Written by: Alicia

I was sitting in a waiting room the other day, reading a magazine to pass the time and came across an article on freezing eggs. There is a company out there offering to freeze women's eggs for the purpose of future fertility. Their marketing tactic is to go after women who are aging and have yet to find the man of their dreams but know they want to become pregnant someday. They encourage these women to continue to wait and freeze their eggs and come back when they are ready to start a family.

I kinda sat on the fence about this for a few days. However, the more I think about it the more disturbed I become. They are basically telling women it is okay to wait to get pregnant later in life. "Freeze your eggs with us and later on down the road when you are ready to start a family, come back in. It is that simple." Okay, so that is not a real quote but that is the feeling I get from their marketing campaign.

It seems deceptive to me. The egg freezing company says, "[our] breakthrough egg freezing service offers women the opportunity to preserve their fertility and take control of their reproductive health." And that is a real quote. I get concerned about this because it makes a woman believe there will be no problem if she waits until her late 30s or 40s.

I wonder how many women know the dangers of freezing eggs. I was told when considering to freeze my blastocysts (fertilized eggs) after my IVF that only 50% will most likely be viable after thawing. Can you imagine freezing your eggs, being told your eggs will be waiting for you and then when you are ready to conceive you learn half of them are no longer "good" eggs? You may also learn a few more of them have chromosomal abnormalities. Your chances of conception are a lot less than you started off thinking they would be ten years earlier. I just hope this company is informing their clients of all of the possible complications in egg freezing.

If you have done a Google search for "freezing eggs" and landed on this page, then I am glad I can inform you on some of the other dangers in waiting to conceive later in life.

Most of us women know we were born with a certain amount of eggs in our ovaries. Once those eggs are gone, they are gone. We do not "grow" more. For this reason, many women solely focus on the amount of eggs they have and their quality. However, as you age other problems can arise that affect your fertility. Eggs are not the only concern:

1. Hormone levels change. Although some fertility drugs can help balance your hormone levels they are never a sure bet.

2. Menstrual cycle changes as we age. They can become irregular and shorter.

3. The lining of the endometrium becomes thinner and less hospitable for a fertilized egg.

4. Mucus/vaginal secretions can become less fluid and more hostile to sperm. During an IVF procedure you will obviously not have to worry about the sperm swimming up your fallopian tubes but this is worth mentioning for general fertility education purposes.

5. Diseases affecting the reproductive system can damage the reproductive organs as time passes, or worsen if not treated properly; including endometriosis, PCOS and chlamydia. Note: I know the company offering to freeze your eggs says this will help women preserve their fertility if they suffer from endometriosis; for instance. Women can save their eggs now and hopefully not have as much trouble conceiving later in life. However, many of us do not even realize we suffer from these diseases until we start our infertility battle. It would be nice for this company to find out if you have any of these diseases before they pull your eggs.

6. As women age, many gain weight due to health and lifestyle changes. We all know being overweight can make it more difficult to conceive.

7. We can't forget about the men. If women are waiting to conceive then most likely their mate will be older as well. Genetic defects in the sperm increase as men age; possibly leading to decreased fertility, increased chance of miscarriage and increased risk of some birth defects. Note: I know with egg freezing they will pick that "one" sperm to insert into that one egg. I guess you just cross your fingers that the man you have waited for so long to find still has one good sperm left. Chances are pretty good (I would assume) but it is certainly a point worth bringing up.

In certain cases I think this is a great idea. Such as if a woman is fighting cancer and going into treatment. She can freeze her eggs before the powerful cancer fighting drugs enter her system. So, I can certainly see the positive aspect of this option. However, I worry about the marketing aspect of telling women it is "okay to wait" when I truly feel it is not. I would like to see society change and start encouraging women AND men to consider creating their families earlier. Young parents need to be supported through college and companies need to support a family lifestyle as well. We need to make it easier for women to have a family and a successful career at the same time.

I guess you can say I feel this egg freezing marketing campaign is taking us in the opposite direction than I would like for our society to go.

