smart time.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
So maybe that's not completely realistic, But if you're a
woman who's serious about planning for your future, there's a
lot you can actually do now to prepare Today. We're
talking about one of those ways egg freezing. I'm hopewitdtered
and welcome to voiceover a space where we're learning and
on learning all the myths we're taught about love and relationships.
(01:21):
Is it just me or does it feel like a
lot of medical misinformation being spread online is often targeted
at young women. I have too many friends who have
fallen for lies about birth control, are periods, what to eat,
what not to eat, and what expensive new procedures to get.
So much of it is bullshit and it's really hard
(01:41):
to sort through. Enter Doctor Lucky Secon someone who's doing
the good work online. She's a board certified obgin and
fertility doctor who educates her followers and debunks myths about
women's health. Lately, what I've wanted answers on is how
to go about planning for my future in terms of
having a family with or without a partner. Doctor Lucky
(02:03):
is an expert on that, so I decided to do
a deep dive with her on egg freezing, and if
I'm being honest, this is a topic I really don't
know very much about. So please bear with me and
all of my dumb questions. But at the same time,
you know what they say, no such thing as a
stupid question, Doctor Lucky.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Welcome to boy Sober.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I want to say, I.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Feel like obgi N's like it's such a beautiful and
intimate setting and job, and like every time I've ever
been to like a woman's health clinic, I feel so
thankful and like so taking care of Yeah, it's just
such an important and special.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
It's very sensitive, Yes, it's very sensitive area.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I want to know, like what piece of misinformation do
you find coming up the most when it comes to
like women's health.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Is this gonna be like a ten part episode? I mean,
so women's health in all all of the fear and
vulnerability surrounding it is often harnessed. It's weaponized because women
are great at consuming products, and so people are like
I can sell them supplements, or I can sell them
a cleanse or a detox or a program, And it's
(03:15):
always surrounding that. I always make a joke. I'm like,
look for the link in bio, Like, if you see
link in bio at the end of like some salacious
video that an influencer's posting about women's health, there you go.
That's the clue that they just want to sell you something.
So you know that's the overall theme, but it's about
everything from all of the ways that we're damaging our
egg quality or things that don't make sense and our
(03:39):
contrary to what people have been taught about their biological clock.
Like there was something someone posted the other day that said, actually,
a new study came out and women don't have a
biological clock, but men do. And it's like that's a
feel good headline that makes someone say, hey, this is
contrary to what I've been taught. You know, I'm not
trying to get them to do anything. I present the facts,
I explain the science, the biology, we do an assessment
(04:02):
that's individual to their situation, and then I give them
my recommendation. But I think it is always a red
flag if someone's like, you have to do this story else, right,
So I think they feel really at ease once they
realize that this is a conversation you're coming to me
to learn. There's no obligation that you're walking out of
here signed up to do egg freezing or whatever.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
That makes me want to introduce my producer and today
co host, Christina, because you all met before this moment.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Can you talk us through it?
Speaker 4 (04:31):
What was our meet cute?
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Exactly me?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Cute was I was the patient, you were the doctor.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Classic classic.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
I was getting an egg retrieval and she was my doctor.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
And the people might be confused though, so you're not
my patient, correct, But I was covering procedures that day,
and we cross cover each other because retrievals have to
happen when your body's ready. Just like if you were
going to Ogian to have your baby and your doctor's
not on call that weekend, I still going to deliver
your baby, but their partner's going to do it right totally.
I was the partner doing yes.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Well, Christina, I want to know, like, when you first
went to a fertility doctor, what were you interested in?
Speaker 3 (05:11):
What questions were you asking?
Speaker 5 (05:13):
I was maybe like thirty six thirty seven when I
finally got it done. Thirty four to thirty five is
when my friends were starting to get it, like my
best friends, and finally, at one point I realized all
of them had gotten it except for me, and it
was just like a denial thing. And finally I was
like I got to look into this and it literally
was like what is egg freezing? Yeah, which is why
(05:36):
we're here today right to get these kind of very
like entry level kind of questions answered. Because I didn't
know about it, and I wish I knew about it
ten years earlier.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
Did you feel intimidated? Yes.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
In the beginning when I didn't know about it, I
had heard so many different stories from friends. Some had
good experiences, some had stressful. So once I went through it,
I had my own and I'll talk about that. But
I went into a doctor's office and got a consult
and then I felt at ease when they started explaining
to me in layman's.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Storms, really right, what are the layman's turns?
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Like?
Speaker 1 (06:12):
How how do you bring people to the conversation, Like
when someone comes into your office with.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
I have a series of steps. I have a step
wise approach because I think it is very overwhelming, and
so first of all, I start off asking them a
bunch of questions, and you know, want to know their
medical history, because there might be things that are in
their medical history that they don't think are relevant but
are really important, like such a lot of times I'm
the first one picking up that they might have a
(06:38):
condition called polycystic ovary syndrome PCOS, okay PCOS, or that
there's hints or signs of endometriosis. And these are conditions
that at baseline can increase your risk of infertility down
the line. So there's that, But then there's also like
family history, right, like I'm asking when did your mom
go into MENOPAUSEA are they're red flags that you could
have an inherent risk of losing your fertility at an
(07:01):
earlier age. These are all the things. We're like detectives
piecing together all these clues and then you know, usually
explaining what the biological clock is, because that's the reason
why people talk about egg freezing.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Typically women are born with how many eggs.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Usually about two million. Not only do we have a
situation where we're born with all the eggs we're ever
going to have, we don't make new eggs. We don't
repair our eggs. Usually you're only releasing one egg every
month if you have a period. Not everyone gets a period.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
So then they release one.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Yeah, exactly, they're ovulating. That's the sign that you're ovulating,
but a bunch of other ones are trickling to the surface.
I always say think of it as like there is
a pantry and you have this stockpile that you're born with. Yeah,
and you're never going to get to go back to
the grocery store. You got what you got, Yes, like
you're a stockpile. Every month, a certain number can escape
in a process I can't control, neither can your body.
(07:52):
And those are the eggs that come to the kitchen cabinets.
And then ovulation is like opening one cabinet or the
other and taking out one egg to use it. Some
are perishable and go away.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Right, which maybe is confusing me, like only releasing one.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
But the rest of the ones that floated to the surface,
they get thrown away and then a new set come.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Up to bat And this happens monthly.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
It happens like in waves. Yeah, exactly, like very sick yeap.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
Is there a general number of how many perle recruit?
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Well, when you go and see an obgy in or
a fertility doctrine, they do a scan. They'll say, we're
going to do your follicle count. They're only able to
see and count what's in the kitchen cabinets, and that
is transient. And unless you do something like egg freezing
or the first part of IVF where you take shots
to try to get all of them to be activated
and grow, they're gonna get thrown away. And I can't
(08:40):
make you recruit more even if I wanted to. If
someone could figure that out, that would solve a lot
of problems. Because the quality of the egg you're releasing
each month is also decreasing. Especially at thirty five and older,
it's harder to ovulate a healthy egg. So people are
trying to do egg freezing because I can get to
more eggs at that younger age to freeze them. But
more importantly, that can version rate of those frozen eggs
(09:01):
at a younger age is going to be higher when
it comes to how many can turn into healthy embryos.
