December 13, 2021 • 34 mins
This week, Chiquis is joined by her fertility doctor to learn more about the egg-freezing process. Doctor Shahin Ghadir answers questions about candidacy, side effects, costs and more. We also hear more from Chiquis about this important decision she's making.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
I know that the clock is sticking, and I know
that when we've last checked my my account was very low.
This is my body and no one should tell me
what I can and cannot do with it. And I
think God is okay with it. The dream of parents,
that is one of the biggest dreams that we all
all live for and work for. Hello everyone, and welcome
(00:31):
to another episode of Cheeks and Chill. I'm your host,
cheek Ease, and I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.
I am. I had a really good weekend. Actually, I relaxed.
I was in pjs, you know, just doing the thing,
being more of Jennet than cheek Eas, you know. But anyways,
today's episode is something very personal to me. It's a
topic that isn't really talked about, especially in the Latin culture.
(00:53):
I feel it's kind of, I guess, frowned upon in
a way. I always use this word, but it's true,
it's kind of taboo. So a couple of years ago,
I revealed my decision to freeze my eggs. It was
when I realized that I had assists in my left ovary.
I never knew it was there until one day I
woke up with a horrible pain. I felt like I
(01:15):
was going to die. It was like, I think, like
three in the morning, and I had my assistant and
I'm not one to go to the hospital. I I
can really really tolerate pain. So when I called her
and I said, I need you to take me to
the hospital, she knew it was like serious. I had her,
you know, running red lights and something. I don't recommend
you guys, but I was in so much pain that
(01:36):
I just I don't It was horrible. When I got
to the hospital, they said, well, you have assists. I
guess it turned over on itself. My ovary because the
cists was pretty big, and they just said, you can
leave it there, you can remove it. I decided to
leave it there, and then I went to a specialist
and this is how I met Dr Kadeer, and he
found out that I had endometriosis, something I didn't know.
(01:58):
This is something I've never shared with anybody. I want
to share with you, guys, but I don't know if
this is one of the reasons why I have endometriosis.
I had a miscarriage when I was nineteen. I've never
talked about it ever, and I obviously was afraid. I
was scared. I never told my mom, I never told anybody.
I didn't know what was really happening. I knew I
(02:20):
was pregnant. I just didn't know how to tell my mom.
And then I don't know if it was a stress
I I just started bleeding and stuff started coming out
at chunks. It was really really crazy. Apparently I had
a miscarriage. I never went to the doctors to take
care of it, so they had to go in later
like a year later, actually not a out of your letter,
like six months, eight months later, and I went and
(02:41):
got a pop smere and they're like, you know what,
we need to clean up, Like I told them what
had happened, and they needed to go in there and
put me to sleep and basically clean up my uterus.
And I've always thought, is it because of that situation
that's what happened? And then I thought they had removed
my sis apparently back and grew back and they had
(03:02):
to remove it again because I don't know. I don't
know what happened. I don't know if it was a
new sis, if it was the same sis, I don't
know it was in the same ovary, so that was
also keeping me from freezing my eggs, because if you
inject too many hormones in your body, well, I was
just going to be feeding that one cis and it
was just going to get bigger and bigger and not
necessarily my eggs. So that's one thing that had me
(03:24):
just you know, I was a little hesitant about it.
Now I do wish I would have done it sooner.
I think it's just something that especially as a woman
and everything that's in our food and in the air,
it's just I don't know. I think of all these
things and I'm like, it has to affect our bodies.
So I think that the sooner you do it, the
better because it's just kind of like a backup plan.
(03:47):
I'm gonna try to get pregnant naturally with my current
partner because right now I'm not on birth control. Right now,
I am just not trying to get pregnant, but not
not trying to get pregnant, so I don't know what
that means. I'm just like, if it happens, and if
it's meant to be, then that's what's going to happen.
And I just want to have my eggs just in case.
I can't have the baby, I can't get pregnant on
my own, or I don't know, maybe I want to
(04:10):
get a surrogate. I've thought about that before. I've also
thought about my siblings. I know this is weird, but
I've thought about like Johnny, you know, if he wants
to have a baby with his partner. I know it
sounds weird, but I'm like, hey, I'm his sister. You know.
I've thought about so many different things. You guys, I
just feel like it's it's a good backup plan just
in case I'm not able to get pregnant and I
(04:31):
would do it on my own or with a partner.
I think right now, I am not even thinking about
getting pregnant necessarily, like at this moment, but I just
know that time is ticking and I have to get
it done. And I don't want to feel like, damn,
I should have done it, you know, would have, could have,
(04:53):
should have? You know, I kind of want to be like, Okay,
I have it. That pressure is kind of off, and
I can kind of just kill a little bit, travel
a little bit more and and do me. You know,
I just want to do it sooner rather than later.
I was talking about it on the reality show, and
I met a doctor through the reality shows. That's one
of the great things. Actually, there's a lot of really
good things about the reality show, and I want to
(05:15):
think that and be grateful for those moments, because even
though it was a lot of hard work and sometimes
it did bring a little bit of drama in our life,
I got to spend a lot of time with my family,
with my friends, and I also got to meet really
cool people like the person that I'm going to speak
to today, which is actually my doctor, Dr Gooder. And
a lot of people ask me, did you already freeze
your eggs? Cheekys. No, I have not, and I know
(05:37):
he's very upset with me about it. He texted me
here and there He's like, when are we going to
do this? Cheeks? You know it is time Before we
get further into the conversation, I want to welcome Dr Gooder. Hello,
Dr Gooder? How are you? He's here with me? Hello?
Thank you so much for having me. Of course, I
wish you guys could see him. He has the best
(05:57):
eyebrows in the world at like your hair could. By
the way, you thank you very much so, Dr Deer.
I know that is something that I need to do
as soon as possible. When do you recommend Dr Deer
to freeze your eggs? So, first of all, I want
to address something that you said. You're not the only
woman that feels like this. It's a big step for
people to take, and I usually like to tell people
(06:21):
just do it and be done with it, because I
guarantee you afterwards you're going to realize that this was
so much easier than you ever thought. It is a
quick ten to twelve day process of little injections that
we teach you how to administer in your belly, and
if you can't do it yourself, we are happy to
help you do them, and we can come into the
office every day and help you do them. We can
(06:41):
even send someone to your home and do them. But
there's a couple of different things involved. The sooner and
the younger you do this, the better. So everyone's peak
fertility is probably between the ages of like twenty and
twenty seven. That is your peak fertility as a female,
and after that time it just begins to decline. Now,
there are other are things that can affect your fertility
(07:01):
as well. For example, endometriosis, PCOS and the number one
thing that affects you eggs is aging. And one of
the things that you also talked about. I think it's
very sensitive and should be addressed, is because in the
Latin culture, because so many people do have kids at
a younger age, this is something that maybe looked as
(07:23):
taboo or frowned upon or making you less of a woman,
but it's not. There are many many Latin women patients
of mind, and to be honest, from all cultures and
backgrounds that are coming to my office that have become
very successful businesswomen, accomplished in many different areas of the
world and in the world of business, and who are
(07:45):
just not ready to have a child. And there is
no reason why you should be giving up the dream
of parenthood just so you can go forward with having
a kid at the wrong time in your life. And
that's what this allows you to do. It allows you
to preserve your fertility and your right to make your
decision about when it's right for you to have a child. See.
(08:06):
And that's the thing. When I first started this process,
I did hear it a lot, even like on media,
Oh she can't have kids, she's in other words broken,
you know, And it's not that it's just it's a
choice of mine because I wasn't necessarily ready to have children,
and I said, okay, this is a way of taking
the pressure off. And I got things like it's going
(08:27):
against God's will. I feel that it is my choice.