Take care,
Alicia

Written by: Alicia

I want to talk about a very "touchy" subject today because it has been causing some drama on an infertility forum I visit every now and then. The subject is selective reduction (SR). For those of you that do not know what this is it is the practice of reducing the number of fetuses in a multifetal pregnancy (those involving more than one fetus). With selective reduction, one or more fetuses are "selected" for termination. This is usually suggested to women who are carrying three or more fetuses.

I feel it is important to bring this up because when you are struggling with infertility you do not really hear a lot about this. Most of us get blindsided by it. We are so stuck on focusing on getting pregnant that the thought of SR never exist.

So, what started the huge debate on the infertility forum? A woman who struggled for 5.5 years with infertility finally had a treatment work. She went to see her doctor last week and heard three heartbeats! Exciting news, right? It can be until your doctor pulls you aside and tells you that you should "reduce" one in order for the other two to have a better chance at life.

When you get pregnant with triplets or more, the doctors will tell you of the certain gloom ahead for your three babies and yourself. They will tell you your babies have a much greater risk at being born blind, deaf and having cerebral palsy. Oh yeah, and your own mortality rate increases because of the high risk pregnancy.

So now this woman who just heard three heartbeats is waiting to see if the three heartbeats grow stronger over the next week or two. If they do, then she will have to consider SR. Well, one friend of mine who is also a triplet Mom sent her some information explaining that a triplet pregnancy is achievable. There are many of us out here that had successful births. She wanted to be the glimmer of hope for this woman who will have to decide on such a terrible thing.

She sent her facts and told her she would support her in any decision. Then somehow the word "abort" came into play. This is when all hell broke loose. One woman went off on my friend and even called her selfish for carrying three babies and not reducing one! She was attacked from a lot of angles and I think it was all over the word "abort." It seems that you can talk about SR but if you bring up the word "abort" then you are banned from the site.

At least that is what happened here. My friend was banned from this forum. She had been on this forum for over a year giving her support and encouragement to a lot of women in need of it. I have been shocked by the events of this week. Banning someone from a site who has positive views and facts to share. Sure, maybe she should not have used the word "abort" but isn't it the same thing?

I guess for me it is. I did not see any harm in the use of that word. Selective reduction is preformed this way: The doctor gives a lethal injection of potassium chloride into the heart of the baby; which induces cardiac arrest and therefore “reduces” them. This procedure is also used to preform abortions.

"Abort" is not a pretty word but doesn't it mean the same? Either way you are killing the fetus. I know there are some extreme cases of women who have to reduce one baby in order to preserve their own life. I know many women and babies do die because of unsuccessful multiple pregnancies. I also understand women have to reduce because they simply can't carry six babies.

This is where the real question comes into play; how many embryos should you be allowed to transfer? If you have struggled for many, many years without one pregnancy then maybe you will want to put six in and see if one takes. On the other hand, if this is your first procedure and you have had kids before then maybe you should just put 2 in. And then, these embryos can still divide...

For me, I did not want to put more in then I was willing to carry. I struggled for five years without one pregnancy. My doctor was insistent that I put five embryos in. This is how our conversation flowed that day:

The doctor said, “Let’s put all five in and see what happens.” I said, “What happens if all five take?” He said, “Then we would ask you to reduce down to three.” I said, “Do you mean abort two of them?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “No way. Let’s just put three embryos in then.”

He didn’t like my decision because I am sure he was thinking that I need the extra “chances.” Five years of treatments and not one pregnancy. He tried to talk me into five but quickly picked up that I had already made my decision and that was that.

My point in today's blog is not get into a heated debate over pro-choice or pro-life. I don't even really want to debate if abortion and selective reduction are the same thing. My main goal is to inform women who are currently going through infertility treatments that they need to seriously think about selective reduction. It will hit you like a freight train if you do get pregnant with higher order multiples. Be prepared. Be wise on the number of embryos you put in. That is all.

And as for my friend who was banned from that site; shame on them. You are welcome to post anything you want on our blog.

Take care,
Alicia

http://friendinreach.blogspot.com/