So it gives you a major headstart if and should
you ever need fertility treatment, I can say, instead of
starting now at this older age where I have less
eggs and they're not maybe as healthy, let's dip into
the supply you froze when you were younger to give
yourself a head start.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
I have a question that's a little bit off topic,
but a little bit on topic. Sure, I have an IUDH,
and so I haven't had a period since twenty nineteen, right,
and when I talked to other women about that, I
think it like really scares them, Like I do. Also
think there's like a little bit of misinformation around like
iud's and birth control when it comes to like gen.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Z oh one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
My god.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
I had a friend take out her own IUD the
other day at home, like.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
She freaked out, yeah, And I was like, wait, yeah,
I wouldn't recommend that. No, Okay, yeah no, Like yeah, wait.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Can you talk about why that's like not a good thing,
because I didn't want to be like judgmental.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Yeah, but I was like, I don't really know if
you should be.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Taking out your own IUD, Like yeah, it's insane.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Well, birth control works in different ways, and that's important
to explain. Hormonal birth control, pills, pills, patches, the ring,
all of those actually prevent your pituitary gland, your brain
from sending a signal to the ovary to randomly select
that one that's going to get to ovulate.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
This is so crazy. I love how much you know
about my body.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
This is crazy. So your brain is sending messages to.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
You normally to randomly select that's that lottery. Like your
brain is Simon Kel what it's choosing who gets who
gets to ovulate? Okay, my brain really is Simon And
so that's the one that you get to ovulate, right,
And so if you're on the pill, what you're doing
is you're basically fooling your brain into thinking, oh, you're
(10:43):
giving yourself a little bit of estrogen. So it's like, oh,
I don't need to do the work. There's already stuff
happening with the ovary, so it just shuts down the signal.
So you're just not sending signals to the ovary. But
you're still recruiting, and those eggs are still kind of
dissipating and going away getting thrown out of the kitchen
cat but you're just not opening one or the other
and taking an egg out. IUD is different. IUD does
not actually prevent ovulation. The way the IUD works is
(11:04):
it's more like a bouncer that's in your uterus, Like, no,
I'm not letting the sperm in r Okay. I don't
know if you know what a bouncer is, because like,
apparently it's not going out anymore, but I am familiar
with the bouncer. Yeah, So that's the main way it works.
But the reason why you're not getting a period is
it usually prevents your lining from getting built up, but
you're still kind of in the background. Ovulating.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Okay, So an IUD in birth control is really not
impacting fertility at all.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
No, if anyone is listening and is interested in egg freezing,
please do not pull your own IUD out or rush
to go get it removed, because we can freeze your
eggs regardless of whether the IUD is there you're sitting
at in your uterus. It's not interfering with anything.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
And I wouldn't recommend pulling it yourself because sometimes it
can get stuck.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
And yeah no, I even like was dating this guy
for a little while and he was like almost judgmental
about the fact that I wasn't getting a monthly period. Yeah,
so I don't know why this like scares.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Clearly doesn't know anything.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I literally yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Wrong, literally, Okay, if I came into the office, would
(12:28):
you be like, let's freeze your eggs now because I'm
twenty nine or what is your conversation around age?
Speaker 4 (12:33):
So there's two things that are changing, Right, how many
eggs I can get from one cycle of effort of
you taking shots right to ten days and then us
actually doing the egg retrieval procedure to remove the eggs right,
So the younger you are the more you have access
to Let's talk about the quality, because we've kind of
focused on just numbers right in like the stockpile. But
what truly matters when it comes to your natural fertility,
(12:55):
it's what is the likelihood of ovulating a healthy egg?
And that's never per for anybody. So there's no perfect age, right,
Obviously the younger the better, but it's the best it
can possibly be where you're at right now.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I think I have some biases, Yeah, egg freezing that
I'm really trying because.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
It seems very unnatural, right, so I think it's important
my bias is I'm like, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
I think there's some sort of like old school thinking
of like something natural as something not better.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yeah, but I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
What that thought.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
Well, here's another speaking of misconceptions to dispel thing that
I'm always telling patients about. Now I've explained the biology.
Now you're going to understan why it's so important to have
that foundation, right, because often people are like, well, I
want to do this because right now my eggs are
the healthiest they're ever going to be in your twenties, right,
But I don't want you to take away from my stockpile.
I don't want you to deplete my eggs earlier. But
(13:46):
I always explained to them that whole analogy that I
only know how to get to what's already out of
the pantry, right, what's already been recruited, and that would
have gotten thrown out regardless. So if you don't use them,
you lose them. So I think when people understand that,
they're like, oh, well, this isn't then obviously hurting my
fertility in any way. It's just basically hijacking the system
and saying, let's make use of the fact that I've
(14:07):
access to these right now, and let's take them out.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
Can we get really technical, just to really explain the
process what I've gone through.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Yeah, yeah, I'd love to hear.
Speaker 5 (14:16):
And if you can correct me when I'm wrong, I
know I will be with something I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
But let's say you're you're ready to freeze your eggs.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, I'm thirty two now, Yeah, yeah, I'm thirty sure.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
I've taken my idea out. This is hypothetical.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
You don't have to take it out. Is just making
the sperm not reach the egg, but the eggs are.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
There, okay, right, And I'm in the office.
Speaker 5 (14:39):
Yes, and you're ready to start the process. You come
in on day two, day three of your period.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
And if you don't get a period, we can figure
that out with what I call we're in cycle blood
work to just figure out hormonally what's happening with your ovaries.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
So then you start and you go in, you get
blood tests, you get an ultrasound. They check and see
how many follicles are present in each ovary, and from
the blood tests they can decide okay, everything looks good.
You're ready to start your meds. Before the process, you
buy the meds.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
You have a whole.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
Pharmacy basically at your place, and so you start depends
on the doctor, the protocol at night, morning, both whatever.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
You start injections.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
The injections are the same signal your brain sends to
the ovary, but at a higher level because instead of
just having enough to select the one egg, we want
to select all of them. You can get all of
them to grow in.
Speaker 5 (15:35):
Which and the injections for the most part, do not hurt.
Like put a little ice pinch your skin. It does
not hurt the injections itself. The point of that is
to plump up the eggs, so to speak.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
We're measuring the bubbles of fluid that each contain one egg,
because as it gets bigger, the egg inside is becoming
mature and capable of being fertilized. Based firm.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
But we're working with what follicles are in your ovaries
that month at that time. So you take your injections,
and for me, I've gone into the office nearly every
other morning.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
It's a real operation, right, it's okay, we're trying to
get you in and adding before your work starts. Yeah,
and we need, say the results to make timely decisions.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
Yes, you get your blood drawn every other day ultrasound
so they can see the growth. They'll actually measure the
follicles and so you can see the progression.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
Sometimes I always wondered why am I going so often?
Like we get it, they're growing. But it's just in
case the body is taking really well and you need
to slow down or not to knock the dose the
dose or add something else.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
So it's like five or six visits over the course
of eight to ten days of shots, and then there's
like an interlude of like two days between your last
injection because in one of those days, I'm going to say, Okay,
looks like we've gotten as many of them to grow.
They're not always always going to grow altogether, but you
want like a good crop of them to be growing
and add a certain size and then a bunch falling
closely behind, and then we say stop the meds and
(16:58):
in two days you're going to come in for the
retrieval procedure. And that's where we met.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
So about like two weeks, let's say, Christina, I am
kind of wondering. I'm wondering like how you were feeling,
not only like physically, but like your emotions during that time.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Were you scared, were you nervous? Were you excited?
