April 22, 2020 • 45 mins
Kelly talks to her fertility nurse, Whitney Bischoff about all things fertility and the many options women have today, including egg freezing. Some of you may recognize Whitney as the last woman standing in Chris Soules season of the Bachelor. The two women also dive into reality tv topics and the Bachelor.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Kelly Henderson and you are listening to the
Velvet Edge podcast. As I've talked about quite a bit
on this podcast, I went through the process of freezing
my eggs recently, and after two unsuccessful attempts, I decided
that this was not the best route for me. However,
it has really put it on my heart to continue
to educate women about their options as far as fertility goes.
I went in blind and I often wonder if my
(00:21):
options would have looked different if I had started at
a different age. Although the process didn't work, overall, my
experience was made much easier by the amazing people I
worked with at over Egg Freezing Center in Chicago. In fact,
some of you may even recognize my nurse, Whitney Bischoff
from Crystal season of The Bachelor. Whitty is not only
a highly educated nurse, but her delivery of information about
(00:42):
this process helped me to understand and stay calm. Honestly,
do not think I would have been able to process
a lot of this stuff without her. Of course, we
also had some really interesting reality TV stories to exchange
as well, so forever be grateful for her and her insight.
We talked a lot about the fundamentals of utility, options
of egg freezing, and of course the Bachelor. Here's our conversation. Okay,
(01:06):
so we were talking before about just my goal now
being to really educate women, especially young women, about this
egg freezing stuff and just how to get it on
your radar, what you need to know, because I wish
I had known stuff way earlier than I did, and
you guys taught me so much through the process. Um,
(01:26):
So I just wanted for like the medical perspective and
the professional opinion. Can you kind of talk through how
our egg reserve works? Yeah? Yeah, And I think that
that's a very common misconception that we all just kind
of get it, and I feel that talking about it
(01:47):
and kind of breaking it all down is a large
eye opener for a lot of women. So yeah, let's
talk about it. So, as women, we are born with
all of the eggs that we will ever have, right,
So that's very, very different than men who make sperm
consistently throughout their life. So with women, it's very opposite.
I always say, we're more opposite and ways than what
(02:09):
we ever imagined. Um, but we're born with all of
these eggs and from day one of our life, we
start losing them every single day. And I feel like
the best way to visualize this in our brain is
if there was this imaginary line graph and on the
day that you're born is on that top left, but
you're born with millions of eggs, and on day one
of life, this graph the line starts to decline, and
(02:32):
so as time is going on, this line is gradually declining.
And what the line is depicting is what we call
ovarian reserve, or the quality and the quantity of the
eggs that we have remaining. And there's been a lot
of studies that have been completed on this ovarian reserve line,
and what the studies show is that on average, by
(02:55):
the time a woman starts her period, she's lost over
half of the eggs that he was born with, and
that at thirty that line kind of takes a little
bit of a bigger dip, and a thirty five the
biggest dip. Now, with that being said, it doesn't mean
that at thirty five you just drop out all of
the eggs that you were born with. You know, this
(03:16):
science isn't black and white, and not everybody follows that
exact curve on that imaginary line graph. There's some women
from the day that they're born, their line is going
down very rapidly, and those are women that we see
that has premature O variance failure. And then there's women
whose line is very slowly going down, and those are
women that we see that are able to get pregnant
(03:37):
naturally into their early forties. And both of those examples
they are rare. Most people kind of fall towards the
first example that I explained, UM. But there's very many
things that we can talk about today that can impact
that rate of decline. I mean, there's environmental there's medical factors,
there's emotional factors that all can play a fact in
the factor in that UM. And I think it's important
(03:57):
to know that as women, we're all in this together,
all of us as women, all of our lines are declining.
There's no woman's fertility that is plateauing or is increasing,
it's just the rate at which is going down is
different from one person to the next. And really age
is the most important factor as to the rate of
the de clime. I mean, that is so crazy to
think about the time. By the time we start our period,
(04:18):
we've lost half of our egg reserve. I mean I
was twelve years old, right, I mean it's like by
the time we even could have a baby who we wanted,
we're already I haven't set back because we've lost half
of what we do and tell women all the time.
You know, the times have evolved as far as being
a woman, and how amazing that is, but our bodies
(04:40):
haven't really kept up with the time. Our bodies have
are still made to um have babies or to reproduce
in our early twenty right, you know, with the way
that you know we're in that's that's not the way
of the world these days. No, it's so different nowadays.
I mean, I think it's so common that a woman
I'm thirty seven, but I think you know, if you
(05:01):
if you are a woman who wants to build her
career and um build a life other than having kids first,
that's just so common nowadays. But like you said it,
and I think it's fine if you do want to
have babies in your early twenties, that's all great. But
I think that we're just seeing, like you said, more
and more women that are focused on other things aside
(05:21):
from family, not to saying that they don't want to
have a family, but that there's so many things that come,
you know, before that, well before we're even getting to
that point of thinking about that, before we feel ready
to settle down, you know, financially you're the right person
or anything like that, and then we've got this, you know,
big problem with our fertility that we may not have
(05:43):
thought about at a younger age. Exactly. I mean, that's
exactly what happened to me. But so is there is
there anything that we do or don't do that causes
Like you said, there's some women who they just have
a more rapid decline or that something. You know, there's
those women that you always where they're like, well I
was fertile, myrtle, And it's like, is there anything that
you are doing or not doing that's causing that or
(06:05):
is that just how you're born and the way your
body is, your body chemistry. I wish that's a really
good question, and I think there's a lot to that
question that we don't have the answers to. I mean,
the number one sort of thing with our our decline
or the rate of decline is our age. Obviously, genetics
plays a role. If you have UM, if your mom
you know, went into early menopause. Yes, we do see
(06:28):
that there's a chance that UM, you would be at
a higher risk than of going through early menopause. We
do see that that link UM with the genetics. As
far as lifestyle goes, I mean, we do know that
smoking UM plays a big role in the quality of
our eggs. So UM, there's many reasons why smoking is
(06:48):
not good for us and this can you know, you
just tag that right on in there. So it does
affect your fertility as well. UM. Emotionally, There's there's been
a lot that we've looked into in the field as
far as stress and UM the emotional component and how
it affects fertility, and we do know that it can
(07:08):
affect it. Just like anything else. Stress is not a
positive thing for any of our bodies and many many,
many different ways UM. And what we do see is
that especially in the I v of clinic, when patients
are trying to conceive and it's not working, and then
they throw in the stress of fertility, and people don't
realize the impact that that has not only on a
woman's body physically, but just her emotional relationships with her
(07:31):
significant other, other people in her family, or her you know,
friendships that she may not be sharing this with. It
affects a lot, so all of that sort of stress. Um,
we do see that it does play a role when
women a lot of times, you know, say okay, you
know what, I'm done doing this or I'm going to
take a break from treatment. Those are the times. A
(07:51):
lot of times we get calls and we're like, I
got pregnant naturally, and so we can't discount that, I
mean we there's no Again, the science isn't black and white.
There's no way that we can say this is exactly
what it was, and it was because she wasn't going
through treatment and she wasn't stressed out that that's why
she got pregnant. But we do know what plays a role,
and we look at acupuncture and we look at things
like that that you know, it's proven to decrease the
(08:13):
stress in a woman's life or in her body that
then indirectly is helping her with her fertility. So that
definitely does play a role in it. You know, it's
so interesting that this is you're speaking exactly to what
happened in my life recently obviously, which I've shared a
lot with the listeners and we'll talk a little bit
(08:33):
more about here. But um, when you talk about like
the thirty five year mark being a huge part of
the drop in our egg reserve, why is that? Like
what number are why at thirty five? Like what happens
at thirty five? Because when I remember, I went to
the gynecologist and literally it was like my yearly check up,
and she was like, Okay, you're thirty five, So what's
(08:55):
your what's your thought on having children? And are you
thinking about this? And like you really you need to
start thinking about this. And I had no idea, but
it puts on this added pressure that like I was
nowhere in New year being ready to do that, and
so it was just kind of like wait what And
that was when my whole journey started. But what is
it about that age or what happens at that age?
(09:16):
So it's a marker. Again, going back to what I
said a little bit earlier, is it doesn't mean that
when you turn thirty five that you're doomed. Absolutely not.
It's just a marker. We know as we age that
things are starting to decline, and from the studies we
see around the age of thirty five, is that being
a big year for some people and may not be
until forty for some people. Like I said it maybe
(09:37):
and you know earlier. And I think that's the part
about being educated, and it really shouldn't be a scare tactic,
and I don't. I think it's just more about becoming
well informed about what's going on with your body. And
I always have patients that come in here and are like,
I had no idea or I wasn't educated at this
on my or my ob gud, you didn't tell me
about this. And I think that we have to be
our own advocate, and by reaching women and explaining that
(09:59):
this is what ha with our bodies and it's not
meant to scare you. It's just this is just the
way that we're made. And I think when we all
come to that realization as it's really kind of out
of our control. I mean, there's definitely things we can
do by not smoking and taking care of our bodies
and staying a healthy weight and exercising and decreasing as
much stress as possible, but the majority of it's out
of our control. And by understanding that and by becoming educated,
(10:22):
I think that we do have a small sense of control.
And this if we know more about what's going on
with ourselves personally. Agree, that was the biggest lesson that
I learned in this whole thing. I always say, like,
I do think knowledge is power, and for some reason,
this was just a situation that I was not informed
on about my own body. Like I think you just
(10:42):
put it off and put it off until you're like
someone says something like what my god in college is said,
and you're like, oh, ship, I do want kids. I do.
I guess I do need to start thinking about this.
And I think a good way to sort of look
at it is we're very proactive in our health, right,
like we follow the guidelines of what that means for
(11:03):
going and getting our packs near and what the guidelines
say for that, or if you're at a certain age
going to get your getting your man the Graham and
getting a yearly physical. So why aren't we doing that
with our fertility. It's better to be proactive and kind
of saying, Okay, I want to test this. I want
to see what's going on with my body. I want
to take you know, I know I want to have
children or maybe I think that I may, but I
don't know when or not right now. Um, and being
(11:25):
proactive and instead of waiting until we need to be reactive.