It's my body. I'm very, very pro choice in a
lot of things. So this is something that this is
my body and no one should tell me what I
can and cannot do with it. And I think God
is okay with it. Dr Gader exists for a reason.
God gave us this technology. I think if it's against
someone's morals, religious thoughts, beliefs in this world, and they
(08:51):
shouldn't do it. But for many people who are out
there that they believe in science, and they believe in technology,
and they believe in the field of medicine and how
amazing we've become and how advanced we are. My field
of medicine has only existed for thirty years. I mean,
that's it. And then it's only been in the last
I want to say, ten fifteen years that we've become
really good at it. And I want to say in
(09:12):
the egg freezing world, it's only been around for about
ten years. So We've only gotten really good at it,
i'd say in the last maybe a few years, so
we're very good at it now. There's been other reality
TV show stars who came and froze their eggs at
the age of forty four and came back and had
those kids at the age of forty six and delivered
(09:32):
at forty seven and did amazing And I'm sure most
people know who I'm talking about, But I think it's
a very personal decision. I do not think it's fair
for anyone to judge if it's God's choice or God
is allowing, or God looks down in your eyes. If
the person believes that it's against their religious beliefs, then
I don't promote that for them. But for most people,
(09:53):
I think science is on their side, and the dream
of parenthood is one of the biggest dreams that we
all all live for and work for. And I don't
believe it's someone's position to kind of be negative about
it against someone else's. I agree. I agree. I'm all
about live and let live. Whatever you want to do,
I respect it. Whatever I want to do, you should
respect it, you know. And it's not even because of
(10:15):
what they've said or what my family may think, or
some of my family should. I say, I haven't done it.
It's just has been one thing or another. But I
know that the clock is sticking, and I know that
when we've last checked my my account was very low.
So I guess in a way, I'm a little afraid
of going and getting all the tests done again, and
then what if I they're even lower, which I'm sure
(10:37):
is going to happen, because, like you said, it's age
when is too late. There are a lot of clinics
at the age of like forty close their doors. Some
clinics close their doors at the age of forty two,
some clinics at the age of forty four. We don't
close our doors. Every single patient is their own human being,
and we like to assess and have discussions. So I've
had discussions with patients saying that listen, you may make
(11:00):
very few eggs. But then again, I have had people
make very few eggs and be successful and do incredibly
well with the whole journey and the process. So would
I tell my little sister, oh, you're only going to
make one or two or three eggs, just don't do it.
I would say absolutely the opposite. One egg on ice
is better than no eggs on ice. And I think
(11:22):
that keeping yourself in the game, keeping whatever your body
is able to help you produce, and keeping it there
for your future at least keeps a door open. Even
if it doesn't work, you will know that you did
every single thing you could, and we have planned b
there's always the use of other people's eggs and egg
donation and things like that. But you're a perfect, perfect
(11:45):
example of the busy young woman in her thirties who
doesn't have the time to do this, a perfect example
for someone who is a little scared of doing it
because no one walks in is excited about this. But
it's one of those things in life where we do
it and we need to move on. I tell everyone
the best piece of advice I can give you to
(12:07):
freeze your eggs is start it, do it, and be
done with it, because once you start, a month later,
you're going to bed at night saying, wow, I'm so happy.
Now my eggs are on the freezers at Dr Gooder's office.
He's doing all the babysitting, he's doing all the work now,
and I can go to bed at night knowing that
I did what I needed to do. And if you
(12:28):
needed to do it more than once, then people have
done it more than once. I had one patient that
did it five times. She said to me, Dr Gadeer,
I'm going to have my four kids on my timeline
and I'm going to do everything that I can to
promote that and to keep my doors open. And she
did it. She did it five times and she had
over fifty eggs by the time she was done. Wow,
Oh my goodness. Okay, well, I'm just gonna pray that
(12:50):
I have like at least five. I think I'm gonna
have more than that. I'm just I'm gonna be positive. Well,
you mentioned right now it takes ten to twelve days.
Can you explain the process. So yeah, let's go through
the process, because I think it's really important for a
young woman who's out there. First of all, I want
everyone to check their medical insurance, call HR at their
(13:11):
office and find out if they have coverage. The saddest
thing I'm noticing, okay, there are people that have coverage
and don't even know they have coverage for egg freezing
and for fertility treatment. That is the saddest thing ever
for me. So all of the big everyone who works
at Disneyland, at Disney, Netflix, Apple, Google, Snapchat, any of
(13:33):
the big tech companies. They all have the most amazing
coverage that there is now. There are a lot of
other companies, large companies, law firms, lots of these places.
They have this amazing coverage that people just don't even
know what their coverage is. So I don't know about
your personal employer, but that's the first thing I would do.
If you have the coverage, take advantage of it. Freeze
(13:56):
your eggs, take advantage of it. If you don't have
any coverage, don't be scared because we have financing options.
So first of all, we put together one of the
best specials that exists in the world of fertility because
we're a large clinic and we have the opportunity if
we want to give back and help people. So we've
decided for two thousand and twenty two to be giving
(14:17):
back a lot. So we are going to be opening
the doors and giving the opportunity. Um if anyone looks
at my social media channel, which is the Doctor's Shaheen
Gooder channel on Instagram, the specials are popping up left
and right. Our clinic also s c R C IVF.
The specials are popping up there as well. We have
webinars that people can attend, and at the end of
(14:37):
the webinar they're able to do their consultation for a
much lower price by doing so. But if with all
of that you still have trouble, we have options for
financing that help you get this too, as low as
like a hundred and sixty seventy dollars. What is the
(14:59):
cost the class can range. When we do our specials,
they're in the six thousand plus six thousands something range
um and when there's no specials there are in the
eight thousands something range. But with the financing options, we're
able to help people get it as low as in
the one and something dollars a month. Now, it varies,
it varies on your credit, it varies on what you're doing,
(15:19):
it varies on how many cycles you sign up for,
but it's there so financially, I think is the number
one reason people fear this process. Once we have set
up a consultation and we go over everything in someone's
health and we go over their menstrual cycle, what their
goal is. If someone tells me they want to have
four kids versus one kid, I think it's a little
different how many eggs they need to have frozen for
(15:41):
the future. If someone is twenty nine about to be
thirty and they're ready to go the second day turn thirty,
it's a little different than someone who's like thirty nine
about to be forty. So these are all things that
I need to take into consideration when making an overall
plan for someone. And I think it's really important that
we're on the same page. So after the initial consultation
and this these days, it's super easy. We do them
(16:03):
by phone. You don't have to leave your home, you
don't have to leave work, You could do them from
wherever you want. And I've noticed that people are a
lot more comfortable, and I've noticed that people are a
lot more open with me, and they are much more
just relaxed doing these consultations on the phone, rather than
coming to my office in l A, sitting in my
waiting room, coming and sitting here with me, which would
(16:24):
give some people a lot of anxiety. So with that
being said, we've made that as easy as possible. When
the time comes, and it always happens with your period,
So people call us on the first day of their period,
on day two, three, or four of their cycle. We
generally set them up to come in and do a
quick ultrasound of their ovaries. It's a vaginal ultrasound that
(16:45):
looks at the ovary and tells me how youthful, how young,
and how healthy those ovaries look, and then we put
them on a birth control pill to stop their natural
ovulation cycle. Now, if you are already on birth control
pill and have been on it for a while, we
usually recommend for people to go off their birth control
for a month or two before so their natural hormones
(17:05):
just come back to life and are doing really really well.