Speaker 5 (17:16):
Wasn't excited? When I did it, I was single. I
think I was bitter, to be frank, because I was
a single woman having to pay so much money for
this what year was this pandemic I did in twenty twenty. Yeah,
I was bitter, not because I was single, but just
like I have to spend this money, yeah, and that
(17:37):
when I meet the man that I'm gonna be with,
he doesn't have to. And so it just made me
so bitter the whole time. But in terms of the process,
it was fine. It was very easy for me and still.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
To the still floated by the tail as physically physically.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Yeah, I mean every time that your.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Favorite thing to do, but it's very tall. I've done
a bunch of realms.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Self, I did embryo freezing when I was thirty four,
and I remember being like, oh, this isn't as bad
as I thought, but it wasn't fun.
Speaker 5 (18:06):
Like you floated, right, And I think like when you
do want I'm saying, you take the injections every day,
like you have to take it around the same time.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, And I think for me that was really easy.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
With the pandemic, I work from home.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
There are some people who do go to work and
maybe get stuck in traffic and that's a little stressful, like, oh,
I got to get home in time to do this
injection at a certain time. And then when you get
the retrieval, they'll take everything that you've grown.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
We're cleaning out the kitchen cabinet. Yeah, we're doing So you.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
Go in and it's fifteen minutes under anesthesia. Yeah, best
sleep of your life. Yeah, and then you're out.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Yeah, you didn't feel anything, you don't remember anything.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
It's the most simple procedure, and it's.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Standard of care to give anesthesia because you want someone
to feel nothing. There's not moving around. We're doing it vaginally,
so it's not a big surgery where you're getting like
any abdominal incisions. It's all done very convenient that the
ovaries actually sit on either side of the vaginal wall,
and so it's actually very convenient to just go in
with an ultrasound and we look on the screen and
(19:08):
we kind of use this needle to pierce through the
vaginal wall into each of those bubbles of food and
we just watched them drain. It's actually one of my
favorite things to do. It's a really cool.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Things are really fun.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
I am. What I'm wondering is like, it's crazy to
me that you were doing it on your own. Like
it makes sense because like I'm a single woman who,
like I said, I'm already having this idea of like
not having a husband when I have a kid. But
I'm like, do you have a lot of women who
are doing it on their own mostly or do you
have mostly women who have partners?
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Like what does that look like?
Speaker 4 (19:39):
I think it's a mix. And I loved what you
said about how you were. I don't love that you
felt this way, but I love that you shared your feeling.
You know, a little bit bitter in that situation.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Makes complete sense to me.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
But I will say I've seen a shift in my career.
You know, I think that five to ten years ago,
women who are coming in to talk about egg freezing,
even like during my training.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
People were coming in and.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Like slumped shoulders, feeling like dejected. It was this narrative
of I didn't think I would have to resort to this,
or I didn't think I would need to rely on this.
I was hoping to just like figure this out and
do it like the old fashioned way. Now I'm seeing
something very different, where like women a lot of women
are coming to me single that's fine, but they don't
have that same attitude towards it. I think because it's
(20:25):
become much more normalized and it doesn't feel like this
like last resort situation. It's more like I'm taking a
proactive step. A lot more women aren't paying out of
pocket because a lot of their jobs are now covering
egg freezing, so they're coming into it a little bit
more even like just not feeling like, oh my god,
this is such a huge sacrifice. It's like two weeks
of my life whatever. Some of them are coming in
with their boyfriends and I'm like trying to see what
(20:46):
the vibe is. Are we talking about freezing or egg freezing?
And they're like, oh no, no, no, he's just here
to support me, Like I'm freezing my eggs.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Embryo freezing or egg freezing, two different things.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
An egg is an egg and then there's the sperm. Yeah,
and you put them together fermusmbria.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
That's the end.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
No fertilized egg.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
When okay, when this ferm into the egg?
Speaker 4 (21:07):
When two become one?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
When to become one.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
You create a fertilized egg.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Yeah, So you you can basically freeze an egg, which
is a single cell, of course, and you can just
freeze it and not know until you come back. It's
all a lot of potential, like will it thaw, will
it fertilize, will it grow into an embryo? It has
to get past all those checkpoints. Or we can take
an egg, fertilize it with sperm upfront, and then let
it grow in the lab and it grows and divides
into something that now has one hundred to two hundred cells,
(21:35):
and you can even see the part that will one
day become the baby if this is a number of
that plants and the one the cells that would one
day become the placenta.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
And also what's really interesting is the placenta is an
organ that a lot of people don't think about until
they're pregnant, but it forms. It's pretty much a miracle.
It forms for the purpose of shunting oxygen and nutrients
to a fetus. And there's a lot of research that's
showing a lot of the genes that form the placenta,
which is so crucial to the health of a pregnancy
and the future health of the child, a lot of
(22:05):
them come from the male side, and so that this
is why we're seeing some relationships now between chronic, uncontrolled
medical conditions in men and certain conditions in their children,
and even higher risks of pre acclamcy like a blood
pressure disorder, and pregnancy is super common in women, even
nause in bombing like mourning sickness.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
It comes from it's.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
Right, literally, how much would you say the whole process
costs for egg freezing, and it's a different state by state.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Yeah, there's definitely gonna be some differences from one place
to the next, but in general, I would say it's
anywhere from like ten to fifteen thousand, and that might
not exclude the cost of medication.
Speaker 5 (22:56):
Might not include Yeah, fifteen k is a loss, especially
if you're in your twenties.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
Especially for something you're not a guarantee.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
Correct, What if you can't afford it? Are there payment plans?
Like what can a woman do?
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (23:10):
I mean the thing is is that we've seen a
massive increase in the number of people that have coverage.
We just actually published a paper where I work where
we looked at ten years of egg freezing experience. Ten
years ago, zero percent of egg freezing cycles done at
our clinic were covered by insurance. Now it's almost fifty
percent or more. But a lot of it's coming from
the private sector, you know, And that's not what it
(23:30):
should be. It needs to be coming through legislation and
insurance covering it and prioritizing it. It's really tough if
you don't have the funds to do it. I mean,
it's not something that.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Everyone can do, right, And that's just realistic.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Yeah, and it's unfair.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
I think the reason why it took me a while
to finally get to run financial barrier. Financial was that's
a big chunk of change to put down.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
It's scariest should I should I not mentality when someone's like, well,
I'm kind of in a relationship with a guy, like like,
if it works out, let's do the math, like maybe
in a year we'd be ready. And like, if I'm
thirty one and you're saying things don't start to change,
like they're doing a lot of that rationalization in math,
and I always say, that's fine. You should do whatever
makes you feel comfortable. But this might be something that's
(24:15):
beneficial if you're like me and have no trouble with
baby number one, but end up running into problems with
baby number two just because of the timeline extending into
a zone where it just becomes more challenging.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
That's what finally got me, I think when because I
kept thinking, let me just wait here. I'm sure I'm
going to be somebody next year, you know, I kept like,
let's wait, and then I finally, somebody finally told me
this is a good insurance plan. If you have no
problem conceiving baby number one, great, But then if you
want to be thirty seven by the time you have
(24:46):
your second kid.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
It can give you a great head start.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
You have a bunch of healthy eggs waiting for you
to use.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
And Devil's advocate women come to me at thirty seven
and they didn't do that, and then we start for
scratch and they can't be successful. But the odds are
more likely that they may need multiple rounds to collect
enough eggs as a whole and have enough turn into
healthy embryos. So it just gives you a head start
in a way that might make the whole process more efficient.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
This is something like what's a man's responsibility like in
all of this, Like, is that a conversation you have?