And what I mean by that is, you know a
lot of people wait until someone says that there's a
problem and that Okay, now your fertility is declining. Oh crap,
what do I do now? So the opposite of that
is kind of getting ahead of it and talking about
it with your medical professional, um you're kind of cologist,
(11:47):
your primary care physician, and kind of getting the information
so that you can be proactive and have some more
sense of control about your fertility. Right And like you said,
so what happened for me is when I found out
you brought up the stress factor, and that point in
my life actually happened to be just already super stressful.
So like it was that like rushed thing where you know,
(12:08):
this is sort of how I live my entire life,
so this isn't that surprising, but the last minute thing
of like the procrastination, Okay, I'm down to the wire,
this is when I need to look at this. I
found out that my fertility might not be at the
place that I wanted it to be, and so then
it was like this pressure to do it right now,
right now, You've got to do it, but I was
under so much stress with work, with travel, I bought
(12:29):
a new house that was in a new relationship. Uh.
You and I have connected on the reality TV disaster
stuff because you had some bachelor um history. But yeah,
so that's all of that stuff is like so much
stress on your body. And I've often thought like, what
would have happened if I looked at this at a
different point in my life? Would my results be different?
(12:52):
Mh Yeah, And I mean I think the answer is
is that if we you know, obviously going back to
the just our bodies are made, if it was five, six,
seven years ago, the likelihood is probably yes. But we
have to take what we have right now and you know,
and take from them. You and I have had this
conversation too. Okay, so this is this is what we
(13:13):
have right now. We can't go back, we can't change it.
This is what we're working with. What what can we
do to take with this what we have the information
given to us, we can't change it, And how do
we make a game plan moving forward? Um. So we've
talked about this as well about just oh my gosh,
you know, if we were just younger, when people would
have known about this, like you wish you could go
back and turn back the cloths and have this information
(13:36):
as a thirty year old. And I think that kind
of been your mission and your passion project for you.
And it was the same for me as well. Um,
you know, I was working in the the IVF clinic
and working with patients that, um, we're having to utilize
a donor egg because they had missed the window of
fertility for them and so the only way that they
were going to have a baby was going to be
(13:57):
through um donor or adoption. And so many people would
talk to me and just say, I wish I would
have known. I wish I knew I would have known
that I had an option. And for me, it was
like a light bulb. It was a light bulb moment
that it happened for me, Like why am I not
doing this? I'm hearing these women, they're educating me, they're
helping me. Um, you know, think about my future. And
(14:20):
I froze my eggs. And I froze my eggs at
the age of seven, and everyone thought that I was
crazy to me like I had a but I've authored
I just crazy. And I went through the process and
as much as you know, I'm so glad that I didn't.
And it was it seems like many moons ago, but
(14:40):
it was very daunting, and it was very isolating, and
it was very scary. And I was educated in it,
so I can't imagine how it would be for someone
that has no education or no medical background going through it.
And it was became like I said, it became a
passion project to really reach women and you let them
know that they do have options and they do have
(15:03):
an opportunity to take control of their fertility. Absolutely. I've
been My thing that I've been saying to anyone that
asked me or even on this podcast, is if I
could go back when I was, you know, late twenties,
early thirties, I would at least start a side savings
account just to start thinking about this and then that
way you're prepared financially, but also to go in just
(15:24):
go to a fertility clinic and get checked like it,
just like we do. Like you said that the got
in college's appointments. It's like, just go figure out what's
happening for your body, right, And that's what we always
say at ova UM is that we offer complimentary consultations
for anyone that is interested in kind of more you know,
(15:45):
personally figuring out what's going on to where we can
sit down kind of go over with their medical history,
their reproductive history and all of that to where we
can talk one on one. And that's offered complimentary. And
the reason that is is because how can you accept
someone to make a decision as big as this about
their future when they don't really know what it is,
what it's about, you know, you the literature that's just
out there is lacking, and we really recommend patients don't
(16:07):
just google online because there's a lot of misconceptions out
there and there's a lot of people that you know,
are offering really low prices for egg freezing because it's
kind of a hot topic right now, and you have
to be very very cautious of that because it is
such a fine tune technology. Not everyone can do it well.
It's a very um practice sort of science, and you
(16:30):
need to have that practice in the vitrification of o
s ites, not just embryos, and have babies born from
that to really, you know, to really teach women about
what they're getting into. And so I always just cautious
everyone caution everyone to really do their research and to
really make sure that they're going to a place that
(16:51):
has a laboratory, that has experience and has babies born
from this, because many women are going to freeze their
eggs or you know, to kind of take control of
their fertilit me in making this big leap. But what's
going to happen if and when ten years from now
they come back to use them. What's what's happening when
we go to soolve them and fertilize them, and what's
the success rate of that. And that's a lot of
the unknown right now. So be your advocate. Get out there,
(17:13):
do your research, ask about the laboratory. Like I said
it over, we offer these complementary consultations to just kind
of see where you are and we can talk about
what testing would look like to understand your reserve as well. Yeah,
I mean, this is not something that I would be
wanting to get a discount price. One. It's very serious. Yeah,
it is very serious. But I think the thing that
(17:33):
scary is when you just google in there absolutely like
one of the biggest things you'll see is we offer
e freezing for this low rate and people don't understand
that it's just not the same everywhere. Go. Yeah, you
definitely want to do your research. Do your research absolutely,
So if you had to advise you know, the women
(17:54):
listening who might be in their twenties and thirties, like,
what would an age be where they really need to
start taking this seriously? And like if it is something
where you're like, I want kids, but I'm not in
a place right now, when would you say, like, really
start to look into this. We recommend based on the science,
based on the data and the studies that have been
done between the ages of twenty five and thirty five. Now,
(18:16):
it doesn't mean that if you're older than thirty five
that you're not a candidate. It's more about than managing
expectations about what treatment's gonna look like for you and
really having a serious conversation about that. Um, it's hard
because seems so young and most twenty five year olds
aren't thinking anything about this, But that's really, you know,
a good age to start beginning to think about your fertility,
(18:38):
because we do know, if we go back to the beginning,
what happens as we age when we hit thirty, when
we hit thirty five, So the younger we are. When
we do this, we know that the quality and the
quantity of the egg is going to be higher. And
it is somewhat of a catch twenty two because when
we're younger, we obviously aren't as financially stable as when
we're older. But it is you know, when we do it,
(19:00):
then it's cheaper because you probably aren't going to need
as many cycles. You're probably not going to need as
many medications because your quality of your egg and the
quantity of them is so much higher. So let's say
you wait five or ten years. Now you're more financially stable,
but yet it's going to be a lot more expensive,
and you might have to do it more than one
time because the goal number of eggs is fifteen to
(19:20):
twenty fifteen twenty eggs doesn't equal fifteen twenty babies. There's
a nutrition that takes place if then when you come
back to use them. So we want to be sure
that you're banking enough to make it worth your while,
and that's harder to do the older that you are. Right,
let's talk about that a little bit. You actually just
answered my next question, which was what do you guys
perceive to be a successful cycle. So you're saying eggs
(19:44):
would be and I don't want to yes, I don't
want to say that that is a successful one cycle.
I'm saying that's our goal number total. And so some
patients may come through and do a cycle and maybe
they're only going to get four or five a right,
And I don't want that to come across is that
that's a failed cycle. That's not a failed cycle at all.
It's more about how many total are we going to get.
(20:05):
And so we do offer multicycle packaging and OVA to
where if we know, based on your initial testing that
you may need more than one cycle to get to
that goal number of fifteen to twenty eggs, then we
can offer multicycle packaging so that your second or third
cycle is you know, you get those discounts. UM. I
think managing expectations talking about this, this is huge. I've
(20:26):
talked to so many women when we were thinking about
opening up OVA, which isn't everything specialty center. We we
did a lot of research, We talked to a lot
of patients that had gone through the process, and I
reached out to like two something women that had gone
through this process and just ask them, what did you like,
what did you not like, what would you do differently?
And one of the things that I heard on repeat
(20:47):
was the management of expectations, whereas women were glad that
they didn't did it, but they weren't educated at the
beginning about what treatment was going to look like for them,
or that they may need to do more than one cycle,
or that five eggs really it wasn't enough to make
it worth their while. You know, they didn't know any
of that. And so that's again why we want to
(21:07):
explain all of this before you then are already knee
deep in treatment and didn't really know what you were
getting yourself into. It's important to kind of answer those questions.
And you know, egg freezing is wonderful. It's an amazing
sort of opportunity for the women in our generation to
have this chance to take control of your fertility. Women
ten fifteen years ago didn't really have this option. But
(21:30):
it's not a guarantee of a pregnancy. And a lot
of times you hear people say like, oh, I approach
my eyes, don't have to worry about it, or you know,
there's a lot that still has to happen on the
tail and and I'm to talk about those things as well. Well,
that's actually a touch on that topic too, because I mean,
I think the reason, you guys, what I understood from
the education that y'all taught me was the reason you
(21:51):
want the fifteen to twenty is because all of those
eggs are not going to become an embryo, which you
kind of touched her in, But could you explain that
a little further, because I had no concept. I thought
exactly what you said, I'm gonna go in, I'm going
to freeze these eggs, and that's going to be the
number of chances that have to get pregnant, and that
is absolutely not true. It's not true. So let's talk
(22:12):
about what happens in a natural cycle every single month
for a woman. So what we do our bodies that
what they do is they recruit many immature o syites,
and O sites is just an egg, So they recruit
many immature eggs, and one egg matures, we ovulate that
out for pregnancy or if are we're not pregnant, then
(22:34):
we shed the lining and the cycle starts again. And
then all of the immature eggs that we recruited that
didn't im mature, weren't that one. Then we lose them.