So that's a really important thing for us to do
um and we kind of do that really quickly, and
once we have people back coming back to normal, we
are ready to start. So after about ten to fifteen
days of birth control, we teach you how to give
yourself these injections that last for about ten to twelve days.
(17:28):
They're tiny, tiny little needs. Some people don't even feel them.
Like we get phone calls all the time, like I'm
so sorry to my nurses. You know, they say, I
don't know if I'm getting the injection, Like I don't
even feel it. But we see that their eggs are growing,
and we see that their estrogen levels are going up,
so we know that they are doing well, and they're
doing they are growing, so they're very small. During those
(17:50):
ten to twelve days of injections, we usually have people
come in about three or four times for ultrasounds and
blood tests to make sure that everything is growing and
everything is coming along really well. And then towards the
end of the ten to twelve days, we usually say,
you know what, you're ready to have your eggs come out.
We bring patients to our surgery center, which is right
here in our office. You've been there before. You're in
(18:10):
there for about an hour, hour and a half. The
actual procedure is under a light an aesthetic that my
anesthesiologist gives. You fall asleep, you wake up, and it's
all done. It takes about three to five minutes for
the eggs to come out. It's a special little needle
that goes at the tip of an ultrasound machine. The
eggs get what we call retrieved, and then those eggs
(18:30):
then go off to the ib F laboratory and all
of the eggs that are mature get frozen to be used.
Whenever you're ready to use them in the future. So
quote unquote healthy, right, because there are some that are
come out that probably are not usable. Is that correct.
So the only thing we're able to check is if
the egg is mature or immature. Now, if you come
(18:52):
in with a partner and say, this is my partner,
we want to make embryos, that's when the egg and
the sperm are put together. When we put the egg
in this them together, then we watch the embryo grow
for a week. Whatever embryo makes it to the full
grown stage at that point, then we are able to
do a little biopsy, freeze the embryo, and I can
(19:13):
tell you a week later if the embryo is genetically
normal or genetically abnormal. That's completely different than the egg.
The egg I can only tell you is mature. Let's
say you come back with someone with great sperm a
few years later, there's a good chance you're gonna make
a really good embryo. Let's say you come back with
someone who has really poor sperm in the future. I
(19:34):
don't know, maybe you're not going to make as many
good embryos later. So I can't tell you if your
egg is gonna be giving you a beautiful, healthy child
or not until the future when you make the embryo.
I have some women to tell me. I know I'm
going to have a kid, and I'm not going to
be getting married or having a husband. I want to
use donor sperm. So we use donor sperm and they
(19:54):
know the result now. But for people that are waiting
for Mr Wright and I have my eye look an
everywhere for Mr. Write. For some people, um, I think
that the best smartest thing to do is freezing the
egg and that's when you get to use it later
on in the future. Okay, So within those ten to
twelve days when you're injecting yourself, are you bloated? Do
(20:16):
you are you uncomfortable? What's the experience? That's a really
really good question. So during those ten to twelve days,
you do get a little bloated. So your ovaries are
usually small. They're the size of like two little apricots
or two little walnuts, or whenever you want to call them.
As these different little eggs grow, they begin to grow, grow, grow, grow,
(20:37):
grow in an ideal, great world. If you've responded and
done really well, your two little apricots become two huge grapefruits,
all with eggs growing around them. Each one is called
a little follicle. If you have too grapefruits squeezed into
your belly, you are going to have a sensation of
feeling full and bloated. And after your eggs come out,
(20:59):
it takes about a good solid week before those ovaries
start shrinking back getting to be the small little walnuts
and apricots again, so you're going to have that sensation.
We also tell people after like the third or fourth
or fifth day of injections, once they start to feel
little bloated, to actually not exercise and not have intercourse
because as your ovary gets bigger, if you decide to
(21:20):
do a spinning class, you have a chance of twisting
that over and that could be a disaster called variant torsion.
It's painful and it's not fun, and it's a life
threatening emergency where we have to untwist your ovary and
make sure that it didn't get irreversibly damaged and has
to be removed. So we tell people to kind of
take it easy for a week, and also the week
after their eggs come out, we tell people to take
(21:41):
it easy for another week. Okay, good to know that
was gonna be my next question now now that I
know that, because I'm asking for myself to you guys,
because I kind of forgot. It's been a while since
I have gone to see Dr Dear, but I'm I'm
going to do it next month. I already told him.
He probably doesn't believe me, but I'm gonna have to show. Okay, guys,
I just want everyone has to keep this young woman accountable.
(22:01):
She has made this promise to me multiple times, and
I cannot beyond this earth and not free because one
day we are going to be very upset. So I
need everyone to send her message and show her love
and support. And I gotta tell you something. We have
this unbelievable special. It was my idea and my marketing
(22:22):
department and all my partners loved it. We have a
special that if you freeze your eggs with another friend
of yours, you both get a special discount. If you
freeze your eggs with two other friends, all three of
you get an amazing discount. We did this because when
you're coming in here with a man to do this,
you have each other. You go home, you talk about it.
(22:42):
You're there for each other. You have someone by your side.
When you're doing this as a single female, people feel
very very vulnerable and alone exactly. And as much as
I care about you and love you, I'm not going
home and I can't be there at night when you're like,
oh my god, what am I doing? And I'm freaking out? Well,
because it is an emotional process. It is it's a
(23:04):
very emotional process to be reassessing everything about your life.
Because some women patient somewhere like Dr Goodear, this is
so depressing for me. I thought at thirty five, I'm
gonna have three kids and a husband. Instead I'm a lawyer.
But still I don't know. So whatever it may be,
whatever it, maybe everyone has their own story. And I
realized once I had friends come in together to do it,
(23:26):
and I saw, wow, every time they come in, they
come in together. Their eg retrievals fell within one day
of each other. One drove one that day and then
the other one drove her the other day. They were
there for each other and it was so amazing. I
loved the idea that you can do this with your
best friend, a friend, a cousin, someone. So if you
(23:47):
could think of someone by next month, I think it
would be a great idea if you had someone to
do it with. If not, we're going to be there.
My team is amazing. They hold your hand. No one's
going to leave, anyone be a loan. My team is
amazing and we are there for you. Honestly, you do
have an amazing team. They're always so nice, so patient
with me, because again, I've been there so many times.
(24:09):
You guys, this has been a very hard decision for me,
especially because you get bloated and your emotional. I'm already
I'm gonna cancer. You guys a very emotional So I
know that I have to inject hormones, but I know
it's for a good cause. It's just I'm like, when
is the right time? So now I'm like, okay, next month,
I'm gonna have more time. I already told him I
got to do it because I feel young. But you
(24:30):
know what, my ovaries are saying something else. So anyways,
I love that special that you guys have. I think
I have someone already here that they you know, sent
me a message that they want to do it with me.
So that's a great deal. Okay, already, that's fantastic. Yeah,
I swear, Yeah, she just told me. She's like, I'll
(24:50):
do it with you, cheeks. I don't know if he
wants me to, like, you know, say her name, so
I'd rather not. But anyways, so now that we're talking
about all of this, I'm assuming it's different for every woman.
During the process. You can either be you know, moody
and stuff that that's common. So I will be very honest.
I've seen it all. I've had people come and do this. Usually,
(25:11):
these injections make you feel really good. They make you
feel rather energetic. Your estrogen levels are going up, so
you feel great. Okay. Sometimes afterwards, when they come down,
as estrogen comes down, some people do get a little emotional. Um.
I have seen people get emotional during the process because
it brought too much of their life right in front
of them and they had to address things that they
(25:34):
did and decisions that they made. But with all of
that being said, it's okay everyone. Everything in this world
that is good for you is not easy, okay. Becoming successful,
becoming a great parent, freezing and thinking for the future.