Speaker 4 (25:23):
Oh my god, it's a huge topic. Yeah, and I
think this is a great thing to talk about, even
though I think we're trying to learn more about egg freezing.
But there is this idea that the onus is all
on the female partner. But there's so much information now
that we're getting that men also have a biological clock.
This came up a lot with autism being in the headlines,
(25:43):
but advance paternal age right, which no one can really
agree on a definition, but it's thought to be a
little bit different than it is for women. You know,
at thirty five, we start to see not all the
eggs you know, turn bad, that's what people think, but
it's just an acceleration and the changes in egg counting
quality for men, and we start to see changes in
sperm quality, even the certain incidents of you know, neurodevelopmental
(26:06):
issues and health problems in future children, especially you know,
after forty five or in your fifty sixty seventies, you
can father children as a man who makes sperm, right,
but you can accumulate mutations that then are more likely
to get passed on to children. And so it's not
benign to be a seventy year old fathering children. That
is a narrative that you know is very much in
(26:27):
the past, because now there's data to prove that that's
not true.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
What would you say to someone who's unsure if they
want kids there may be thirty thirty four and they
don't have a partner, Like, what do you usually say
to someone like that?
Speaker 4 (26:40):
I think that you're never going to know how you're
going to feel in the future. I never I think
it's a delicate balance because you never want to be like, oh,
you just wait and see, like you're going to change
your mind, you know. I think being childless by choice
is a valid option for people, and I think it
crates people's nerves when they're given unsolicited advice about that.
Some super sensitive to that. But I think it is
(27:02):
important for me to share with people that I've followed
a lot of patients longitudinally who have come to me
for like a fertility checkup or counseling. Maybe they didn't
do anything, maybe they did. And I've seen people change
their minds, and we're allowed to change our minds. The
problem is is that our biological clock, our damn biological clock,
is not that lenient and flexible, and so what I
(27:23):
find devastating is when someone truly changes their mind and
then it's not a decision for them to make anymore.
It's like their biology has decided that it's difficult. And
there's only so much that IVF and all of the
high tech medications and regimens and things that we can
prescribe can do to overcome the biological clock. At a
certain point, we have limitations, and of course we can
(27:44):
get around them. There's a lot of my patients that,
you know, if they're much older and or they've already
gone into menopause, Like, I can still get someone pregnant
with donor eggs, which is pretty amazing. Your uterist does
an age. That's an uplifting fact that needs to be said. Right,
you can always come back and have you know, the
response to hormones that we can give you to help
an embryo and plant, but it might not look the
(28:05):
way you set out for it to look.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Right, Can I ask a question that might be inappropriate,
but like, what's the oldest woman you've ever gotten pregnant?
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Forty eight? Okay?
Speaker 4 (28:14):
Yeah, yeah, wow, But I mean it's been done around
the world, like at seventy I'm not saying people should
do that, but it is a proven fact that your
uterus always has the ability to carry a pregnancy. It's
our eggs that are the limiting factors.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
So interesting.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Yeah, I mean I would tell the thirty four year
old listen, like, you don't have to do anything right,
but know that you could change your mind and this
is what changes in terms of your biology. So it's
up to you to decide, like what your level of
urgency is to be proactive and freeze for the future.
But I highly recommend it if there's any chance you
could change your mind.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Of course, one thing we talk about on the show
a lot is on learning, sort of like untangling things
we've been taught.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Yes, what is the one thing that.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
You really want people would unlearn about? Like women's health, fertility, pregnancy,
just like in this entire world, Like, what's something you
wish people would sort of like unlearn about all of that.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
I think that it's our burden to bear as women, right.
I think that it's shocking to me that in twenty
twenty five, every once in a while I'll still meet
a couple where the male partner may not want to
get tested or like it's not me, it's her. And
it's becoming less common, thankfully, but I still see it.
And I think that is the prevailing theme in all
(29:31):
of this, is that women blame all of the negatives
around fertility and pregnancy health on themselves. Women often will
not ask for help. They'll often say, yeah, my periods
are normal for me. I mean yeah. But then I
probe further and they're like, I've missed so much school
or work in my life, and I'm like, that's not normal.
That pain is a sign that something is wrong, right,
(29:54):
And so I think that we take on too much.
We are scapegoats. We are people that are often you know,
just left to feel the blame and the weight of
it all. And I think that's what we need to unlearn.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
No, I agree, a lot of this is out of your.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
Control and it's not your fault, right, And there's a
lot of things that in this world you put in
the effort and you get the results in your fertility relationships,
Like all these types of issues in our life which
are so important, aren't in our control.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Your book comes out in January, Yes, what are people
going to learn from it? What are you most excited
for people to read in there?
Speaker 4 (30:30):
Like, well, my book is called The Lucky Egg, and
it's obviously a play on my name, which you know
I grew up hating, and now as a fertility doctor,
I'm like, it's actually great. It makes people feel good.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
So perfect for this book.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
Yeah, And also I wanted to say it earlier, but
I was like I resisted the shameless plug. But we're
talking about the randomness, right, Like the idea that you
just a lot of this is left up to luck.
And it's not to say that there aren't things that
you can do, Yes, Like lead the healthiest version of
your life. And yes, be intentional about your goals. Like
you said, pencil it in for thirty two, so at
(31:02):
least you're thinking about it. So it's not all left
up to chance, but a lot of it is. And
I think that that absolves a lot of women of
the guilt and self blame to hopefully understand like there
is some element of luck and just things kind of
lining up. And I always say, like fertility can feel
like a slot machine. You have to pull the lever
many times to get things to line up. So this
book is trying to help people unlearn a lot of
(31:25):
the unhelpful narratives that have been fed to them about
their fertility. It's also, you know, just highlighted in today's conversation,
how little that we know about this really complex issue.
And we as women for all too long have been
left to our own devices to just magically do this
one to eighty, where now all of a sudden we
have to care about how to track our ovulation and
what to do. So this is literally everything one needs
(31:47):
to know, whether they're preparing to get pregnant, whether they
want to freeze for the future, whether they're going through problems,
whether they're already suffering with failed cycles, and understanding like
fact from fiction because there's a lot of bs out there.
It's really just like everything you need to know.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Okay, amazing. I'm excited to read it. Yeah, I'm going to.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
Send you a copy, please do Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Okay, Well, Doctor Lucky, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Thank you so much, Doctor Lucky for talking to me.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Look out for her book, The Lucky Egg, coming out
in January twenty twenty six. I hope this was informative
for you. It certainly was for me, and I hope
knowing about all of this makes you feel like you
have a little more power over your future. Thanks so
much for listening, and I'll talk to you all next week.
(32:41):
Boy Sover is a production of iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host, Hopewardard.
Our executive producers are Christina Everett and Julie Pinero. Our
supervising producer is Emily Meronoff. Our assistant producer is Logan Palau.
Engineering by Bahid Fraser and mix and mastering by Abu Zafar.
(33:03):
If you liked this episode, please tell a friend and
don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to Boy Sober
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, and wherever you get
your favorite shows.
When people come into your office, what do you really
have to like rework their thoughts on I'm assuming.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Maybe as pretend it's you.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Yeah, right, I walk in.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I'm twenty nine, and this is something I tell the
team all the time. I would love a baby at
thirty two. This is the number I'm throwing around, right,
because if I say I'm going to have a baby
at thirty two, maybe I'll have one at thirty four, right.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Like if I just sort of have it on the timeline.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
You're penciling it in so that you think about it
and prioritizing. Right, that's actually really smart.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
You know, I've said I'll do it without a husband.