So we're losing hundreds of eggs every single month. Okay,
Now there's many things that can happen in that process
that you know, it doesn't follow us, you know, as smoothly,
and that's why people will be like, well, how the
(22:55):
twins happen if if only one egg is So that's
a story for a different day. But that's, you know,
a very simple measures, like that's what happens every single month.
So what we're doing is we are trying to recruit
more mature ecreat me. We're trying to mature more than
one egg than what you naturally would. So we're trying
(23:16):
to get some of those eggs that you would naturally lose.
We're trying to save those are mature those So one
question is that you know, am i, am I hurting
my chances of getting pregnant in the future. Am I
taking eggs that I would have needed in the future.
And the answer is no, we're saving the ones that
you would have naturally lost anyways. But with that being said,
once we remove them, we have to monitor them to
(23:38):
see if they are fully mature for pregnancy, and some
of them aren't. It's very normal that when we retrieve eggs,
there's a portion of them that are just a mature,
meaning that they would never make an embryo, and so
for that we we don't freeze those because there's many
reasons that we don't freeze. The number one, that's an
inflation of number of how many eggs that you would have,
(24:01):
and number two, the chances of them surviving the saw
and making an embryore a very close close to zero.
So we only freeze the mature eggs, the best looking eggs.
So let's say we freeze those. And then in this scenario,
we're going to say that there's a woman. She frowze
her eggs at thirties, She goes on, she gets married
at thirty five, she has a baby at thirty six.
Now she's thirty seven, thirty eight, and she's trying to
(24:23):
get pregnant with baby number two, and she's struggling, and
so she wants to go back and dip into her eggs.
And let's say she froze fifty. So she comes back
and we attempted to thaw all of them, and let's
say out of the fifteen, fourteen of them survived the thaw,
So fourteen of them still look, can you what does
that mean though, because you guys said that a couple
of times to me, like survived the thaw, like, so
(24:44):
when you freeze that, go ahead, we're freezing them. And
what we're freezing them through a science called vitrification. And
vitrification has been around a long time for embryos, but
vitrification of eggs is that advancement in the technology that's
really just come to fruition in the past decade. That's
that fine tune technology and what it is, it's a
(25:04):
flash freezing method and it puts the egg in like
a glass like structure so that it's solid and it's sturdy.
Because eggs are so naturally fragile, they're only half of
the chromosomes that it takes to make a baby. Their
water based they're easily damaged. So with this science that's
making them sturdy when they're frozen, but when it goes
to fall them sometimes think of it just like if
(25:27):
you have put something in the freezer and you go
to like get it out and it's got freezer burn
on it, or it doesn't it doesn't taste like just
and that happens, and that's very normal that that happens
with eggs. So by surviving the saw, what I mean
by that is that once it's thawed and we look
at them, there's still a good quality. They're still mature,
(25:48):
they still would have the ability to fertilize with sperm.
So it is very normal that when we do that,
maybe one or two and that this is just an
our lab. We have about saw rate, so I'm not
speaking for every one. That they would them on average,
and our lab survived a thought, it is yeah. I
mean our embryologists that do this are award winning, gotten
(26:11):
awards um based off of just doing that. Your pacation
goes back to do your research about the place that
you do it, because these are all the big selling
points for me on why shows over. Yes, exactly, so
they survived a thought. On this specific example, boy said,
this woman had fifteen, so we let's say fourteen survived.
They look good, all right, So then we have to
(26:32):
fertilize them with sperm. And when this you know, when
someone freezes their eggs, a lot of times they don't
know who the sperm source is going to be. Is
it going to be it's you know, a donor, is
it going to be husband or a partner who knows
who it's going to be, so we don't know the
quality of it at that time, so we have to
quality of the sperm is very important. I mean, I
think women take a lot of this burden on themselves
(26:54):
that oh it's me or if I'm not pregnant, it's
my fault or my eggs. But you know what and
the ivy F clinic I would say about you know,
at the time, it is a male factor problem. So
we have to think about the quality of the sperm
as well. So we've got these fourteen eggs, We're gonna
attempt to inseminate or fertilize all of them, and then
(27:15):
we monitor them to see how they grow into embryos
over the next five six days. So over the next
five to six days when the embryologists are monitoring them,
some of them are going to fall off. So some
of them on certain days or certain stages are not
going to be um you know it progressing or growing
(27:36):
into what we call a blast assist. So it's the
eggs which which is then the embryo. We all learn
about micosis while we're in school. That's basically what is
happening at the cells are multiplying and doubling, and then
it gets to what we call blast assists, which is
what we want them to grow too. So when we
had the fourteen eggs that we inseminated in this example,
let's just say, let's say ten of them made it
(27:57):
to a blast assist or a good looking stage aged embryo. Okay,
so we started at fifteen at ten, then there's always
the option for women if they want to do genetic
testing of the embryos where we can see if there's
any chromosomal abnormality. UM, it's a completely optional depending on
the age of the woman once you frosia, the age
of the eggs. Sometimes we recommend it, sometimes we don't. UM,
(28:20):
it's really up to the patient and the decision with
their treating medical professional. But if let's say someone wanted
to do the genetic testing of these embryos and we
buy up see them and sent them off, then most
likely not all ten of them are going to be
chromosomeally normal. So again you're losing some there. And then
(28:41):
the thing is is that you don't even that we
haven't even transferred them to the unit yet. So I'm
not saying this to be overwhelming, But I'm just answering
the question that there's steps every step of the way
that it's very normal to lose an egg or an embryo.
So by just starting with five eggs, you can see
where there's a lot that has to happen before you
ever take home a how of the baby. And that's
(29:02):
why we want to be sure that you freeze enough
eggs to make it worth your while. And I know
that kind of something like an overwhelming sort of example,
but I think it's important that people understand what all
has to happen on the tailent. There's a lot that
happens in the lab before you're ever able to say, yes,
I'm pregnant. It worked well, and that's why it's important
you know, again you do your research and you freeze
(29:23):
enough ecs to make it worth your while. Absolutely, and
any fertility clinic you go to is going to deliver
the information exactly what you just said. All of that,
and if you remember, I had gone somewhere in Nashville
before I met with you guys, and I told you, like,
it was so helpful for me to hear it from
your voice because it wasn't as overwhelming for some reason.
It was just very factual and like, but here's how
(29:44):
we do that kind of thing. And I think that
it is an overwhelming there's they're very overwhelming statistics to hear.
And this again is why I'm so passionate about telling
people at an earlier age, because your chances are just
so much higher to get the higher numbers. Absolutely, you
hit the nail on the head, and it is important,
and like I said, it can be overwhelming, but I
(30:06):
think patients want to want to hear that information. They
want all of the information that they can get so
they can have a better understanding about what's going on
with this process that they're investing a lot of time, energy,
and money into. Right, And this kind of goes into
the topic of the quality of eggs, because as important
as it is to get into you know, you want
(30:26):
to get as many as you can. You want to
get the fifteen to twenty total, like you guys say,
and maybe that's a couple of rounds for someone who's
a little bit older, But the reason you want to
get more is because we can't predict what each egg
is going to do. However, I was, you know, you
and I talked a little bit about this before. But
I was reading a book while I was going through
the process called um It starts with the egg, and
(30:48):
she's she's gone through some fertility structures struggles. Excuse me,
She's not a doctor, so she was just speaking from
her own personal experience, and a lot of the conversation
was about the food we eat, the b p A s,
the thali's, the things around us in our house and
even in our makeup products that could be lowering our
fertility or the quality of our eggs so that when
(31:09):
you do take them, they're not lasting the way that
we want them to, or they're not transferring into an embryo,
or all the things that you just explained. So how
important is egg quality? Actually? Tim? Personally, I feel like
egg quality is better than the quantity, and we need
you obviously need the numbers, but if they're not good
(31:32):
through exactly so, I'd rather have, if I was a patient,
a few really really good looking eggs than a ton
that are just kind of math looking. Um. But that
it goes hand in hand the quality and the quantity.
So the age is the biggest factory, and I'm sure
there are environmental factors that affected that. We just don't
(31:52):
know exactly what they are absolutely um. But again, the
number one thing that we can pendpoint on what the
medical data tells us is at age is the biggest,
biggest factor when it comes to quality. And when we
look at you know, ovarying reserve and the testing that
is available to patients to you know, understand what their
fertility potential is, that's really just looking at the quantity.
(32:15):
The only way to look at the quality of an
egg is to remove it, look at it underneath the microscope,
and really the gold standard would be to fertilize it
with sperm and see how well grows into an embryo.
There's no testing by looking at ultrasound or in your
blood to let us know the quality of your egg
at this point, so we only have age to base
that off of. Okay, well, you mentioned smoking earlier being
(32:37):
such a you know, a hard thing for your body
and egg quality. Is there anything else that you recommend?
I mean, you told me specifically to start doing acupuncture,
and is that that was to lower stress? Was that
the helpful part of that? We do, I believe, and
there have been studies that have shown that, you know,
acupuncture does help with stress. Our lives, and some people
(33:01):
have other experiences that they feel like it does or
it doesn't help. It's kind of subjective, but we do
see that with acupuncture, and we know that the struss
levels then you know, go down. We do see that
only being a benefit as far as fertility. It's not
going to harm a patient by doing acupuncture, doing something
that's going to decree the dress in their life. It's
(33:22):
only going to benefit things. So when patients are going
through treatment and they're maybe not having an optimal response
or they're struggling, whether it be emotionally or physically, I
think acupuncture is always a good thing to try. And
maybe it's some patients aren't going to benefit from it
or not going to really love going through it, um,
But it's again, it's not going to be something that's
gonna harm you. Okay. Is there anything else that you
(33:44):
would give us tips? Even before? Because another thing that
I learned during this process was that we are eggs. Um.