All of the things in the world that are challenging
and important for us our challenges and those are not
(25:55):
the easiest things in life. But we have to conquer them,
and we have to know that two weeks from now,
I will be done. I'm going to go to bed
knowing my eggs are frozen. And by the way, just
a couple of myths that we have to address. When
you freeze your eggs, we are not taking all of
your eggs out of your body. It's only the eggs
that we're gonna die off. Anyways, during that one ovulation,
(26:16):
about a thousand eggs die off. So the more fertile
you are, the more of those thousand we can try
to get to keep and freeze or what we call recruit,
and the less fertile you are, the less of those
we can get. So you are not going to get
an earlier menopause. You are not going to get all
your eggs taken out. You are not going to become crazy.
You were not going to be gaining weight. You may
(26:38):
gain a little fluid because your ovaries have fluid in them,
but it will go down if you don't eat ravenous lee.
You're not going to get overweight. Okay, So these are
all the major myths that people are thinking about, and
unfortunately most of them are just not true. Okay, Now
(27:00):
do you recommend therapy sessions during this time? You know, Um,
we have an in house acupuncturist. She is so amazing,
and I have a couple of other acupuncturists in town
that I adore. First of all, acupuncture helps fertility, it
helps you overas respond really nicely. They are so calm,
cool and collected. They've almost become like therapists for my patients. Now,
(27:23):
if you have a therapist that you talk to regularly,
absolutely you should tell them from beforehand I'm about to
do this, I made need to talk to you. You
should probably schedule something during that time period just to
have them there at your side. I just think it's very,
very important to have support, whether it's a family member,
(27:44):
whether it's a friend, whether it's your doctor and their team.
You know, you're not going to the right doctor if
they don't have a great support system there that you
could pick up the phone and talk to. I hear
my nurses outside of my door talking to my patients,
and I just thank God odd they are on my
team because they are so lovely and so caring, and
my patients absolutely love them. And just for people to know,
(28:08):
you know, every time we talk, I have people that
listen and you're such a beautiful voice that teaches people,
which I love about you. I've had people from around
the country reach out to me that listen to you
and watch you and learn from you. We've had people
from Miami, New York, and Texas all do consults by phone.
(28:29):
We start them with their injections, and there are local
towns with a local fertility doctor, and just before the procedure,
we have them fly in, get their eggs out, put
them in our state of the art lab here, which
is one of the best in the country, and then
they are good to go back and they are sitting
here waiting for them, and if not, I try to
find someone in their hometown. Okay, See, this is why
I love dr do you guys. He's so informative, he's
(28:52):
so patient. And I'm telling you because again, I ask
a lot of questions. I asked the same questions over
and over, but I wanted you guys to hear it
from him. I have a question that they were asking. Okay, So,
once they're extracted, are eggs they are literally frozen right
there there in the fridge. There they're somewhere where you
you storem right. We have a very very private safe
(29:15):
location in my building. It has seismic control, so things
are tied down so earthquakes don't do anything. Um. All
of the tanks are checked every single day by two
of my embryologists that go into a walkthrough. They're all
on cameras, they are all on alarms. They have backup
generators in case the electricity goes out. So we do
(29:36):
every single thing to keep your eggs frozen in time.
So they get frozen and they become almost like a glass. Okay,
it's like a glass like state. It's called vitrification. And
this is how fast they get frozen and one second. Okay,
that's it's called fast freezing. Okay. Vitrification is the fastest,
the newest and most advanced technique to freeze an egg.
(29:58):
And that's how we do them in my office. Okay.
And once we're ready, then you take them out and
you insert them right with the sperm of your choice. Once, yes,
once you are ready, we thought, okay, and then we
inseminate them with spurs, we create embryos. We allow the
embryos to grow in our incubators, and then they are
biopsied and frozen, and the biopsies that one tiny little
(30:21):
cell off the edge of it goes out for genetic testing,
and then we can tell you which one of your
embryos are genetically normal or abnormal, and all the normal
ones we also can tell you what their genders were
if you want, you want to know. Okay, nice, Okay.
So these eggs can be inserted in either in yourself
or also you can have a surrogate. Correct. Either way,
the procedure is the same. Correct, Yes, you can. Awesome.
(30:43):
Now I just have one question before you go. Mr
Deer or Dr Deer. Do you think that maybe miscarriages
or abortions that affects your fertility? So yes, and no,
if you've had miscarriages and they were taken care of well,
like if you had miscarriages, whether of like scraping the
inside of your uterus like horribly hard, and yes, it
(31:04):
could damage the lining of your uterus and it may
be hard to implant. But I've had patients have seven
miscarriages and they were all done correctly and softly and
gently and in a smart doctor's office, and nothing ever
happened to her uterus, and she carried a beautiful pregnancy
when she was ready. So this carriage is I think
are nothing can be worried about abortions as well. If
(31:26):
they're done correctly, they really shouldn't be affecting things in
the long run. So all the things that have to
do with your overall fertility should not be affecting the
freezing of the eggs. Okay. So neither of those two
have anything to do with how many eggs you have
or it just happened. It's just age, really right, or
things that you eat or anything like that. Does that
affect No, no, no, I have some of this is
(31:48):
l A, guys, this is LA. We have some of
the healthiest woman in the entire country who do yoga
and pilates, are vegetarian and eat healthy and watch their
way come in and their thirty nine years old old
and suddenly I have to tell them that their fertility
is very, very low and there's absolutely nothing we can
do about it. So okay, So sadly there's not much
(32:08):
you can do. Okay, Dr Gadeer, I know you gotta go,
and I just want to say thank you again, thank
you for taking the time to explain this, for being
so wonderful you and your staff are great. I want
you to let people know where they can find you.
If there's a number of website, anyone that's listening to
us that wants to do this, absolutely well, let everybody
know right now so I can be followed at Dr
(32:28):
Shaheen Gadeer on Instagram. UM, I have my own podcast
now called The Fertile Life, and thank you so much.
I am beyond excited to have you on as a
guest where we get to delve into this even deeper
and learn a little bit more about your life. It's
not only about fertility. It's about some really amazing guests
that I've had and sometimes I just do them alone
(32:49):
when I just talk about a topic like end demetriosis
or PCOS. So the Fertile Life podcast is there. Southern
California Reproductive Center is my center where in the heart
of Beverly Hills. We have an office in Pasadena and
office in Ventura County, in an office in Santa Barbara.
So we're kind of all over Southern California, and we
are doing consults around the entire country. So if those
(33:10):
things will definitely help everyone find me wherever they go, yes, yes,
you guys, and I will be sharing more information on
my Instagram as well. The good thing is you guys
can listen to the podcast over and over. If you
guys miss anything, and if you have any other questions,
DM me you guys, I'm gonna let you go. Dr Deer,
thank you again, thank you for being so inspired by
(33:31):
the way. Thank you, thank you. Before we end this episode,
I want to just tell you, guys, live and let live.
What does that mean? Just allow yourself to make your
own decisions. Don't let anyone else rule what you should
or shouldn't do. It's what are you meant to do?
What do you what do you want to do? If
(33:53):
you're not hurting anybody else, it's really no one else's business,
So you can keep it private. You can tell people
or not. It's your decision. It's a personal decision. It's
your body at the end of the day. And just
the way you shouldn't tell anyone else to do whatever
they want with their body, no one should tell you
what to do with yours. This is a production of
(34:15):
I Heart Radio and Michael Tura podcast Network. Follow us
on Instagram at Michael Dura Podcasts and follow me Cheeks.