I've said I'll do it without a partner. I've thought
about maybe going to a bar and maybe close to
like in Boston, find a bar near Harvard or something, and.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Try to find a smart time.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
So maybe that's not completely realistic, But if you're a
woman who's serious about planning for your future, there's a
lot you can actually do now to prepare Today. We're
talking about one of those ways egg freezing. I'm hopewitdtered
and welcome to voiceover a space where we're learning and
on learning all the myths we're taught about love and relationships.
(01:21):
Is it just me or does it feel like a
lot of medical misinformation being spread online is often targeted
at young women. I have too many friends who have
fallen for lies about birth control, are periods, what to eat,
what not to eat, and what expensive new procedures to get.
So much of it is bullshit and it's really hard
(01:41):
to sort through. Enter Doctor Lucky Secon someone who's doing
the good work online. She's a board certified obgin and
fertility doctor who educates her followers and debunks myths about
women's health. Lately, what I've wanted answers on is how
to go about planning for my future in terms of
having a family with or without a partner. Doctor Lucky
(02:03):
is an expert on that, so I decided to do
a deep dive with her on egg freezing, and if
I'm being honest, this is a topic I really don't
know very much about. So please bear with me and
all of my dumb questions. But at the same time,
you know what they say, no such thing as a
stupid question, Doctor Lucky.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Welcome to boy Sober.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I want to say, I.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Feel like obgi N's like it's such a beautiful and
intimate setting and job, and like every time I've ever
been to like a woman's health clinic, I feel so
thankful and like so taking care of Yeah, it's just
such an important and special.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
It's very sensitive, Yes, it's very sensitive area.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I want to know, like what piece of misinformation do
you find coming up the most when it comes to
like women's health.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Is this gonna be like a ten part episode? I mean,
so women's health in all all of the fear and
vulnerability surrounding it is often harnessed. It's weaponized because women
are great at consuming products, and so people are like
I can sell them supplements, or I can sell them
a cleanse or a detox or a program, And it's
(03:15):
always surrounding that. I always make a joke. I'm like,
look for the link in bio, Like, if you see
link in bio at the end of like some salacious
video that an influencer's posting about women's health, there you go.
That's the clue that they just want to sell you something.
So you know that's the overall theme, but it's about
everything from all of the ways that we're damaging our
egg quality or things that don't make sense and our
(03:39):
contrary to what people have been taught about their biological clock.
Like there was something someone posted the other day that said, actually,
a new study came out and women don't have a
biological clock, but men do. And it's like that's a
feel good headline that makes someone say, hey, this is
contrary to what I've been taught. You know, I'm not
trying to get them to do anything. I present the facts,
I explain the science, the biology, we do an assessment
(04:02):
that's individual to their situation, and then I give them
my recommendation. But I think it is always a red
flag if someone's like, you have to do this story else, right,
So I think they feel really at ease once they
realize that this is a conversation you're coming to me
to learn. There's no obligation that you're walking out of
here signed up to do egg freezing or whatever.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
That makes me want to introduce my producer and today
co host, Christina, because you all met before this moment.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Can you talk us through it?
Speaker 4 (04:31):
What was our meet cute?
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Exactly me?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Cute was I was the patient, you were the doctor.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Classic classic.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
I was getting an egg retrieval and she was my doctor.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
And the people might be confused though, so you're not
my patient, correct, But I was covering procedures that day,
and we cross cover each other because retrievals have to
happen when your body's ready. Just like if you were
going to Ogian to have your baby and your doctor's
not on call that weekend, I still going to deliver
your baby, but their partner's going to do it right totally.
I was the partner doing yes.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Well, Christina, I want to know, like, when you first
went to a fertility doctor, what were you interested in?
Speaker 3 (05:11):
What questions were you asking?
Speaker 5 (05:13):
I was maybe like thirty six thirty seven when I
finally got it done. Thirty four to thirty five is
when my friends were starting to get it, like my
best friends, and finally, at one point I realized all
of them had gotten it except for me, and it
was just like a denial thing. And finally I was
like I got to look into this and it literally
was like what is egg freezing? Yeah, which is why
(05:36):
we're here today right to get these kind of very
like entry level kind of questions answered. Because I didn't
know about it, and I wish I knew about it
ten years earlier.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
Did you feel intimidated? Yes.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
In the beginning when I didn't know about it, I
had heard so many different stories from friends. Some had
good experiences, some had stressful. So once I went through it,
I had my own and I'll talk about that. But
I went into a doctor's office and got a consult
and then I felt at ease when they started explaining
to me in layman's.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Storms, really right, what are the layman's turns?
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Like?
Speaker 1 (06:12):
How how do you bring people to the conversation, Like
when someone comes into your office with.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
I have a series of steps. I have a step
wise approach because I think it is very overwhelming, and
so first of all, I start off asking them a
bunch of questions, and you know, want to know their
medical history, because there might be things that are in
their medical history that they don't think are relevant but
are really important, like such a lot of times I'm
the first one picking up that they might have a
(06:38):
condition called polycystic ovary syndrome PCOS, okay PCOS, or that
there's hints or signs of endometriosis. And these are conditions
that at baseline can increase your risk of infertility down
the line. So there's that, But then there's also like
family history, right, like I'm asking when did your mom
go into MENOPAUSEA are they're red flags that you could
have an inherent risk of losing your fertility at an
(07:01):
earlier age. These are all the things. We're like detectives
piecing together all these clues and then you know, usually
explaining what the biological clock is, because that's the reason
why people talk about egg freezing.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Typically women are born with how many eggs.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Usually about two million. Not only do we have a
situation where we're born with all the eggs we're ever
going to have, we don't make new eggs. We don't
repair our eggs. Usually you're only releasing one egg every
month if you have a period. Not everyone gets a period.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
So then they release one.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Yeah, exactly, they're ovulating. That's the sign that you're ovulating,
but a bunch of other ones are trickling to the surface.
I always say think of it as like there is
a pantry and you have this stockpile that you're born with. Yeah,
and you're never going to get to go back to
the grocery store. You got what you got, Yes, like
you're a stockpile. Every month, a certain number can escape
in a process I can't control, neither can your body.
(07:52):
And those are the eggs that come to the kitchen cabinets.
And then ovulation is like opening one cabinet or the
other and taking out one egg to use it. Some
are perishable and go away.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Right, which maybe is confusing me, like only releasing one.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
But the rest of the ones that floated to the surface,
they get thrown away and then a new set come.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Up to bat And this happens monthly.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
It happens like in waves. Yeah, exactly, like very sick yeap.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
Is there a general number of how many perle recruit?
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Well, when you go and see an obgy in or
a fertility doctrine, they do a scan. They'll say, we're
going to do your follicle count. They're only able to
see and count what's in the kitchen cabinets, and that
is transient. And unless you do something like egg freezing
or the first part of IVF where you take shots
to try to get all of them to be activated
and grow, they're gonna get thrown away. And I can't
(08:40):
make you recruit more even if I wanted to. If
someone could figure that out, that would solve a lot
of problems. Because the quality of the egg you're releasing
each month is also decreasing. Especially at thirty five and older,
it's harder to ovulate a healthy egg. So people are
trying to do egg freezing because I can get to
more eggs at that younger age to freeze them. But
more importantly, that can version rate of those frozen eggs
(09:01):
at a younger age is going to be higher when
it comes to how many can turn into healthy embryos.