I think I thought like, for each cycle, your eggs
were developing like just that month, but doesn't it go
back three months? Am I making that up? I haven't
heard that. Okay, don't trust me. I don't know where
(34:06):
I heard that, but I swore someone said that it
like it starts to develop our each cycle starts like
three months back. I don't know, y'all. Maybe I've made
that up. I'm not sure, and I'm not saying that
that's not I have not heard that. I'm not sure. Okay, Well,
I think the point is is to take care of
your body, maybe reduced stress as much as you can.
No smoking people. People asked me all the time, you know,
(34:29):
what can I do to improve it? And it's it's
really I wish that there was something you know, that
I could say do and this is going to help
your fertility, But it's really about just being healthy and
taking care of yourself and things that are going to
hurt you, you know, your weight or eating sugar or
doing this and all that. I mean, it's just about
(34:50):
being healthy. So taking care of your body, you know,
getting enough sleep and exercising and do it all of
those things. You know, we don't have a direct ink
between it, but it's not gonna harm you. So it's
only going to help you. Anything that can decrease stress
and to keep you healthy, you know, in the long
run is only going to help your fertility as well. Yeah,
I definitely think too. Um. Something that I didn't know
(35:12):
about the process was that when you actually do start
doing the process, you can't when you start your shots,
you can't work out. Um well, there's no drinking, which
is fine, but there's no sex, there's not there's not
a lot of things, Like there's a lot of things
that you really have to think about, Like for two
weeks basically are three weeks. I guess it ends writing.
And the reason that we we put those restrictions in
place no exercise and her course heavy lifting, it's for
(35:35):
the protection of you, your body and your ovaries. The
medications that you're taking cause your ovaries to enlarge. Your
ovaries are free hanging in your body. When you move,
they move, So we want to reduce the risk of
any sort of ovariant torsion, which is a really rare
risk because that is involved with treatment UM and that's
basically where the ovary, because it's enlarge, there's you know,
(35:56):
if you're doing a lot of activity, the over put
twist on itself, so then the blood flow would cut
off and all of that sort of thing, and that's
a medical emergency. So we're doing that for your protection.
That's why I tell patients, you know, it's just and
the grand scheme of things that may not seem like
it when you're not being able to work out, especially
if that's something that helps reduce stress in your life.
But in the grand scheme of it, it's only you know,
(36:18):
three or four weeks that we're at um to have
those restrictions someplace. Totally, I think I felt better I did.
I didn't try this twice, and I felt better going
into the second round because I had known that. So
I was able to kind of get my body ready,
like I worked out a lot before, and I felt
healthier going into it. And that was just a tip
that I thought maybe would be helpful to people to just,
(36:40):
you know, just to know, just to know what you're
getting into it, especially Yeah, when you're going and you're
looking to see, Okay, what month do I want to
do this scheduling, it's nice to know that going into it. Absolutely,
So we talked about reducing stress and we mentioned that
you were on the Bachelor back in the day. Yeah, ago,
do you say you won the Bachelor? I always think
(37:01):
that's so weird. It's like it's like, does that do
you call that winning, like if you're the last contestant.
I don't know. I don't know that. I feel like
a lot of people, you know, refer to it is
that I don't know if that's necessarily the way that
I feel. Yeah, I was the last woman standing. Okay,
(37:22):
that's the way of the final rods because I always
think it's so weird You're talking about a relationship and
people are like, oh, she won, and I'm like, but wait,
was that winning? I don't know. I think that's weird. Um,
So in some seasons, I'm like, maybe the winner is
person that doesn't actually exactly like the person who got
the final is did they really win? So tell us
(37:44):
about life after the Bachelor. What's been going on? Well,
I am married, Um, I have a little boy. Um,
I am married, not to the person that gave me
the final thank god, Jim a man Um Ricky and uh,
you know, right after the Bachelor, I it was a dark,
(38:07):
dark time for me and I didn't really know that, um,
things were ever gonna there were ever gonna be alive
at the end of the tunnel, or things were ever
going to look up. And and they did, and I
met Ricky and it was just I mean, I guess,
you know, they do say when you know, you know,
and I never believed that until I met him. But
we have been together now for gosh, four or five years.
(38:30):
We got married a few years ago. He welcomed our
first baby, a little boy, ten months ago. Dang. And
that was without using the eggs that you froze, right,
it was. It was without using them, Um, but I'm
not gonna lie. It was. Getting pregnant did not come
easy for us, and it was something that, um, you know,
(38:50):
we did consult with Dr Kaplan about using the eggs
that I froze, and you know, he told us. You know,
we all have this timeline in our brain about how
we would think that our life is going to go
or the way that we expected or we want it
to happen, and when it doesn't follow that path, then
it's very anxiety provoking. And I'm no different, even you know,
(39:11):
working in the field and knowing what I know and
knowing that I still you know, it's not always easy
to get pregnant. I did want it to just happen
to me that first second third. It took about six
months though, and um, Dr Kaplan advised that we keep
the eggs, you know alone, leave them there for you know,
the possibility of baby number two or number three. And
(39:31):
I think that that's really important as well when we
talk about egg freezing, as people always think like, oh, well,
I'm young, I'll be able to get pregnant. What if
you want more than one child? And secondary and fertility
is it's a large thing. We hear about this all
the time. We see patients all the time that are
struggling with secondary and fertility, especially if you're starting your
family a little bit later in life. So we decided
(39:52):
to leave and put and for me to just kind
of pump the brakes and try to manage my stress levels.
Um And it happened for us um without the need
to use them. But it's nice to know that they're
there because we would like to have another baby, and
if we're struggling, it's nice to know that they're there. Absolutely,
it's always nice to have a backup plan, you know. Yes,
(40:16):
So what happens, as someone asked me this and I
did not know the answer, what if you decide never
to use the eggs, what happens to them? They just
stay have so they're so people ask a lot of
times about the quality of them, meaning like if they're
frozen for a long period of time, do they start
to lose their effectiveness or if their quality diminishes and
(40:37):
they don't they can be frozen and definitely and there's
been you know, we don't see any sort of decline
and the quality of the egg. But let's say you
your families completed, or you decide you don't want kids
or whatever it may be, and you're ready to um
discard them. You have a couple of options. UM. One
of them is just like what I said, that we
can discard them. Um. The second would be that you
(40:58):
could donate them to research. Or the third would be
donate them to another couple, UM that is struggling with fertility,
that someone you know or anonymously sure certain things that
we need to do through FDA guidelines to um ensure
that you know, they're safe to be donated and we
could help patients out with that if that's what they choose. Yeah,
that would be an amazing gift to give someone for sure. Well,
(41:21):
why do you thank you so much? This was so helpful.
I think that your explanations of stuff, they're just so
much more clear than what I could ever communicate to people.
And I just think this is such an important topic.
I really do well, thank you, and I hope it
was helpful and not you know, overwhelming. UM by any
means that patients have or your listeners excuse me, have
(41:42):
any questions whatsoever. They can definitely UM reach out to
us on our website, which is over everreezing dot com.
They can call us UM. Our phone number is three
one two eight zero zero zero two to eight UM
and send us a message to the website as well. Again,
the first consult is comp menory with a nurse here
to just go over what at freezing would look like
(42:05):
for you specifically and managing those expectations and then kind
of letting you know if you wanted to get testing
what that would look like as well. And we see patients.
You don't have to be local to Chicago. I think
that's right as well. UM. We see patients all over
the United States, and in the laboratory, we see patients
from all over the world that come into the lab right.
I was in Nashville and I decided to work with
you guys specifically because for me, it's it's you guys
(42:28):
just do egg freezing, so it's a very specialized thing.
And you know, a most fertility clinics you're sitting in
the waiting room with a pregnant couple or it's just
a different situation. So it felt very comforting to me
to be in a place that was very specific to
what I was going through. Absolutely, And then patients do
ask as well. You know, let's say I froze my
eggs and then I'm ready to use them, do I
(42:49):
get to come back to you guys, or do you
guys send me somewhere else? We do, you know, do
that second part as well. You know, we do feel
like it's very important to have that continuity of care
um with the facility that you feel comfortable with. Its
started the process with you and kind of completing the
journey with you as well. And you guys can also
be found on Instagram, right it's at is it at
over egg Freezing? Yes? Oh v A for anyone who's
(43:12):
looking them up, Yes, you got it. And it's all
women in this place. It's just amazing. It's a very
empowering place to be, which I think this situation can
be a very empowered decision for every woman to make.
So educate yourself, go ahead. It absolutely is empowering. I
(43:33):
mean some people are like, it doesn't seem empowering to me,
you know, like I'm sad that I'm you know, not
with someone, or that I'm not sure where I thought
it was going to be. But it's when you flip
that coin and you look at it as you have
the opportunity to take control of your future and take
control of your fertility. This is not you know you
That to me is amazing. That is empowering in and
(43:54):
of itself that we have the ability to do this. Absolutely,
educate yourself and be active. That's my biggest, biggest sort
of you know, I guess my parting words is be
proactive versus reactive. We're proactive about so many things in
our life, and fertility shouldn't be any different. Absolutely, that's
the best way to put it, because I think the
more proactive you are, the more empowering it is. Absolutely. Well,
(44:17):
thank you so much again for talking about this. I
feel like this is not discussed very much, and I
really want to keep just bringing light to the topic
that people are aware getting on the radar. They're proactive
and they're empowered, So thank you for educating us. Happy
to come back anytime. Okay, maybe we'll talk more reality
TV or maybe not ever again or yeah, I don't
(44:40):
know if anybody watched the finale last night. I'm sure
there's a lot of talking. I'm behind. I've got to
go catch up. That's all my agenda for tonight. But
I heard it. It's like a very dundun situation. Is good,
It is good? All right? Well, thanks Kelly, I really
appreciate it, and thanks Whitney, and thank you guys for listening.
(45:01):
This is Kelly Henderson and you've been listening to the
Velvet Edge podcast. I truly believe that every one of
us has a little velvet and a little edge, so
it's so important to remember that to be strong, you
must be softd too. Thank you so much for sharing
in those stories with me. You can follow Velvet's Edge
on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as Velvet's Edge
(45:22):
dot com. If you have it yet, go to Apple
Podcasts and subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Join me
every Wednesday for more conversations on lifestyle, beauty, and relationships.