That's c h i Q u I s. For more
podcasts from my Heart, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
I know that the clock is sticking, and I know
that when we've last checked my my account was very low.
This is my body and no one should tell me
what I can and cannot do with it. And I
think God is okay with it. The dream of parents,
that is one of the biggest dreams that we all
all live for and work for. Hello everyone, and welcome
(00:31):
to another episode of Cheeks and Chill. I'm your host,
cheek Ease, and I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.
I am. I had a really good weekend. Actually, I relaxed.
I was in pjs, you know, just doing the thing,
being more of Jennet than cheek Eas, you know. But anyways,
today's episode is something very personal to me. It's a
topic that isn't really talked about, especially in the Latin culture.
(00:53):
I feel it's kind of, I guess, frowned upon in
a way. I always use this word, but it's true,
it's kind of taboo. So a couple of years ago,
I revealed my decision to freeze my eggs. It was
when I realized that I had assists in my left ovary.
I never knew it was there until one day I
woke up with a horrible pain. I felt like I
(01:15):
was going to die. It was like, I think, like
three in the morning, and I had my assistant and
I'm not one to go to the hospital. I I
can really really tolerate pain. So when I called her
and I said, I need you to take me to
the hospital, she knew it was like serious. I had her,
you know, running red lights and something. I don't recommend
you guys, but I was in so much pain that
(01:36):
I just I don't It was horrible. When I got
to the hospital, they said, well, you have assists. I
guess it turned over on itself. My ovary because the
cists was pretty big, and they just said, you can
leave it there, you can remove it. I decided to
leave it there, and then I went to a specialist
and this is how I met Dr Kadeer, and he
found out that I had endometriosis, something I didn't know.
(01:58):
This is something I've never shared with anybody. I want
to share with you, guys, but I don't know if
this is one of the reasons why I have endometriosis.
I had a miscarriage when I was nineteen. I've never
talked about it ever, and I obviously was afraid. I
was scared. I never told my mom, I never told anybody.
I didn't know what was really happening. I knew I
(02:20):
was pregnant. I just didn't know how to tell my mom.
And then I don't know if it was a stress
I I just started bleeding and stuff started coming out
at chunks. It was really really crazy. Apparently I had
a miscarriage. I never went to the doctors to take
care of it, so they had to go in later
like a year later, actually not a out of your letter,
like six months, eight months later, and I went and
(02:41):
got a pop smere and they're like, you know what,
we need to clean up, Like I told them what
had happened, and they needed to go in there and
put me to sleep and basically clean up my uterus.
And I've always thought, is it because of that situation
that's what happened? And then I thought they had removed
my sis apparently back and grew back and they had
(03:02):
to remove it again because I don't know. I don't
know what happened. I don't know if it was a
new sis, if it was the same sis, I don't
know it was in the same ovary, so that was
also keeping me from freezing my eggs, because if you
inject too many hormones in your body, well, I was
just going to be feeding that one cis and it
was just going to get bigger and bigger and not
necessarily my eggs. So that's one thing that had me
(03:24):
just you know, I was a little hesitant about it.
Now I do wish I would have done it sooner.
I think it's just something that especially as a woman
and everything that's in our food and in the air,
it's just I don't know. I think of all these
things and I'm like, it has to affect our bodies.
So I think that the sooner you do it, the
better because it's just kind of like a backup plan.
(03:47):
I'm gonna try to get pregnant naturally with my current
partner because right now I'm not on birth control. Right now,
I am just not trying to get pregnant, but not
not trying to get pregnant, so I don't know what
that means. I'm just like, if it happens, and if
it's meant to be, then that's what's going to happen.
And I just want to have my eggs just in case.
I can't have the baby, I can't get pregnant on
my own, or I don't know, maybe I want to
(04:10):
get a surrogate. I've thought about that before. I've also
thought about my siblings. I know this is weird, but
I've thought about like Johnny, you know, if he wants
to have a baby with his partner. I know it
sounds weird, but I'm like, hey, I'm his sister. You know.
I've thought about so many different things. You guys, I
just feel like it's it's a good backup plan just
in case I'm not able to get pregnant and I
(04:31):
would do it on my own or with a partner.
I think right now, I am not even thinking about
getting pregnant necessarily, like at this moment, but I just
know that time is ticking and I have to get
it done. And I don't want to feel like, damn,
I should have done it, you know, would have, could have,
(04:53):
should have? You know, I kind of want to be like, Okay,
I have it. That pressure is kind of off, and
I can kind of just kill a little bit, travel
a little bit more and and do me. You know,
I just want to do it sooner rather than later.
I was talking about it on the reality show, and
I met a doctor through the reality shows. That's one
of the great things. Actually, there's a lot of really
good things about the reality show, and I want to
(05:15):
think that and be grateful for those moments, because even
though it was a lot of hard work and sometimes
it did bring a little bit of drama in our life,
I got to spend a lot of time with my family,
with my friends, and I also got to meet really
cool people like the person that I'm going to speak
to today, which is actually my doctor, Dr Gooder. And
a lot of people ask me, did you already freeze
your eggs? Cheekys. No, I have not, and I know
(05:37):
he's very upset with me about it. He texted me
here and there He's like, when are we going to
do this? Cheeks? You know it is time Before we
get further into the conversation, I want to welcome Dr Gooder. Hello,
Dr Gooder? How are you? He's here with me? Hello?
Thank you so much for having me. Of course, I
wish you guys could see him. He has the best
(05:57):
eyebrows in the world at like your hair could. By
the way, you thank you very much so, Dr Deer.
I know that is something that I need to do
as soon as possible. When do you recommend Dr Deer
to freeze your eggs? So, first of all, I want
to address something that you said. You're not the only
woman that feels like this. It's a big step for
people to take, and I usually like to tell people
(06:21):
just do it and be done with it, because I
guarantee you afterwards you're going to realize that this was
so much easier than you ever thought. It is a
quick ten to twelve day process of little injections that
we teach you how to administer in your belly, and
if you can't do it yourself, we are happy to
help you do them, and we can come into the
office every day and help you do them. We can
(06:41):
even send someone to your home and do them. But
there's a couple of different things involved. The sooner and
the younger you do this, the better. So everyone's peak
fertility is probably between the ages of like twenty and
twenty seven. That is your peak fertility as a female,
and after that time it just begins to decline. Now,
there are other are things that can affect your fertility
(07:01):
as well. For example, endometriosis, PCOS and the number one
thing that affects you eggs is aging. And one of
the things that you also talked about. I think it's
very sensitive and should be addressed, is because in the
Latin culture, because so many people do have kids at
a younger age, this is something that maybe looked as
(07:23):
taboo or frowned upon or making you less of a woman,
but it's not. There are many many Latin women patients
of mind, and to be honest, from all cultures and
backgrounds that are coming to my office that have become
very successful businesswomen, accomplished in many different areas of the
world and in the world of business, and who are
(07:45):
just not ready to have a child. And there is
no reason why you should be giving up the dream
of parenthood just so you can go forward with having
a kid at the wrong time in your life. And
that's what this allows you to do. It allows you
to preserve your fertility and your right to make your
decision about when it's right for you to have a child. See.
(08:06):
And that's the thing. When I first started this process,
I did hear it a lot, even like on media,
Oh she can't have kids, she's in other words broken,
you know, And it's not that it's just it's a
choice of mine because I wasn't necessarily ready to have children,
and I said, okay, this is a way of taking
the pressure off. And I got things like it's going
(08:27):
against God's will. I feel that it is my choice.
