Reply to 40 Year Old-Egg Freezing

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[quote=Anonymous]OP, I am in the same exact boat as you are. 40+ years old with really good numbers for my age, and going for egg freezing. My first round resulted in 1 egg and an empty follicle. Tragically one of my ovaries couldn’t be reached during retrieval. I am also an immigrant with no family support here,, not that great a financial foundation and no really close friends close by. The cultural background I come from would not welcome a single mom. So donor sperm and embryo freezing are not really options for me.

With that in mind, this is what I would say.

1. Probability is not predictability 
Women who freeze in their 30s are more likely to have babies. That’s probability, not predictability. 90% of eggs frozen through vitrification tend to survive thawing- this too is probability and not predictability. As you can see from one of the posters, you may lose all your eggs during thawing even if you used vitrification. You can have 35 eggs frozen in your 30s and not have a single baby out of it. On the other hand I personally know someone who had 10 eggs frozen almost 10 years ago that resulted in 2 babies. We just need balance our hope for the best results with realistic expectations. But what is life without hope?

2. Correlation is not causation 
Greater maternal age correlates to lower rates of pregnancy. PCOS can correlate to worse outcomes. However, it’s the underlying issues related to aging and PCOS that cause these issues, and not age and PCOS by itself. As science keeps evolving, we will get better answers and outcomes. Remember that it’s been only 10 years since egg freezing has lost its experimental tag. This is also why good IVF clinics will store both your mature and immature eggs, to give you a fighting chance as science and medicine keeps evolving.

3. Statistics need context
Statistically, if a 40+ year old, goes through IVF, and retrieves 10 fresh (not frozen) eggs, that may lead to 8 mature eggs, 5-6 transfers, 2 pregnancies and 1 live birth. Yes, statistically the successful outcomes at 40+ are much less than 30+, however they are on par with using eggs frozen at the age of 40+. Also, remember that statistics are not static; as more and more 40+ women freeze their eggs, and go through IVF, we will know more about what works and what doesn’t. RNA sequencing and tests like ERA are still fairly new and still improving.

4. Your eligibility and choices 
Whether or not you are eligible to freeze eggs at 40+ will depend on your hormonal and other physiological test results, the expertise of the doctors with late maternal age, the quality of the lab and clinic you have approached, as well as the clinic’s own commercial interests such as its SART statistics. 
Your choice depends on your own circumstances, your financial ability, and doing right by your own self.
If it’s okay for a 40+ year old woman to go through IVF it’s okay for them to go through egg freezing. If it’s okay for a 45+ year old man to become a first time father, it’s okay for a 45+ year old woman to become a first time mother. But it will be hard mentally, physically and financially.

5. Use the right resources. 
As useful as I find the DCUM forums, there will be some on here who will be judgmental or will project their own experiences and expectations on to you. It’s okay. That’s the nature of an anonymous forum. Fortunately, there are other forums that are more helpful and relevant. There’s an egg freezing forum on Facebook that I found really useful and supportive.

As for supplements and diet, I have switched to mostly organic food, full fat dairy, more seafood and take a prenatal, Vitamin D, and COQ10. I would suggest referring to the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) II, it’s based on outcomes for a cohort of nurses who choose to go with a ‘fertility diet’

Link here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6079277/

Good luck and baby dust to you OP!!![/quote]

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