Thanks for listening.
This is Kelly Henderson and you are listening to the
Velvet Edge podcast. As I've talked about quite a bit
on this podcast, I went through the process of freezing
my eggs recently, and after two unsuccessful attempts, I decided
that this was not the best route for me. However,
it has really put it on my heart to continue
to educate women about their options as far as fertility goes.
I went in blind and I often wonder if my
(00:21):
options would have looked different if I had started at
a different age. Although the process didn't work, overall, my
experience was made much easier by the amazing people I
worked with at over Egg Freezing Center in Chicago. In fact,
some of you may even recognize my nurse, Whitney Bischoff
from Crystal season of The Bachelor. Whitty is not only
a highly educated nurse, but her delivery of information about
(00:42):
this process helped me to understand and stay calm. Honestly,
do not think I would have been able to process
a lot of this stuff without her. Of course, we
also had some really interesting reality TV stories to exchange
as well, so forever be grateful for her and her insight.
We talked a lot about the fundamentals of utility, options
of egg freezing, and of course the Bachelor. Here's our conversation. Okay,
(01:06):
so we were talking before about just my goal now
being to really educate women, especially young women, about this
egg freezing stuff and just how to get it on
your radar, what you need to know, because I wish
I had known stuff way earlier than I did, and
you guys taught me so much through the process. Um,
(01:26):
So I just wanted for like the medical perspective and
the professional opinion. Can you kind of talk through how
our egg reserve works? Yeah? Yeah, And I think that
that's a very common misconception that we all just kind
of get it, and I feel that talking about it
(01:47):
and kind of breaking it all down is a large
eye opener for a lot of women. So yeah, let's
talk about it. So, as women, we are born with
all of the eggs that we will ever have, right,
So that's very, very different than men who make sperm
consistently throughout their life. So with women, it's very opposite.
I always say, we're more opposite and ways than what
(02:09):
we ever imagined. Um, but we're born with all of
these eggs and from day one of our life, we
start losing them every single day. And I feel like
the best way to visualize this in our brain is
if there was this imaginary line graph and on the
day that you're born is on that top left, but
you're born with millions of eggs, and on day one
of life, this graph the line starts to decline, and
(02:32):
so as time is going on, this line is gradually declining.
And what the line is depicting is what we call
ovarian reserve, or the quality and the quantity of the
eggs that we have remaining. And there's been a lot
of studies that have been completed on this ovarian reserve line,
and what the studies show is that on average, by
(02:55):
the time a woman starts her period, she's lost over
half of the eggs that he was born with, and
that at thirty that line kind of takes a little
bit of a bigger dip, and a thirty five the
biggest dip. Now, with that being said, it doesn't mean
that at thirty five you just drop out all of
the eggs that you were born with. You know, this
(03:16):
science isn't black and white, and not everybody follows that
exact curve on that imaginary line graph. There's some women
from the day that they're born, their line is going
down very rapidly, and those are women that we see
that has premature O variance failure. And then there's women
whose line is very slowly going down, and those are
women that we see that are able to get pregnant
(03:37):
naturally into their early forties. And both of those examples
they are rare. Most people kind of fall towards the
first example that I explained, UM. But there's very many
things that we can talk about today that can impact
that rate of decline. I mean, there's environmental there's medical factors,
there's emotional factors that all can play a fact in
the factor in that UM. And I think it's important
(03:57):
to know that as women, we're all in this together,
all of us as women, all of our lines are declining.
There's no woman's fertility that is plateauing or is increasing,
it's just the rate at which is going down is
different from one person to the next. And really age
is the most important factor as to the rate of
the de clime. I mean, that is so crazy to
think about the time. By the time we start our period,
(04:18):
we've lost half of our egg reserve. I mean I
was twelve years old, right, I mean it's like by
the time we even could have a baby who we wanted,
we're already I haven't set back because we've lost half
of what we do and tell women all the time.
You know, the times have evolved as far as being
a woman, and how amazing that is, but our bodies
(04:40):
haven't really kept up with the time. Our bodies have
are still made to um have babies or to reproduce
in our early twenty right, you know, with the way
that you know we're in that's that's not the way
of the world these days. No, it's so different nowadays.
I mean, I think it's so common that a woman
I'm thirty seven, but I think you know, if you
(05:01):
if you are a woman who wants to build her
career and um build a life other than having kids first,
that's just so common nowadays. But like you said it,
and I think it's fine if you do want to
have babies in your early twenties, that's all great. But
I think that we're just seeing, like you said, more
and more women that are focused on other things aside
(05:21):
from family, not to saying that they don't want to
have a family, but that there's so many things that come,
you know, before that, well before we're even getting to
that point of thinking about that, before we feel ready
to settle down, you know, financially you're the right person
or anything like that, and then we've got this, you know,
big problem with our fertility that we may not have
(05:43):
thought about at a younger age. Exactly. I mean, that's
exactly what happened to me. But so is there is
there anything that we do or don't do that causes
Like you said, there's some women who they just have
a more rapid decline or that something. You know, there's
those women that you always where they're like, well I
was fertile, myrtle, And it's like, is there anything that
you are doing or not doing that's causing that or
(06:05):
is that just how you're born and the way your
body is, your body chemistry. I wish that's a really
good question, and I think there's a lot to that
question that we don't have the answers to. I mean,
the number one sort of thing with our our decline
or the rate of decline is our age. Obviously, genetics
plays a role. If you have UM, if your mom
you know, went into early menopause. Yes, we do see
(06:28):
that there's a chance that UM, you would be at
a higher risk than of going through early menopause. We
do see that that link UM with the genetics. As
far as lifestyle goes, I mean, we do know that
smoking UM plays a big role in the quality of
our eggs. So UM, there's many reasons why smoking is
(06:48):
not good for us and this can you know, you
just tag that right on in there. So it does
affect your fertility as well. UM. Emotionally, There's there's been
a lot that we've looked into in the field as
far as stress and UM the emotional component and how
it affects fertility, and we do know that it can
(07:08):
affect it. Just like anything else. Stress is not a
positive thing for any of our bodies and many many,
many different ways UM. And what we do see is
that especially in the I v of clinic, when patients
are trying to conceive and it's not working, and then
they throw in the stress of fertility, and people don't
realize the impact that that has not only on a
woman's body physically, but just her emotional relationships with her
(07:31):
significant other, other people in her family, or her you know,
friendships that she may not be sharing this with. It
affects a lot, so all of that sort of stress. Um,
we do see that it does play a role when
women a lot of times, you know, say okay, you
know what, I'm done doing this or I'm going to
take a break from treatment. Those are the times. A
(07:51):
lot of times we get calls and we're like, I
got pregnant naturally, and so we can't discount that, I
mean we there's no Again, the science isn't black and white.
There's no way that we can say this is exactly
what it was, and it was because she wasn't going
through treatment and she wasn't stressed out that that's why
she got pregnant. But we do know what plays a role,
and we look at acupuncture and we look at things
like that that you know, it's proven to decrease the
(08:13):
stress in a woman's life or in her body that
then indirectly is helping her with her fertility. So that
definitely does play a role in it. You know, it's
so interesting that this is you're speaking exactly to what
happened in my life recently obviously, which I've shared a
lot with the listeners and we'll talk a little bit
(08:33):
more about here. But um, when you talk about like
the thirty five year mark being a huge part of
the drop in our egg reserve, why is that? Like
what number are why at thirty five? Like what happens
at thirty five? Because when I remember, I went to
the gynecologist and literally it was like my yearly check up,
and she was like, Okay, you're thirty five, So what's
(08:55):
your what's your thought on having children? And are you
thinking about this? And like you really you need to
start thinking about this. And I had no idea, but
it puts on this added pressure that like I was
nowhere in New year being ready to do that, and
so it was just kind of like wait what And
that was when my whole journey started. But what is
it about that age or what happens at that age?
(09:16):
So it's a marker. Again, going back to what I
said a little bit earlier, is it doesn't mean that
when you turn thirty five that you're doomed. Absolutely not.
It's just a marker. We know as we age that
things are starting to decline, and from the studies we
see around the age of thirty five, is that being
a big year for some people and may not be
until forty for some people. Like I said it maybe
(09:37):
and you know earlier. And I think that's the part
about being educated, and it really shouldn't be a scare tactic,
and I don't. I think it's just more about becoming
well informed about what's going on with your body. And
I always have patients that come in here and are like,
I had no idea or I wasn't educated at this
on my or my ob gud, you didn't tell me
about this. And I think that we have to be
our own advocate, and by reaching women and explaining that
(09:59):
this is what ha with our bodies and it's not
meant to scare you. It's just this is just the
way that we're made. And I think when we all
come to that realization as it's really kind of out
of our control. I mean, there's definitely things we can
do by not smoking and taking care of our bodies
and staying a healthy weight and exercising and decreasing as
much stress as possible, but the majority of it's out
of our control. And by understanding that and by becoming educated,
(10:22):
I think that we do have a small sense of control.
And this if we know more about what's going on
with ourselves personally. Agree, that was the biggest lesson that
I learned in this whole thing. I always say, like,
I do think knowledge is power, and for some reason,
this was just a situation that I was not informed
on about my own body. Like I think you just
(10:42):
put it off and put it off until you're like
someone says something like what my god in college is said,
and you're like, oh, ship, I do want kids. I do.
I guess I do need to start thinking about this.
And I think a good way to sort of look
at it is we're very proactive in our health, right,
like we follow the guidelines of what that means for
(11:03):
going and getting our packs near and what the guidelines
say for that, or if you're at a certain age
going to get your getting your man the Graham and
getting a yearly physical. So why aren't we doing that
with our fertility. It's better to be proactive and kind
of saying, Okay, I want to test this. I want
to see what's going on with my body. I want
to take you know, I know I want to have
children or maybe I think that I may, but I
don't know when or not right now. Um, and being
(11:25):
proactive and instead of waiting until we need to be reactive.