It's my body. I'm very, very pro choice in a
lot of things. So this is something that this is
my body and no one should tell me what I
can and cannot do with it. And I think God
is okay with it. Dr Gader exists for a reason.
God gave us this technology. I think if it's against
someone's morals, religious thoughts, beliefs in this world, and they
(08:51):
shouldn't do it. But for many people who are out
there that they believe in science, and they believe in technology,
and they believe in the field of medicine and how
amazing we've become and how advanced we are. My field
of medicine has only existed for thirty years. I mean,
that's it. And then it's only been in the last
I want to say, ten fifteen years that we've become
really good at it. And I want to say in
(09:12):
the egg freezing world, it's only been around for about
ten years. So We've only gotten really good at it,
i'd say in the last maybe a few years, so
we're very good at it now. There's been other reality
TV show stars who came and froze their eggs at
the age of forty four and came back and had
those kids at the age of forty six and delivered
(09:32):
at forty seven and did amazing And I'm sure most
people know who I'm talking about, But I think it's
a very personal decision. I do not think it's fair
for anyone to judge if it's God's choice or God
is allowing, or God looks down in your eyes. If
the person believes that it's against their religious beliefs, then
I don't promote that for them. But for most people,
(09:53):
I think science is on their side, and the dream
of parenthood is one of the biggest dreams that we
all all live for and work for. And I don't
believe it's someone's position to kind of be negative about
it against someone else's. I agree. I agree. I'm all
about live and let live. Whatever you want to do,
I respect it. Whatever I want to do, you should
respect it, you know. And it's not even because of
(10:15):
what they've said or what my family may think, or
some of my family should. I say, I haven't done it.
It's just has been one thing or another. But I
know that the clock is sticking, and I know that
when we've last checked my my account was very low.
So I guess in a way, I'm a little afraid
of going and getting all the tests done again, and
then what if I they're even lower, which I'm sure
(10:37):
is going to happen, because, like you said, it's age
when is too late. There are a lot of clinics
at the age of like forty close their doors. Some
clinics close their doors at the age of forty two,
some clinics at the age of forty four. We don't
close our doors. Every single patient is their own human being,
and we like to assess and have discussions. So I've
had discussions with patients saying that listen, you may make
(11:00):
very few eggs. But then again, I have had people
make very few eggs and be successful and do incredibly
well with the whole journey and the process. So would
I tell my little sister, oh, you're only going to
make one or two or three eggs, just don't do it.
I would say absolutely the opposite. One egg on ice
is better than no eggs on ice. And I think
(11:22):
that keeping yourself in the game, keeping whatever your body
is able to help you produce, and keeping it there
for your future at least keeps a door open. Even
if it doesn't work, you will know that you did
every single thing you could, and we have planned b
there's always the use of other people's eggs and egg
donation and things like that. But you're a perfect, perfect
(11:45):
example of the busy young woman in her thirties who
doesn't have the time to do this, a perfect example
for someone who is a little scared of doing it
because no one walks in is excited about this. But
it's one of those things in life where we do
it and we need to move on. I tell everyone
the best piece of advice I can give you to
(12:07):
freeze your eggs is start it, do it, and be
done with it, because once you start, a month later,
you're going to bed at night saying, wow, I'm so happy.
Now my eggs are on the freezers at Dr Gooder's office.
He's doing all the babysitting, he's doing all the work now,
and I can go to bed at night knowing that
I did what I needed to do. And if you
(12:28):
needed to do it more than once, then people have
done it more than once. I had one patient that
did it five times. She said to me, Dr Gadeer,
I'm going to have my four kids on my timeline
and I'm going to do everything that I can to
promote that and to keep my doors open. And she
did it. She did it five times and she had
over fifty eggs by the time she was done. Wow,
Oh my goodness. Okay, well, I'm just gonna pray that
(12:50):
I have like at least five. I think I'm gonna
have more than that. I'm just I'm gonna be positive. Well,
you mentioned right now it takes ten to twelve days.
Can you explain the process. So yeah, let's go through
the process, because I think it's really important for a
young woman who's out there. First of all, I want
everyone to check their medical insurance, call HR at their
(13:11):
office and find out if they have coverage. The saddest
thing I'm noticing, okay, there are people that have coverage
and don't even know they have coverage for egg freezing
and for fertility treatment. That is the saddest thing ever
for me. So all of the big everyone who works
at Disneyland, at Disney, Netflix, Apple, Google, Snapchat, any of
(13:33):
the big tech companies. They all have the most amazing
coverage that there is now. There are a lot of
other companies, large companies, law firms, lots of these places.
They have this amazing coverage that people just don't even
know what their coverage is. So I don't know about
your personal employer, but that's the first thing I would do.
If you have the coverage, take advantage of it. Freeze
(13:56):
your eggs, take advantage of it. If you don't have
any coverage, don't be scared because we have financing options.
So first of all, we put together one of the
best specials that exists in the world of fertility because
we're a large clinic and we have the opportunity if
we want to give back and help people. So we've
decided for two thousand and twenty two to be giving
(14:17):
back a lot. So we are going to be opening
the doors and giving the opportunity. Um if anyone looks
at my social media channel, which is the Doctor's Shaheen
Gooder channel on Instagram, the specials are popping up left
and right. Our clinic also s c R C IVF.
The specials are popping up there as well. We have
webinars that people can attend, and at the end of
(14:37):
the webinar they're able to do their consultation for a
much lower price by doing so. But if with all
of that you still have trouble, we have options for
financing that help you get this too, as low as
like a hundred and sixty seventy dollars. What is the
(14:59):
cost the class can range. When we do our specials,
they're in the six thousand plus six thousands something range
um and when there's no specials there are in the
eight thousands something range. But with the financing options, we're
able to help people get it as low as in
the one and something dollars a month. Now, it varies,
it varies on your credit, it varies on what you're doing,
(15:19):
it varies on how many cycles you sign up for,
but it's there so financially, I think is the number
one reason people fear this process. Once we have set
up a consultation and we go over everything in someone's
health and we go over their menstrual cycle, what their
goal is. If someone tells me they want to have
four kids versus one kid, I think it's a little
different how many eggs they need to have frozen for
(15:41):
the future. If someone is twenty nine about to be
thirty and they're ready to go the second day turn thirty,
it's a little different than someone who's like thirty nine
about to be forty. So these are all things that
I need to take into consideration when making an overall
plan for someone. And I think it's really important that
we're on the same page. So after the initial consultation
and this these days, it's super easy. We do them
(16:03):
by phone. You don't have to leave your home, you
don't have to leave work, You could do them from
wherever you want. And I've noticed that people are a
lot more comfortable, and I've noticed that people are a
lot more open with me, and they are much more
just relaxed doing these consultations on the phone, rather than
coming to my office in l A, sitting in my
waiting room, coming and sitting here with me, which would
(16:24):
give some people a lot of anxiety. So with that
being said, we've made that as easy as possible. When
the time comes, and it always happens with your period,
So people call us on the first day of their period,
on day two, three, or four of their cycle. We
generally set them up to come in and do a
quick ultrasound of their ovaries. It's a vaginal ultrasound that
(16:45):
looks at the ovary and tells me how youthful, how young,
and how healthy those ovaries look, and then we put
them on a birth control pill to stop their natural
ovulation cycle. Now, if you are already on birth control
pill and have been on it for a while, we
usually recommend for people to go off their birth control
for a month or two before so their natural hormones
(17:05):
just come back to life and are doing really really well.
So that's a really important thing for us to do
um and we kind of do that really quickly, and
once we have people back coming back to normal, we
are ready to start. So after about ten to fifteen
days of birth control, we teach you how to give
yourself these injections that last for about ten to twelve days.