So it gives you a major headstart if and should
you ever need fertility treatment, I can say, instead of
starting now at this older age where I have less
eggs and they're not maybe as healthy, let's dip into
the supply you froze when you were younger to give
yourself a head start.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
I have a question that's a little bit off topic,
but a little bit on topic. Sure, I have an IUDH,
and so I haven't had a period since twenty nineteen, right,
and when I talked to other women about that, I
think it like really scares them, Like I do. Also
think there's like a little bit of misinformation around like
iud's and birth control when it comes to like gen.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Z oh one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
My god.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
I had a friend take out her own IUD the
other day at home, like.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
She freaked out, yeah, And I was like, wait, yeah,
I wouldn't recommend that. No, Okay, yeah no, Like yeah, wait.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Can you talk about why that's like not a good thing,
because I didn't want to be like judgmental.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Yeah, but I was like, I don't really know if
you should be.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Taking out your own IUD, Like yeah, it's insane.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Well, birth control works in different ways, and that's important
to explain. Hormonal birth control, pills, pills, patches, the ring,
all of those actually prevent your pituitary gland, your brain
from sending a signal to the ovary to randomly select
that one that's going to get to ovulate.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
This is so crazy. I love how much you know
about my body.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
This is crazy. So your brain is sending messages to.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
You normally to randomly select that's that lottery. Like your
brain is Simon Kel what it's choosing who gets who
gets to ovulate? Okay, my brain really is Simon And
so that's the one that you get to ovulate, right,
And so if you're on the pill, what you're doing
is you're basically fooling your brain into thinking, oh, you're
(10:43):
giving yourself a little bit of estrogen. So it's like, oh,
I don't need to do the work. There's already stuff
happening with the ovary, so it just shuts down the signal.
So you're just not sending signals to the ovary. But
you're still recruiting, and those eggs are still kind of
dissipating and going away getting thrown out of the kitchen
cat but you're just not opening one or the other
and taking an egg out. IUD is different. IUD does
not actually prevent ovulation. The way the IUD works is
(11:04):
it's more like a bouncer that's in your uterus, Like, no,
I'm not letting the sperm in r Okay. I don't
know if you know what a bouncer is, because like,
apparently it's not going out anymore, but I am familiar
with the bouncer. Yeah, So that's the main way it works.
But the reason why you're not getting a period is
it usually prevents your lining from getting built up, but
you're still kind of in the background. Ovulating.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Okay, So an IUD in birth control is really not
impacting fertility at all.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
No, if anyone is listening and is interested in egg freezing,
please do not pull your own IUD out or rush
to go get it removed, because we can freeze your
eggs regardless of whether the IUD is there you're sitting
at in your uterus. It's not interfering with anything.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
And I wouldn't recommend pulling it yourself because sometimes it
can get stuck.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
And yeah no, I even like was dating this guy
for a little while and he was like almost judgmental
about the fact that I wasn't getting a monthly period. Yeah,
so I don't know why this like scares.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Clearly doesn't know anything.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I literally yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Wrong, literally, Okay, if I came into the office, would
(12:28):
you be like, let's freeze your eggs now because I'm
twenty nine or what is your conversation around age?
Speaker 4 (12:33):
So there's two things that are changing, Right, how many
eggs I can get from one cycle of effort of
you taking shots right to ten days and then us
actually doing the egg retrieval procedure to remove the eggs right,
So the younger you are the more you have access
to Let's talk about the quality, because we've kind of
focused on just numbers right in like the stockpile. But
what truly matters when it comes to your natural fertility,
(12:55):
it's what is the likelihood of ovulating a healthy egg?
And that's never per for anybody. So there's no perfect age, right,
Obviously the younger the better, but it's the best it
can possibly be where you're at right now.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I think I have some biases, Yeah, egg freezing that
I'm really trying because.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
It seems very unnatural, right, so I think it's important
my bias is I'm like, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
I think there's some sort of like old school thinking
of like something natural as something not better.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yeah, but I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
What that thought.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
Well, here's another speaking of misconceptions to dispel thing that
I'm always telling patients about. Now I've explained the biology.
Now you're going to understan why it's so important to have
that foundation, right, because often people are like, well, I
want to do this because right now my eggs are
the healthiest they're ever going to be in your twenties, right,
But I don't want you to take away from my stockpile.
I don't want you to deplete my eggs earlier. But
(13:46):
I always explained to them that whole analogy that I
only know how to get to what's already out of
the pantry, right, what's already been recruited, and that would
have gotten thrown out regardless. So if you don't use them,
you lose them. So I think when people understand that,
they're like, oh, well, this isn't then obviously hurting my
fertility in any way. It's just basically hijacking the system
and saying, let's make use of the fact that I've
(14:07):
access to these right now, and let's take them out.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
Can we get really technical, just to really explain the
process what I've gone through.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Yeah, yeah, I'd love to hear.
Speaker 5 (14:16):
And if you can correct me when I'm wrong, I
know I will be with something I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
But let's say you're you're ready to freeze your eggs.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, I'm thirty two now, Yeah, yeah, I'm thirty sure.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
I've taken my idea out. This is hypothetical.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
You don't have to take it out. Is just making
the sperm not reach the egg, but the eggs are.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
There, okay, right, And I'm in the office.
Speaker 5 (14:39):
Yes, and you're ready to start the process. You come
in on day two, day three of your period.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
And if you don't get a period, we can figure
that out with what I call we're in cycle blood
work to just figure out hormonally what's happening with your ovaries.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
So then you start and you go in, you get
blood tests, you get an ultrasound. They check and see
how many follicles are present in each ovary, and from
the blood tests they can decide okay, everything looks good.
You're ready to start your meds. Before the process, you
buy the meds.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
You have a whole.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
Pharmacy basically at your place, and so you start depends
on the doctor, the protocol at night, morning, both whatever.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
You start injections.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
The injections are the same signal your brain sends to
the ovary, but at a higher level because instead of
just having enough to select the one egg, we want
to select all of them. You can get all of
them to grow in.
Speaker 5 (15:35):
Which and the injections for the most part, do not hurt.
Like put a little ice pinch your skin. It does
not hurt the injections itself. The point of that is
to plump up the eggs, so to speak.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
We're measuring the bubbles of fluid that each contain one egg,
because as it gets bigger, the egg inside is becoming
mature and capable of being fertilized. Based firm.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
But we're working with what follicles are in your ovaries
that month at that time. So you take your injections,
and for me, I've gone into the office nearly every
other morning.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
It's a real operation, right, it's okay, we're trying to
get you in and adding before your work starts. Yeah,
and we need, say the results to make timely decisions.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
Yes, you get your blood drawn every other day ultrasound
so they can see the growth. They'll actually measure the
follicles and so you can see the progression.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
Sometimes I always wondered why am I going so often?
Like we get it, they're growing. But it's just in
case the body is taking really well and you need
to slow down or not to knock the dose the
dose or add something else.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
So it's like five or six visits over the course
of eight to ten days of shots, and then there's
like an interlude of like two days between your last
injection because in one of those days, I'm going to say, Okay,
looks like we've gotten as many of them to grow.