And what I mean by that is, you know a
lot of people wait until someone says that there's a
problem and that Okay, now your fertility is declining. Oh crap,
what do I do now? So the opposite of that
is kind of getting ahead of it and talking about
it with your medical professional, um you're kind of cologist,
(11:47):
your primary care physician, and kind of getting the information
so that you can be proactive and have some more
sense of control about your fertility. Right And like you said,
so what happened for me is when I found out
you brought up the stress factor, and that point in
my life actually happened to be just already super stressful.
So like it was that like rushed thing where you know,
(12:08):
this is sort of how I live my entire life,
so this isn't that surprising, but the last minute thing
of like the procrastination, Okay, I'm down to the wire,
this is when I need to look at this. I
found out that my fertility might not be at the
place that I wanted it to be, and so then
it was like this pressure to do it right now,
right now, You've got to do it, but I was
under so much stress with work, with travel, I bought
(12:29):
a new house that was in a new relationship. Uh.
You and I have connected on the reality TV disaster
stuff because you had some bachelor um history. But yeah,
so that's all of that stuff is like so much
stress on your body. And I've often thought like, what
would have happened if I looked at this at a
different point in my life? Would my results be different?
(12:52):
Mh Yeah, And I mean I think the answer is
is that if we you know, obviously going back to
the just our bodies are made, if it was five, six,
seven years ago, the likelihood is probably yes. But we
have to take what we have right now and you know,
and take from them. You and I have had this
conversation too. Okay, so this is this is what we
(13:13):
have right now. We can't go back, we can't change it.
This is what we're working with. What what can we
do to take with this what we have the information
given to us, we can't change it, And how do
we make a game plan moving forward? Um. So we've
talked about this as well about just oh my gosh,
you know, if we were just younger, when people would
have known about this, like you wish you could go
back and turn back the cloths and have this information
(13:36):
as a thirty year old. And I think that kind
of been your mission and your passion project for you.
And it was the same for me as well. Um,
you know, I was working in the the IVF clinic
and working with patients that, um, we're having to utilize
a donor egg because they had missed the window of
fertility for them and so the only way that they
were going to have a baby was going to be
(13:57):
through um donor or adoption. And so many people would
talk to me and just say, I wish I would
have known. I wish I knew I would have known
that I had an option. And for me, it was
like a light bulb. It was a light bulb moment
that it happened for me, Like why am I not
doing this? I'm hearing these women, they're educating me, they're
helping me. Um, you know, think about my future. And
(14:20):
I froze my eggs. And I froze my eggs at
the age of seven, and everyone thought that I was
crazy to me like I had a but I've authored
I just crazy. And I went through the process and
as much as you know, I'm so glad that I didn't.
And it was it seems like many moons ago, but
(14:40):
it was very daunting, and it was very isolating, and
it was very scary. And I was educated in it,
so I can't imagine how it would be for someone
that has no education or no medical background going through it.
And it was became like I said, it became a
passion project to really reach women and you let them
know that they do have options and they do have
(15:03):
an opportunity to take control of their fertility. Absolutely. I've
been My thing that I've been saying to anyone that
asked me or even on this podcast, is if I
could go back when I was, you know, late twenties,
early thirties, I would at least start a side savings
account just to start thinking about this and then that
way you're prepared financially, but also to go in just
(15:24):
go to a fertility clinic and get checked like it,
just like we do. Like you said that the got
in college's appointments. It's like, just go figure out what's
happening for your body, right, And that's what we always
say at ova UM is that we offer complimentary consultations
for anyone that is interested in kind of more you know,
(15:45):
personally figuring out what's going on to where we can
sit down kind of go over with their medical history,
their reproductive history and all of that to where we
can talk one on one. And that's offered complimentary. And
the reason that is is because how can you accept
someone to make a decision as big as this about
their future when they don't really know what it is,
what it's about, you know, you the literature that's just
out there is lacking, and we really recommend patients don't
(16:07):
just google online because there's a lot of misconceptions out
there and there's a lot of people that you know,
are offering really low prices for egg freezing because it's
kind of a hot topic right now, and you have
to be very very cautious of that because it is
such a fine tune technology. Not everyone can do it well.
It's a very um practice sort of science, and you
(16:30):
need to have that practice in the vitrification of o
s ites, not just embryos, and have babies born from
that to really, you know, to really teach women about
what they're getting into. And so I always just cautious
everyone caution everyone to really do their research and to
really make sure that they're going to a place that
(16:51):
has a laboratory, that has experience and has babies born
from this, because many women are going to freeze their
eggs or you know, to kind of take control of
their fertilit me in making this big leap. But what's
going to happen if and when ten years from now
they come back to use them. What's what's happening when
we go to soolve them and fertilize them, and what's
the success rate of that. And that's a lot of
the unknown right now. So be your advocate. Get out there,
(17:13):
do your research, ask about the laboratory. Like I said
it over, we offer these complementary consultations to just kind
of see where you are and we can talk about
what testing would look like to understand your reserve as well. Yeah,
I mean, this is not something that I would be
wanting to get a discount price. One. It's very serious. Yeah,
it is very serious. But I think the thing that
(17:33):
scary is when you just google in there absolutely like
one of the biggest things you'll see is we offer
e freezing for this low rate and people don't understand
that it's just not the same everywhere. Go. Yeah, you
definitely want to do your research. Do your research absolutely,
So if you had to advise you know, the women
(17:54):
listening who might be in their twenties and thirties, like,
what would an age be where they really need to
start taking this seriously? And like if it is something
where you're like, I want kids, but I'm not in
a place right now, when would you say, like, really
start to look into this. We recommend based on the science,
based on the data and the studies that have been
done between the ages of twenty five and thirty five. Now,
(18:16):
it doesn't mean that if you're older than thirty five
that you're not a candidate. It's more about than managing
expectations about what treatment's gonna look like for you and
really having a serious conversation about that. Um, it's hard
because seems so young and most twenty five year olds
aren't thinking anything about this, But that's really, you know,
a good age to start beginning to think about your fertility,
(18:38):
because we do know, if we go back to the beginning,
what happens as we age when we hit thirty, when
we hit thirty five, So the younger we are. When
we do this, we know that the quality and the
quantity of the egg is going to be higher. And
it is somewhat of a catch twenty two because when
we're younger, we obviously aren't as financially stable as when
we're older. But it is you know, when we do it,
(19:00):
then it's cheaper because you probably aren't going to need
as many cycles. You're probably not going to need as
many medications because your quality of your egg and the
quantity of them is so much higher. So let's say
you wait five or ten years. Now you're more financially stable,
but yet it's going to be a lot more expensive,
and you might have to do it more than one
time because the goal number of eggs is fifteen to
(19:20):
twenty fifteen twenty eggs doesn't equal fifteen twenty babies. There's
a nutrition that takes place if then when you come
back to use them. So we want to be sure
that you're banking enough to make it worth your while,
and that's harder to do the older that you are. Right,
let's talk about that a little bit. You actually just
answered my next question, which was what do you guys
perceive to be a successful cycle. So you're saying eggs
(19:44):
would be and I don't want to yes, I don't
want to say that that is a successful one cycle.
I'm saying that's our goal number total. And so some
patients may come through and do a cycle and maybe
they're only going to get four or five a right,
And I don't want that to come across is that
that's a failed cycle. That's not a failed cycle at all.
It's more about how many total are we going to get.
(20:05):
And so we do offer multicycle packaging and OVA to
where if we know, based on your initial testing that
you may need more than one cycle to get to
that goal number of fifteen to twenty eggs, then we
can offer multicycle packaging so that your second or third
cycle is you know, you get those discounts. UM. I
think managing expectations talking about this, this is huge. I've
(20:26):
talked to so many women when we were thinking about
opening up OVA, which isn't everything specialty center. We we
did a lot of research, We talked to a lot
of patients that had gone through the process, and I
reached out to like two something women that had gone
through this process and just ask them, what did you like,
what did you not like, what would you do differently?
And one of the things that I heard on repeat
(20:47):
was the management of expectations, whereas women were glad that
they didn't did it, but they weren't educated at the
beginning about what treatment was going to look like for them,
or that they may need to do more than one cycle,
or that five eggs really it wasn't enough to make
it worth their while. You know, they didn't know any
of that. And so that's again why we want to
(21:07):
explain all of this before you then are already knee
deep in treatment and didn't really know what you were
getting yourself into. It's important to kind of answer those questions.
And you know, egg freezing is wonderful. It's an amazing
sort of opportunity for the women in our generation to
have this chance to take control of your fertility. Women
ten fifteen years ago didn't really have this option. But
(21:30):
it's not a guarantee of a pregnancy. And a lot
of times you hear people say like, oh, I approach
my eyes, don't have to worry about it, or you know,
there's a lot that still has to happen on the
tail and and I'm to talk about those things as well. Well,
that's actually a touch on that topic too, because I mean,
I think the reason, you guys, what I understood from
the education that y'all taught me was the reason you
(21:51):
want the fifteen to twenty is because all of those
eggs are not going to become an embryo, which you
kind of touched her in, But could you explain that
a little further, because I had no concept. I thought
exactly what you said, I'm gonna go in, I'm going
to freeze these eggs, and that's going to be the
number of chances that have to get pregnant, and that
is absolutely not true. It's not true. So let's talk
(22:12):
about what happens in a natural cycle every single month
for a woman. So what we do our bodies that
what they do is they recruit many immature o syites,
and O sites is just an egg, So they recruit
many immature eggs, and one egg matures, we ovulate that
out for pregnancy or if are we're not pregnant, then
(22:34):
we shed the lining and the cycle starts again. And
then all of the immature eggs that we recruited that
didn't im mature, weren't that one. Then we lose them.
So we're losing hundreds of eggs every single month. Okay,
Now there's many things that can happen in that process
that you know, it doesn't follow us, you know, as smoothly,
and that's why people will be like, well, how the
(22:55):
twins happen if if only one egg is So that's
a story for a different day. But that's, you know,
a very simple measures, like that's what happens every single month.