(17:28):
They're tiny, tiny little needs. Some people don't even feel them.
Like we get phone calls all the time, like I'm
so sorry to my nurses. You know, they say, I
don't know if I'm getting the injection, Like I don't
even feel it. But we see that their eggs are growing,
and we see that their estrogen levels are going up,
so we know that they are doing well, and they're
doing they are growing, so they're very small. During those
(17:50):
ten to twelve days of injections, we usually have people
come in about three or four times for ultrasounds and
blood tests to make sure that everything is growing and
everything is coming along really well. And then towards the
end of the ten to twelve days, we usually say,
you know what, you're ready to have your eggs come out.
We bring patients to our surgery center, which is right
here in our office. You've been there before. You're in
(18:10):
there for about an hour, hour and a half. The
actual procedure is under a light an aesthetic that my
anesthesiologist gives. You fall asleep, you wake up, and it's
all done. It takes about three to five minutes for
the eggs to come out. It's a special little needle
that goes at the tip of an ultrasound machine. The
eggs get what we call retrieved, and then those eggs
(18:30):
then go off to the ib F laboratory and all
of the eggs that are mature get frozen to be used.
Whenever you're ready to use them in the future. So
quote unquote healthy, right, because there are some that are
come out that probably are not usable. Is that correct.
So the only thing we're able to check is if
the egg is mature or immature. Now, if you come
(18:52):
in with a partner and say, this is my partner,
we want to make embryos, that's when the egg and
the sperm are put together. When we put the egg
in this them together, then we watch the embryo grow
for a week. Whatever embryo makes it to the full
grown stage at that point, then we are able to
do a little biopsy, freeze the embryo, and I can
(19:13):
tell you a week later if the embryo is genetically
normal or genetically abnormal. That's completely different than the egg.
The egg I can only tell you is mature. Let's
say you come back with someone with great sperm a
few years later, there's a good chance you're gonna make
a really good embryo. Let's say you come back with
someone who has really poor sperm in the future. I
(19:34):
don't know, maybe you're not going to make as many
good embryos later. So I can't tell you if your
egg is gonna be giving you a beautiful, healthy child
or not until the future when you make the embryo.
I have some women to tell me. I know I'm
going to have a kid, and I'm not going to
be getting married or having a husband. I want to
use donor sperm. So we use donor sperm and they
(19:54):
know the result now. But for people that are waiting
for Mr Wright and I have my eye look an
everywhere for Mr. Write. For some people, um, I think
that the best smartest thing to do is freezing the
egg and that's when you get to use it later
on in the future. Okay, So within those ten to
twelve days when you're injecting yourself, are you bloated? Do
(20:16):
you are you uncomfortable? What's the experience? That's a really
really good question. So during those ten to twelve days,
you do get a little bloated. So your ovaries are
usually small. They're the size of like two little apricots
or two little walnuts, or whenever you want to call them.
As these different little eggs grow, they begin to grow, grow, grow, grow,
(20:37):
grow in an ideal, great world. If you've responded and
done really well, your two little apricots become two huge grapefruits,
all with eggs growing around them. Each one is called
a little follicle. If you have too grapefruits squeezed into
your belly, you are going to have a sensation of
feeling full and bloated. And after your eggs come out,
(20:59):
it takes about a good solid week before those ovaries
start shrinking back getting to be the small little walnuts
and apricots again, so you're going to have that sensation.
We also tell people after like the third or fourth
or fifth day of injections, once they start to feel
little bloated, to actually not exercise and not have intercourse
because as your ovary gets bigger, if you decide to
(21:20):
do a spinning class, you have a chance of twisting
that over and that could be a disaster called variant torsion.
It's painful and it's not fun, and it's a life
threatening emergency where we have to untwist your ovary and
make sure that it didn't get irreversibly damaged and has
to be removed. So we tell people to kind of
take it easy for a week, and also the week
after their eggs come out, we tell people to take
(21:41):
it easy for another week. Okay, good to know that
was gonna be my next question now now that I
know that, because I'm asking for myself to you guys,
because I kind of forgot. It's been a while since
I have gone to see Dr Dear, but I'm I'm
going to do it next month. I already told him.
He probably doesn't believe me, but I'm gonna have to show. Okay, guys,
I just want everyone has to keep this young woman accountable.
(22:01):
She has made this promise to me multiple times, and
I cannot beyond this earth and not free because one
day we are going to be very upset. So I
need everyone to send her message and show her love
and support. And I gotta tell you something. We have
this unbelievable special. It was my idea and my marketing
(22:22):
department and all my partners loved it. We have a
special that if you freeze your eggs with another friend
of yours, you both get a special discount. If you
freeze your eggs with two other friends, all three of
you get an amazing discount. We did this because when
you're coming in here with a man to do this,
you have each other. You go home, you talk about it.
(22:42):
You're there for each other. You have someone by your side.
When you're doing this as a single female, people feel
very very vulnerable and alone exactly. And as much as
I care about you and love you, I'm not going
home and I can't be there at night when you're like,
oh my god, what am I doing? And I'm freaking out? Well,
because it is an emotional process. It is it's a
(23:04):
very emotional process to be reassessing everything about your life.
Because some women patient somewhere like Dr Goodear, this is
so depressing for me. I thought at thirty five, I'm
gonna have three kids and a husband. Instead I'm a lawyer.
But still I don't know. So whatever it may be,
whatever it, maybe everyone has their own story. And I
realized once I had friends come in together to do it,
(23:26):
and I saw, wow, every time they come in, they
come in together. Their eg retrievals fell within one day
of each other. One drove one that day and then
the other one drove her the other day. They were
there for each other and it was so amazing. I
loved the idea that you can do this with your
best friend, a friend, a cousin, someone. So if you
(23:47):
could think of someone by next month, I think it
would be a great idea if you had someone to
do it with. If not, we're going to be there.
My team is amazing. They hold your hand. No one's
going to leave, anyone be a loan. My team is
amazing and we are there for you. Honestly, you do
have an amazing team. They're always so nice, so patient
with me, because again, I've been there so many times.
(24:09):
You guys, this has been a very hard decision for me,
especially because you get bloated and your emotional. I'm already
I'm gonna cancer. You guys a very emotional So I
know that I have to inject hormones, but I know
it's for a good cause. It's just I'm like, when
is the right time? So now I'm like, okay, next month,
I'm gonna have more time. I already told him I
got to do it because I feel young. But you
(24:30):
know what, my ovaries are saying something else. So anyways,
I love that special that you guys have. I think
I have someone already here that they you know, sent
me a message that they want to do it with me.
So that's a great deal. Okay, already, that's fantastic. Yeah,
I swear, Yeah, she just told me. She's like, I'll
(24:50):
do it with you, cheeks. I don't know if he
wants me to, like, you know, say her name, so
I'd rather not. But anyways, so now that we're talking
about all of this, I'm assuming it's different for every woman.
During the process. You can either be you know, moody
and stuff that that's common. So I will be very honest.
I've seen it all. I've had people come and do this. Usually,
(25:11):
these injections make you feel really good. They make you
feel rather energetic. Your estrogen levels are going up, so
you feel great. Okay. Sometimes afterwards, when they come down,
as estrogen comes down, some people do get a little emotional. Um.
I have seen people get emotional during the process because
it brought too much of their life right in front
of them and they had to address things that they
(25:34):
did and decisions that they made. But with all of
that being said, it's okay everyone. Everything in this world
that is good for you is not easy, okay. Becoming successful,
becoming a great parent, freezing and thinking for the future.