They're not always always going to grow altogether, but you
want like a good crop of them to be growing
and add a certain size and then a bunch falling
closely behind, and then we say stop the meds and
(16:58):
in two days you're going to come in for the
retrieval procedure. And that's where we met.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
So about like two weeks, let's say, Christina, I am
kind of wondering. I'm wondering like how you were feeling,
not only like physically, but like your emotions during that time.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Were you scared, were you nervous? Were you excited?
Speaker 5 (17:16):
Wasn't excited? When I did it, I was single. I
think I was bitter, to be frank, because I was
a single woman having to pay so much money for
this what year was this pandemic I did in twenty twenty. Yeah,
I was bitter, not because I was single, but just
like I have to spend this money, yeah, and that
(17:37):
when I meet the man that I'm gonna be with,
he doesn't have to. And so it just made me
so bitter the whole time. But in terms of the process,
it was fine. It was very easy for me and still.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
To the still floated by the tail as physically physically.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Yeah, I mean every time that your.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Favorite thing to do, but it's very tall. I've done
a bunch of realms.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Self, I did embryo freezing when I was thirty four,
and I remember being like, oh, this isn't as bad
as I thought, but it wasn't fun.
Speaker 5 (18:06):
Like you floated, right, And I think like when you
do want I'm saying, you take the injections every day,
like you have to take it around the same time.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, And I think for me that was really easy.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
With the pandemic, I work from home.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
There are some people who do go to work and
maybe get stuck in traffic and that's a little stressful, like, oh,
I got to get home in time to do this
injection at a certain time. And then when you get
the retrieval, they'll take everything that you've grown.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
We're cleaning out the kitchen cabinet. Yeah, we're doing So you.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
Go in and it's fifteen minutes under anesthesia. Yeah, best
sleep of your life. Yeah, and then you're out.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Yeah, you didn't feel anything, you don't remember anything.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
It's the most simple procedure, and it's.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Standard of care to give anesthesia because you want someone
to feel nothing. There's not moving around. We're doing it vaginally,
so it's not a big surgery where you're getting like
any abdominal incisions. It's all done very convenient that the
ovaries actually sit on either side of the vaginal wall,
and so it's actually very convenient to just go in
with an ultrasound and we look on the screen and
(19:08):
we kind of use this needle to pierce through the
vaginal wall into each of those bubbles of food and
we just watched them drain. It's actually one of my
favorite things to do. It's a really cool.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Things are really fun.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
I am. What I'm wondering is like, it's crazy to
me that you were doing it on your own. Like
it makes sense because like I'm a single woman who,
like I said, I'm already having this idea of like
not having a husband when I have a kid. But
I'm like, do you have a lot of women who
are doing it on their own mostly or do you
have mostly women who have partners?
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Like what does that look like?
Speaker 4 (19:39):
I think it's a mix. And I loved what you
said about how you were. I don't love that you
felt this way, but I love that you shared your feeling.
You know, a little bit bitter in that situation.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Makes complete sense to me.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
But I will say I've seen a shift in my career.
You know, I think that five to ten years ago,
women who are coming in to talk about egg freezing,
even like during my training.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
People were coming in and.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Like slumped shoulders, feeling like dejected. It was this narrative
of I didn't think I would have to resort to this,
or I didn't think I would need to rely on this.
I was hoping to just like figure this out and
do it like the old fashioned way. Now I'm seeing
something very different, where like women a lot of women
are coming to me single that's fine, but they don't
have that same attitude towards it. I think because it's
(20:25):
become much more normalized and it doesn't feel like this
like last resort situation. It's more like I'm taking a
proactive step. A lot more women aren't paying out of
pocket because a lot of their jobs are now covering
egg freezing, so they're coming into it a little bit
more even like just not feeling like, oh my god,
this is such a huge sacrifice. It's like two weeks
of my life whatever. Some of them are coming in
with their boyfriends and I'm like trying to see what
(20:46):
the vibe is. Are we talking about freezing or egg freezing?
And they're like, oh no, no, no, he's just here
to support me, Like I'm freezing my eggs.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Embryo freezing or egg freezing, two different things.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
An egg is an egg and then there's the sperm. Yeah,
and you put them together fermusmbria.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
That's the end.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
No fertilized egg.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
When okay, when this ferm into the egg?
Speaker 4 (21:07):
When two become one?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
When to become one.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
You create a fertilized egg.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Yeah, So you you can basically freeze an egg, which
is a single cell, of course, and you can just
freeze it and not know until you come back. It's
all a lot of potential, like will it thaw, will
it fertilize, will it grow into an embryo? It has
to get past all those checkpoints. Or we can take
an egg, fertilize it with sperm upfront, and then let
it grow in the lab and it grows and divides
into something that now has one hundred to two hundred cells,
(21:35):
and you can even see the part that will one
day become the baby if this is a number of
that plants and the one the cells that would one
day become the placenta.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
And also what's really interesting is the placenta is an
organ that a lot of people don't think about until
they're pregnant, but it forms. It's pretty much a miracle.
It forms for the purpose of shunting oxygen and nutrients
to a fetus. And there's a lot of research that's
showing a lot of the genes that form the placenta,
which is so crucial to the health of a pregnancy
and the future health of the child, a lot of
(22:05):
them come from the male side, and so that this
is why we're seeing some relationships now between chronic, uncontrolled
medical conditions in men and certain conditions in their children,
and even higher risks of pre acclamcy like a blood
pressure disorder, and pregnancy is super common in women, even
nause in bombing like mourning sickness.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
It comes from it's.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
Right, literally, how much would you say the whole process
costs for egg freezing, and it's a different state by state.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Yeah, there's definitely gonna be some differences from one place
to the next, but in general, I would say it's
anywhere from like ten to fifteen thousand, and that might
not exclude the cost of medication.
Speaker 5 (22:56):
Might not include Yeah, fifteen k is a loss, especially
if you're in your twenties.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
Especially for something you're not a guarantee.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
Correct, What if you can't afford it? Are there payment plans?
Like what can a woman do?
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (23:10):
I mean the thing is is that we've seen a
massive increase in the number of people that have coverage.
We just actually published a paper where I work where
we looked at ten years of egg freezing experience. Ten
years ago, zero percent of egg freezing cycles done at
our clinic were covered by insurance. Now it's almost fifty
percent or more. But a lot of it's coming from
the private sector, you know, And that's not what it
(23:30):
should be. It needs to be coming through legislation and
insurance covering it and prioritizing it. It's really tough if
you don't have the funds to do it. I mean,
it's not something that.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Everyone can do, right, And that's just realistic.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Yeah, and it's unfair.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
I think the reason why it took me a while
to finally get to run financial barrier. Financial was that's
a big chunk of change to put down.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
It's scariest should I should I not mentality when someone's like, well,
I'm kind of in a relationship with a guy, like like,
if it works out, let's do the math, like maybe
in a year we'd be ready. And like, if I'm
thirty one and you're saying things don't start to change,
like they're doing a lot of that rationalization in math,
and I always say, that's fine. You should do whatever
makes you feel comfortable. But this might be something that's
(24:15):
beneficial if you're like me and have no trouble with
baby number one, but end up running into problems with
baby number two just because of the timeline extending into
a zone where it just becomes more challenging.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
That's what finally got me, I think when because I
kept thinking, let me just wait here. I'm sure I'm
going to be somebody next year, you know, I kept like,
let's wait, and then I finally, somebody finally told me
this is a good insurance plan. If you have no
problem conceiving baby number one, great, But then if you
want to be thirty seven by the time you have
(24:46):
your second kid.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
It can give you a great head start.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
You have a bunch of healthy eggs waiting for you
to use.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
And Devil's advocate women come to me at thirty seven
and they didn't do that, and then we start for
scratch and they can't be successful. But the odds are
more likely that they may need multiple rounds to collect
enough eggs as a whole and have enough turn into
healthy embryos. So it just gives you a head start
in a way that might make the whole process more efficient.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
This is something like what's a man's responsibility like in
all of this, Like, is that a conversation you have?