So what we're doing is we are trying to recruit
more mature ecreat me. We're trying to mature more than
one egg than what you naturally would. So we're trying
(23:16):
to get some of those eggs that you would naturally lose.
We're trying to save those are mature those So one
question is that you know, am i, am I hurting
my chances of getting pregnant in the future. Am I
taking eggs that I would have needed in the future.
And the answer is no, we're saving the ones that
you would have naturally lost anyways. But with that being said,
once we remove them, we have to monitor them to
(23:38):
see if they are fully mature for pregnancy, and some
of them aren't. It's very normal that when we retrieve eggs,
there's a portion of them that are just a mature,
meaning that they would never make an embryo, and so
for that we we don't freeze those because there's many
reasons that we don't freeze. The number one, that's an
inflation of number of how many eggs that you would have,
(24:01):
and number two, the chances of them surviving the saw
and making an embryore a very close close to zero.
So we only freeze the mature eggs, the best looking eggs.
So let's say we freeze those. And then in this scenario,
we're going to say that there's a woman. She frowze
her eggs at thirties, She goes on, she gets married
at thirty five, she has a baby at thirty six.
Now she's thirty seven, thirty eight, and she's trying to
(24:23):
get pregnant with baby number two, and she's struggling, and
so she wants to go back and dip into her eggs.
And let's say she froze fifty. So she comes back
and we attempted to thaw all of them, and let's
say out of the fifteen, fourteen of them survived the thaw,
So fourteen of them still look, can you what does
that mean though, because you guys said that a couple
of times to me, like survived the thaw, like, so
(24:44):
when you freeze that, go ahead, we're freezing them. And
what we're freezing them through a science called vitrification. And
vitrification has been around a long time for embryos, but
vitrification of eggs is that advancement in the technology that's
really just come to fruition in the past decade. That's
that fine tune technology and what it is, it's a
(25:04):
flash freezing method and it puts the egg in like
a glass like structure so that it's solid and it's sturdy.
Because eggs are so naturally fragile, they're only half of
the chromosomes that it takes to make a baby. Their
water based they're easily damaged. So with this science that's
making them sturdy when they're frozen, but when it goes
to fall them sometimes think of it just like if
(25:27):
you have put something in the freezer and you go
to like get it out and it's got freezer burn
on it, or it doesn't it doesn't taste like just
and that happens, and that's very normal that that happens
with eggs. So by surviving the saw, what I mean
by that is that once it's thawed and we look
at them, there's still a good quality. They're still mature,
(25:48):
they still would have the ability to fertilize with sperm.
So it is very normal that when we do that,
maybe one or two and that this is just an
our lab. We have about saw rate, so I'm not
speaking for every one. That they would them on average,
and our lab survived a thought, it is yeah. I
mean our embryologists that do this are award winning, gotten
(26:11):
awards um based off of just doing that. Your pacation
goes back to do your research about the place that
you do it, because these are all the big selling
points for me on why shows over. Yes, exactly, so
they survived a thought. On this specific example, boy said,
this woman had fifteen, so we let's say fourteen survived.
They look good, all right, So then we have to
(26:32):
fertilize them with sperm. And when this you know, when
someone freezes their eggs, a lot of times they don't
know who the sperm source is going to be. Is
it going to be it's you know, a donor, is
it going to be husband or a partner who knows
who it's going to be, so we don't know the
quality of it at that time, so we have to
quality of the sperm is very important. I mean, I
think women take a lot of this burden on themselves
(26:54):
that oh it's me or if I'm not pregnant, it's
my fault or my eggs. But you know what and
the ivy F clinic I would say about you know,
at the time, it is a male factor problem. So
we have to think about the quality of the sperm
as well. So we've got these fourteen eggs, We're gonna
attempt to inseminate or fertilize all of them, and then
(27:15):
we monitor them to see how they grow into embryos
over the next five six days. So over the next
five to six days when the embryologists are monitoring them,
some of them are going to fall off. So some
of them on certain days or certain stages are not
going to be um you know it progressing or growing
(27:36):
into what we call a blast assist. So it's the
eggs which which is then the embryo. We all learn
about micosis while we're in school. That's basically what is
happening at the cells are multiplying and doubling, and then
it gets to what we call blast assists, which is
what we want them to grow too. So when we
had the fourteen eggs that we inseminated in this example,
let's just say, let's say ten of them made it
(27:57):
to a blast assist or a good looking stage aged embryo. Okay,
so we started at fifteen at ten, then there's always
the option for women if they want to do genetic
testing of the embryos where we can see if there's
any chromosomal abnormality. UM, it's a completely optional depending on
the age of the woman once you frosia, the age
of the eggs. Sometimes we recommend it, sometimes we don't. UM,
(28:20):
it's really up to the patient and the decision with
their treating medical professional. But if let's say someone wanted
to do the genetic testing of these embryos and we
buy up see them and sent them off, then most
likely not all ten of them are going to be
chromosomeally normal. So again you're losing some there. And then
(28:41):
the thing is is that you don't even that we
haven't even transferred them to the unit yet. So I'm
not saying this to be overwhelming, But I'm just answering
the question that there's steps every step of the way
that it's very normal to lose an egg or an embryo.
So by just starting with five eggs, you can see
where there's a lot that has to happen before you
ever take home a how of the baby. And that's
(29:02):
why we want to be sure that you freeze enough
eggs to make it worth your while. And I know
that kind of something like an overwhelming sort of example,
but I think it's important that people understand what all
has to happen on the tailent. There's a lot that
happens in the lab before you're ever able to say, yes,
I'm pregnant. It worked well, and that's why it's important
you know, again you do your research and you freeze
(29:23):
enough ecs to make it worth your while. Absolutely, and
any fertility clinic you go to is going to deliver
the information exactly what you just said. All of that,
and if you remember, I had gone somewhere in Nashville
before I met with you guys, and I told you, like,
it was so helpful for me to hear it from
your voice because it wasn't as overwhelming for some reason.
It was just very factual and like, but here's how
(29:44):
we do that kind of thing. And I think that
it is an overwhelming there's they're very overwhelming statistics to hear.
And this again is why I'm so passionate about telling
people at an earlier age, because your chances are just
so much higher to get the higher numbers. Absolutely, you
hit the nail on the head, and it is important,
and like I said, it can be overwhelming, but I
(30:06):
think patients want to want to hear that information. They
want all of the information that they can get so
they can have a better understanding about what's going on
with this process that they're investing a lot of time, energy,
and money into. Right, And this kind of goes into
the topic of the quality of eggs, because as important
as it is to get into you know, you want
(30:26):
to get as many as you can. You want to
get the fifteen to twenty total, like you guys say,
and maybe that's a couple of rounds for someone who's
a little bit older, But the reason you want to
get more is because we can't predict what each egg
is going to do. However, I was, you know, you
and I talked a little bit about this before. But
I was reading a book while I was going through
the process called um It starts with the egg, and
(30:48):
she's she's gone through some fertility structures struggles. Excuse me,
She's not a doctor, so she was just speaking from
her own personal experience, and a lot of the conversation
was about the food we eat, the b p A s,
the thali's, the things around us in our house and
even in our makeup products that could be lowering our
fertility or the quality of our eggs so that when
(31:09):
you do take them, they're not lasting the way that
we want them to, or they're not transferring into an embryo,
or all the things that you just explained. So how
important is egg quality? Actually? Tim? Personally, I feel like
egg quality is better than the quantity, and we need
you obviously need the numbers, but if they're not good
(31:32):
through exactly so, I'd rather have, if I was a patient,
a few really really good looking eggs than a ton
that are just kind of math looking. Um. But that
it goes hand in hand the quality and the quantity.
So the age is the biggest factory, and I'm sure
there are environmental factors that affected that. We just don't
(31:52):
know exactly what they are absolutely um. But again, the
number one thing that we can pendpoint on what the
medical data tells us is at age is the biggest,
biggest factor when it comes to quality. And when we
look at you know, ovarying reserve and the testing that
is available to patients to you know, understand what their
fertility potential is, that's really just looking at the quantity.
(32:15):
The only way to look at the quality of an
egg is to remove it, look at it underneath the microscope,
and really the gold standard would be to fertilize it
with sperm and see how well grows into an embryo.
There's no testing by looking at ultrasound or in your
blood to let us know the quality of your egg
at this point, so we only have age to base
that off of. Okay, well, you mentioned smoking earlier being
(32:37):
such a you know, a hard thing for your body
and egg quality. Is there anything else that you recommend?
I mean, you told me specifically to start doing acupuncture,
and is that that was to lower stress? Was that
the helpful part of that? We do, I believe, and
there have been studies that have shown that, you know,
acupuncture does help with stress. Our lives, and some people
(33:01):
have other experiences that they feel like it does or
it doesn't help. It's kind of subjective, but we do
see that with acupuncture, and we know that the struss
levels then you know, go down. We do see that
only being a benefit as far as fertility. It's not
going to harm a patient by doing acupuncture, doing something
that's going to decree the dress in their life. It's
(33:22):
only going to benefit things. So when patients are going
through treatment and they're maybe not having an optimal response
or they're struggling, whether it be emotionally or physically, I
think acupuncture is always a good thing to try. And
maybe it's some patients aren't going to benefit from it
or not going to really love going through it, um,
But it's again, it's not going to be something that's
gonna harm you. Okay. Is there anything else that you
(33:44):
would give us tips? Even before? Because another thing that
I learned during this process was that we are eggs. Um.
I think I thought like, for each cycle, your eggs
were developing like just that month, but doesn't it go
back three months? Am I making that up? I haven't
heard that. Okay, don't trust me. I don't know where
(34:06):
I heard that, but I swore someone said that it
like it starts to develop our each cycle starts like
three months back. I don't know, y'all. Maybe I've made
that up. I'm not sure, and I'm not saying that
that's not I have not heard that. I'm not sure. Okay, Well,
I think the point is is to take care of
your body, maybe reduced stress as much as you can.