All of the things in the world that are challenging
and important for us our challenges and those are not
(25:55):
the easiest things in life. But we have to conquer them,
and we have to know that two weeks from now,
I will be done. I'm going to go to bed
knowing my eggs are frozen. And by the way, just
a couple of myths that we have to address. When
you freeze your eggs, we are not taking all of
your eggs out of your body. It's only the eggs
that we're gonna die off. Anyways, during that one ovulation,
(26:16):
about a thousand eggs die off. So the more fertile
you are, the more of those thousand we can try
to get to keep and freeze or what we call recruit,
and the less fertile you are, the less of those
we can get. So you are not going to get
an earlier menopause. You are not going to get all
your eggs taken out. You are not going to become crazy.
You were not going to be gaining weight. You may
(26:38):
gain a little fluid because your ovaries have fluid in them,
but it will go down if you don't eat ravenous lee.
You're not going to get overweight. Okay, So these are
all the major myths that people are thinking about, and
unfortunately most of them are just not true. Okay, Now
(27:00):
do you recommend therapy sessions during this time? You know, Um,
we have an in house acupuncturist. She is so amazing,
and I have a couple of other acupuncturists in town
that I adore. First of all, acupuncture helps fertility, it
helps you overas respond really nicely. They are so calm,
cool and collected. They've almost become like therapists for my patients. Now,
(27:23):
if you have a therapist that you talk to regularly,
absolutely you should tell them from beforehand I'm about to
do this, I made need to talk to you. You
should probably schedule something during that time period just to
have them there at your side. I just think it's very,
very important to have support, whether it's a family member,
(27:44):
whether it's a friend, whether it's your doctor and their team.
You know, you're not going to the right doctor if
they don't have a great support system there that you
could pick up the phone and talk to. I hear
my nurses outside of my door talking to my patients,
and I just thank God odd they are on my
team because they are so lovely and so caring, and
my patients absolutely love them. And just for people to know,
(28:08):
you know, every time we talk, I have people that
listen and you're such a beautiful voice that teaches people,
which I love about you. I've had people from around
the country reach out to me that listen to you
and watch you and learn from you. We've had people
from Miami, New York, and Texas all do consults by phone.
(28:29):
We start them with their injections, and there are local
towns with a local fertility doctor, and just before the procedure,
we have them fly in, get their eggs out, put
them in our state of the art lab here, which
is one of the best in the country, and then
they are good to go back and they are sitting
here waiting for them, and if not, I try to
find someone in their hometown. Okay, See, this is why
I love dr do you guys. He's so informative, he's
(28:52):
so patient. And I'm telling you because again, I ask
a lot of questions. I asked the same questions over
and over, but I wanted you guys to hear it
from him. I have a question that they were asking. Okay, So,
once they're extracted, are eggs they are literally frozen right
there there in the fridge. There they're somewhere where you
you storem right. We have a very very private safe
(29:15):
location in my building. It has seismic control, so things
are tied down so earthquakes don't do anything. Um. All
of the tanks are checked every single day by two
of my embryologists that go into a walkthrough. They're all
on cameras, they are all on alarms. They have backup
generators in case the electricity goes out. So we do
(29:36):
every single thing to keep your eggs frozen in time.
So they get frozen and they become almost like a glass. Okay,
it's like a glass like state. It's called vitrification. And
this is how fast they get frozen and one second. Okay,
that's it's called fast freezing. Okay. Vitrification is the fastest,
the newest and most advanced technique to freeze an egg.
(29:58):
And that's how we do them in my office. Okay.
And once we're ready, then you take them out and
you insert them right with the sperm of your choice. Once, yes,
once you are ready, we thought, okay, and then we
inseminate them with spurs, we create embryos. We allow the
embryos to grow in our incubators, and then they are
biopsied and frozen, and the biopsies that one tiny little
(30:21):
cell off the edge of it goes out for genetic testing,
and then we can tell you which one of your
embryos are genetically normal or abnormal, and all the normal
ones we also can tell you what their genders were
if you want, you want to know. Okay, nice, Okay.
So these eggs can be inserted in either in yourself
or also you can have a surrogate. Correct. Either way,
the procedure is the same. Correct, Yes, you can. Awesome.
(30:43):
Now I just have one question before you go. Mr
Deer or Dr Deer. Do you think that maybe miscarriages
or abortions that affects your fertility? So yes, and no,
if you've had miscarriages and they were taken care of well,
like if you had miscarriages, whether of like scraping the
inside of your uterus like horribly hard, and yes, it
(31:04):
could damage the lining of your uterus and it may
be hard to implant. But I've had patients have seven
miscarriages and they were all done correctly and softly and
gently and in a smart doctor's office, and nothing ever
happened to her uterus, and she carried a beautiful pregnancy
when she was ready. So this carriage is I think
are nothing can be worried about abortions as well. If
(31:26):
they're done correctly, they really shouldn't be affecting things in
the long run. So all the things that have to
do with your overall fertility should not be affecting the
freezing of the eggs. Okay. So neither of those two
have anything to do with how many eggs you have
or it just happened. It's just age, really right, or
things that you eat or anything like that. Does that
affect No, no, no, I have some of this is
(31:48):
l A, guys, this is LA. We have some of
the healthiest woman in the entire country who do yoga
and pilates, are vegetarian and eat healthy and watch their
way come in and their thirty nine years old old
and suddenly I have to tell them that their fertility
is very, very low and there's absolutely nothing we can
do about it. So okay, So sadly there's not much
(32:08):
you can do. Okay, Dr Gadeer, I know you gotta go,
and I just want to say thank you again, thank
you for taking the time to explain this, for being
so wonderful you and your staff are great. I want
you to let people know where they can find you.
If there's a number of website, anyone that's listening to
us that wants to do this, absolutely well, let everybody
know right now so I can be followed at Dr
(32:28):
Shaheen Gadeer on Instagram. UM, I have my own podcast
now called The Fertile Life, and thank you so much.
I am beyond excited to have you on as a
guest where we get to delve into this even deeper
and learn a little bit more about your life. It's
not only about fertility. It's about some really amazing guests
that I've had and sometimes I just do them alone
(32:49):
when I just talk about a topic like end demetriosis
or PCOS. So the Fertile Life podcast is there. Southern
California Reproductive Center is my center where in the heart
of Beverly Hills. We have an office in Pasadena and
office in Ventura County, in an office in Santa Barbara.
So we're kind of all over Southern California, and we
are doing consults around the entire country. So if those
(33:10):
things will definitely help everyone find me wherever they go, yes, yes,
you guys, and I will be sharing more information on
my Instagram as well. The good thing is you guys
can listen to the podcast over and over. If you
guys miss anything, and if you have any other questions,
DM me you guys, I'm gonna let you go. Dr Deer,
thank you again, thank you for being so inspired by
(33:31):
the way. Thank you, thank you. Before we end this episode,
I want to just tell you, guys, live and let live.
What does that mean? Just allow yourself to make your
own decisions. Don't let anyone else rule what you should
or shouldn't do. It's what are you meant to do?
What do you what do you want to do? If
(33:53):
you're not hurting anybody else, it's really no one else's business,
So you can keep it private. You can tell people
or not. It's your decision. It's a personal decision. It's
your body at the end of the day. And just
the way you shouldn't tell anyone else to do whatever
they want with their body, no one should tell you
what to do with yours. This is a production of
(34:15):
I Heart Radio and Michael Tura podcast Network. Follow us
on Instagram at Michael Dura Podcasts and follow me Cheeks.
That's c h i Q u I s. For more
podcasts from my Heart, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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