Speaker 4 (25:23):
Oh my god, it's a huge topic. Yeah, and I
think this is a great thing to talk about, even
though I think we're trying to learn more about egg freezing.
But there is this idea that the onus is all
on the female partner. But there's so much information now
that we're getting that men also have a biological clock.
This came up a lot with autism being in the headlines,
(25:43):
but advance paternal age right, which no one can really
agree on a definition, but it's thought to be a
little bit different than it is for women. You know,
at thirty five, we start to see not all the
eggs you know, turn bad, that's what people think, but
it's just an acceleration and the changes in egg counting
quality for men, and we start to see changes in
sperm quality, even the certain incidents of you know, neurodevelopmental
(26:06):
issues and health problems in future children, especially you know,
after forty five or in your fifty sixty seventies, you
can father children as a man who makes sperm, right,
but you can accumulate mutations that then are more likely
to get passed on to children. And so it's not
benign to be a seventy year old fathering children. That
is a narrative that you know is very much in
(26:27):
the past, because now there's data to prove that that's
not true.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
What would you say to someone who's unsure if they
want kids there may be thirty thirty four and they
don't have a partner, Like, what do you usually say
to someone like that?
Speaker 4 (26:40):
I think that you're never going to know how you're
going to feel in the future. I never I think
it's a delicate balance because you never want to be like, oh,
you just wait and see, like you're going to change
your mind, you know. I think being childless by choice
is a valid option for people, and I think it
crates people's nerves when they're given unsolicited advice about that.
Some super sensitive to that. But I think it is
(27:02):
important for me to share with people that I've followed
a lot of patients longitudinally who have come to me
for like a fertility checkup or counseling. Maybe they didn't
do anything, maybe they did. And I've seen people change
their minds, and we're allowed to change our minds. The
problem is is that our biological clock, our damn biological clock,
is not that lenient and flexible, and so what I
(27:23):
find devastating is when someone truly changes their mind and
then it's not a decision for them to make anymore.
It's like their biology has decided that it's difficult. And
there's only so much that IVF and all of the
high tech medications and regimens and things that we can
prescribe can do to overcome the biological clock. At a
certain point, we have limitations, and of course we can
(27:44):
get around them. There's a lot of my patients that,
you know, if they're much older and or they've already
gone into menopause, Like, I can still get someone pregnant
with donor eggs, which is pretty amazing. Your uterist does
an age. That's an uplifting fact that needs to be said. Right,
you can always come back and have you know, the
response to hormones that we can give you to help
an embryo and plant, but it might not look the
(28:05):
way you set out for it to look.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Right, Can I ask a question that might be inappropriate,
but like, what's the oldest woman you've ever gotten pregnant?
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Forty eight? Okay?
Speaker 4 (28:14):
Yeah, yeah, wow, But I mean it's been done around
the world, like at seventy I'm not saying people should
do that, but it is a proven fact that your
uterus always has the ability to carry a pregnancy. It's
our eggs that are the limiting factors.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
So interesting.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Yeah, I mean I would tell the thirty four year
old listen, like, you don't have to do anything right,
but know that you could change your mind and this
is what changes in terms of your biology. So it's
up to you to decide, like what your level of
urgency is to be proactive and freeze for the future.
But I highly recommend it if there's any chance you
could change your mind.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Of course, one thing we talk about on the show
a lot is on learning, sort of like untangling things
we've been taught.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Yes, what is the one thing that.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
You really want people would unlearn about? Like women's health, fertility, pregnancy,
just like in this entire world, Like, what's something you
wish people would sort of like unlearn about all of that.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
I think that it's our burden to bear as women, right.
I think that it's shocking to me that in twenty
twenty five, every once in a while I'll still meet
a couple where the male partner may not want to
get tested or like it's not me, it's her. And
it's becoming less common, thankfully, but I still see it.
And I think that is the prevailing theme in all
(29:31):
of this, is that women blame all of the negatives
around fertility and pregnancy health on themselves. Women often will
not ask for help. They'll often say, yeah, my periods
are normal for me. I mean yeah. But then I
probe further and they're like, I've missed so much school
or work in my life, and I'm like, that's not normal.
That pain is a sign that something is wrong, right,
(29:54):
And so I think that we take on too much.
We are scapegoats. We are people that are often you know,
just left to feel the blame and the weight of
it all. And I think that's what we need to unlearn.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
No, I agree, a lot of this is out of your.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
Control and it's not your fault, right, And there's a
lot of things that in this world you put in
the effort and you get the results in your fertility relationships,
Like all these types of issues in our life which
are so important, aren't in our control.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Your book comes out in January, Yes, what are people
going to learn from it? What are you most excited
for people to read in there?
Speaker 4 (30:30):
Like, well, my book is called The Lucky Egg, and
it's obviously a play on my name, which you know
I grew up hating, and now as a fertility doctor,
I'm like, it's actually great. It makes people feel good.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
So perfect for this book.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
Yeah, And also I wanted to say it earlier, but
I was like I resisted the shameless plug. But we're
talking about the randomness, right, Like the idea that you
just a lot of this is left up to luck.
And it's not to say that there aren't things that
you can do, Yes, Like lead the healthiest version of
your life. And yes, be intentional about your goals. Like
you said, pencil it in for thirty two, so at
(31:02):
least you're thinking about it. So it's not all left
up to chance, but a lot of it is. And
I think that that absolves a lot of women of
the guilt and self blame to hopefully understand like there
is some element of luck and just things kind of
lining up. And I always say, like fertility can feel
like a slot machine. You have to pull the lever
many times to get things to line up. So this
book is trying to help people unlearn a lot of
(31:25):
the unhelpful narratives that have been fed to them about
their fertility. It's also, you know, just highlighted in today's conversation,
how little that we know about this really complex issue.
And we as women for all too long have been
left to our own devices to just magically do this
one to eighty, where now all of a sudden we
have to care about how to track our ovulation and
what to do. So this is literally everything one needs
(31:47):
to know, whether they're preparing to get pregnant, whether they
want to freeze for the future, whether they're going through problems,
whether they're already suffering with failed cycles, and understanding like
fact from fiction because there's a lot of bs out there.
It's really just like everything you need to know.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Okay, amazing. I'm excited to read it. Yeah, I'm going to.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
Send you a copy, please do Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Okay, Well, Doctor Lucky, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Thank you so much, Doctor Lucky for talking to me.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Look out for her book, The Lucky Egg, coming out
in January twenty twenty six. I hope this was informative
for you. It certainly was for me, and I hope
knowing about all of this makes you feel like you
have a little more power over your future. Thanks so
much for listening, and I'll talk to you all next week.
(32:41):
Boy Sover is a production of iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host, Hopewardard.
Our executive producers are Christina Everett and Julie Pinero. Our
supervising producer is Emily Meronoff. Our assistant producer is Logan Palau.
Engineering by Bahid Fraser and mix and mastering by Abu Zafar.
(33:03):
If you liked this episode, please tell a friend and
don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to Boy Sober
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, and wherever you get
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