No smoking people. People asked me all the time, you know,
(34:29):
what can I do to improve it? And it's it's
really I wish that there was something you know, that
I could say do and this is going to help
your fertility, But it's really about just being healthy and
taking care of yourself and things that are going to
hurt you, you know, your weight or eating sugar or
doing this and all that. I mean, it's just about
(34:50):
being healthy. So taking care of your body, you know,
getting enough sleep and exercising and do it all of
those things. You know, we don't have a direct ink
between it, but it's not gonna harm you. So it's
only going to help you. Anything that can decrease stress
and to keep you healthy, you know, in the long
run is only going to help your fertility as well. Yeah,
I definitely think too. Um. Something that I didn't know
(35:12):
about the process was that when you actually do start
doing the process, you can't when you start your shots,
you can't work out. Um well, there's no drinking, which
is fine, but there's no sex, there's not there's not
a lot of things, Like there's a lot of things
that you really have to think about, Like for two
weeks basically are three weeks. I guess it ends writing.
And the reason that we we put those restrictions in
place no exercise and her course heavy lifting, it's for
(35:35):
the protection of you, your body and your ovaries. The
medications that you're taking cause your ovaries to enlarge. Your
ovaries are free hanging in your body. When you move,
they move, So we want to reduce the risk of
any sort of ovariant torsion, which is a really rare
risk because that is involved with treatment UM and that's
basically where the ovary, because it's enlarge, there's you know,
(35:56):
if you're doing a lot of activity, the over put
twist on itself, so then the blood flow would cut
off and all of that sort of thing, and that's
a medical emergency. So we're doing that for your protection.
That's why I tell patients, you know, it's just and
the grand scheme of things that may not seem like
it when you're not being able to work out, especially
if that's something that helps reduce stress in your life.
But in the grand scheme of it, it's only you know,
(36:18):
three or four weeks that we're at um to have
those restrictions someplace. Totally, I think I felt better I did.
I didn't try this twice, and I felt better going
into the second round because I had known that. So
I was able to kind of get my body ready,
like I worked out a lot before, and I felt
healthier going into it. And that was just a tip
that I thought maybe would be helpful to people to just,
(36:40):
you know, just to know, just to know what you're
getting into it, especially Yeah, when you're going and you're
looking to see, Okay, what month do I want to
do this scheduling, it's nice to know that going into it. Absolutely,
So we talked about reducing stress and we mentioned that
you were on the Bachelor back in the day. Yeah, ago,
do you say you won the Bachelor? I always think
(37:01):
that's so weird. It's like it's like, does that do
you call that winning, like if you're the last contestant.
I don't know. I don't know that. I feel like
a lot of people, you know, refer to it is
that I don't know if that's necessarily the way that
I feel. Yeah, I was the last woman standing. Okay,
(37:22):
that's the way of the final rods because I always
think it's so weird You're talking about a relationship and
people are like, oh, she won, and I'm like, but wait,
was that winning? I don't know. I think that's weird. Um,
So in some seasons, I'm like, maybe the winner is
person that doesn't actually exactly like the person who got
the final is did they really win? So tell us
(37:44):
about life after the Bachelor. What's been going on? Well,
I am married, Um, I have a little boy. Um,
I am married, not to the person that gave me
the final thank god, Jim a man Um Ricky and uh,
you know, right after the Bachelor, I it was a dark,
(38:07):
dark time for me and I didn't really know that, um,
things were ever gonna there were ever gonna be alive
at the end of the tunnel, or things were ever
going to look up. And and they did, and I
met Ricky and it was just I mean, I guess,
you know, they do say when you know, you know,
and I never believed that until I met him. But
we have been together now for gosh, four or five years.
(38:30):
We got married a few years ago. He welcomed our
first baby, a little boy, ten months ago. Dang. And
that was without using the eggs that you froze, right,
it was. It was without using them, Um, but I'm
not gonna lie. It was. Getting pregnant did not come
easy for us, and it was something that, um, you know,
(38:50):
we did consult with Dr Kaplan about using the eggs
that I froze, and you know, he told us. You know,
we all have this timeline in our brain about how
we would think that our life is going to go
or the way that we expected or we want it
to happen, and when it doesn't follow that path, then
it's very anxiety provoking. And I'm no different, even you know,
(39:11):
working in the field and knowing what I know and
knowing that I still you know, it's not always easy
to get pregnant. I did want it to just happen
to me that first second third. It took about six
months though, and um, Dr Kaplan advised that we keep
the eggs, you know alone, leave them there for you know,
the possibility of baby number two or number three. And
(39:31):
I think that that's really important as well when we
talk about egg freezing, as people always think like, oh, well,
I'm young, I'll be able to get pregnant. What if
you want more than one child? And secondary and fertility
is it's a large thing. We hear about this all
the time. We see patients all the time that are
struggling with secondary and fertility, especially if you're starting your
family a little bit later in life. So we decided
(39:52):
to leave and put and for me to just kind
of pump the brakes and try to manage my stress levels.
Um And it happened for us um without the need
to use them. But it's nice to know that they're
there because we would like to have another baby, and
if we're struggling, it's nice to know that they're there. Absolutely,
it's always nice to have a backup plan, you know. Yes,
(40:16):
So what happens, as someone asked me this and I
did not know the answer, what if you decide never
to use the eggs, what happens to them? They just
stay have so they're so people ask a lot of
times about the quality of them, meaning like if they're
frozen for a long period of time, do they start
to lose their effectiveness or if their quality diminishes and
(40:37):
they don't they can be frozen and definitely and there's
been you know, we don't see any sort of decline
and the quality of the egg. But let's say you
your families completed, or you decide you don't want kids
or whatever it may be, and you're ready to um
discard them. You have a couple of options. UM. One
of them is just like what I said, that we
can discard them. Um. The second would be that you
(40:58):
could donate them to research. Or the third would be
donate them to another couple, UM that is struggling with fertility,
that someone you know or anonymously sure certain things that
we need to do through FDA guidelines to um ensure
that you know, they're safe to be donated and we
could help patients out with that if that's what they choose. Yeah,
that would be an amazing gift to give someone for sure. Well,
(41:21):
why do you thank you so much? This was so helpful.
I think that your explanations of stuff, they're just so
much more clear than what I could ever communicate to people.
And I just think this is such an important topic.
I really do well, thank you, and I hope it
was helpful and not you know, overwhelming. UM by any
means that patients have or your listeners excuse me, have
(41:42):
any questions whatsoever. They can definitely UM reach out to
us on our website, which is over everreezing dot com.
They can call us UM. Our phone number is three
one two eight zero zero zero two to eight UM
and send us a message to the website as well. Again,
the first consult is comp menory with a nurse here
to just go over what at freezing would look like
(42:05):
for you specifically and managing those expectations and then kind
of letting you know if you wanted to get testing
what that would look like as well. And we see patients.
You don't have to be local to Chicago. I think
that's right as well. UM. We see patients all over
the United States, and in the laboratory, we see patients
from all over the world that come into the lab right.
I was in Nashville and I decided to work with
you guys specifically because for me, it's it's you guys
(42:28):
just do egg freezing, so it's a very specialized thing.
And you know, a most fertility clinics you're sitting in
the waiting room with a pregnant couple or it's just
a different situation. So it felt very comforting to me
to be in a place that was very specific to
what I was going through. Absolutely, And then patients do
ask as well. You know, let's say I froze my
eggs and then I'm ready to use them, do I
(42:49):
get to come back to you guys, or do you
guys send me somewhere else? We do, you know, do
that second part as well. You know, we do feel
like it's very important to have that continuity of care
um with the facility that you feel comfortable with. Its
started the process with you and kind of completing the
journey with you as well. And you guys can also
be found on Instagram, right it's at is it at
over egg Freezing? Yes? Oh v A for anyone who's
(43:12):
looking them up, Yes, you got it. And it's all
women in this place. It's just amazing. It's a very
empowering place to be, which I think this situation can
be a very empowered decision for every woman to make.
So educate yourself, go ahead. It absolutely is empowering. I
(43:33):
mean some people are like, it doesn't seem empowering to me,
you know, like I'm sad that I'm you know, not
with someone, or that I'm not sure where I thought
it was going to be. But it's when you flip
that coin and you look at it as you have
the opportunity to take control of your future and take
control of your fertility. This is not you know you
That to me is amazing. That is empowering in and
(43:54):
of itself that we have the ability to do this. Absolutely,
educate yourself and be active. That's my biggest, biggest sort
of you know, I guess my parting words is be
proactive versus reactive. We're proactive about so many things in
our life, and fertility shouldn't be any different. Absolutely, that's
the best way to put it, because I think the
more proactive you are, the more empowering it is. Absolutely. Well,
(44:17):
thank you so much again for talking about this. I
feel like this is not discussed very much, and I
really want to keep just bringing light to the topic
that people are aware getting on the radar. They're proactive
and they're empowered, So thank you for educating us. Happy
to come back anytime. Okay, maybe we'll talk more reality
TV or maybe not ever again or yeah, I don't
(44:40):
know if anybody watched the finale last night. I'm sure
there's a lot of talking. I'm behind. I've got to
go catch up. That's all my agenda for tonight. But
I heard it. It's like a very dundun situation. Is good,
It is good? All right? Well, thanks Kelly, I really
appreciate it, and thanks Whitney, and thank you guys for listening.
(45:01):
This is Kelly Henderson and you've been listening to the
Velvet Edge podcast. I truly believe that every one of
us has a little velvet and a little edge, so
it's so important to remember that to be strong, you
must be softd too. Thank you so much for sharing
in those stories with me. You can follow Velvet's Edge
on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as Velvet's Edge
(45:22):
dot com. If you have it yet, go to Apple
Podcasts and subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Join me
every Wednesday for more conversations on lifestyle, beauty, and relationships.
Thanks for listening.
Host
Kelly Henderson
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