In the midst of an exciting career and not yet ready to start a family, Kimberley Caines decided to freeze her eggs at 28-years-old.
Caines says she first looked into this fertility treatment after interviewing a woman who shared a heartbreaking experience of being unable to have her own biological child.
“She wasn’t with a partner, she was getting a sperm donor using her eggs and nothing was working, and she got to the age of 44 and her doctor told her that: ‘I’m sorry but your eggs have expired and you won’t be able to have your own biological child’,” Caines tells Tarla Lambert on our podcast series, ‘Fertility Unfiltered’, in partnership with Genea Fertility.
“And that just broke my heart just to think that this lady who wanted a baby so bad just couldn’t have a baby,” said Caines.
The woman explained what the concept of egg freezing was to Caines, who had never heard of it before but began to think seriously about it.
“I knew that children and a relationship wasn’t on the horizon for quite some time because I was so career-focused. So, I contacted a fertility provider, Genea, who were wonderful and talked me through the steps,” she says.
“Unfortunately egg quality does decline with age but the fortunate thing is your frozen eggs don’t. So, basically freezing my eggs at 28 years old – I have 28 year old eggs there now that are waiting for me to use them if I ever need to go through that.”
For those who are in a similar situation to Caines– not ready to have a family yet but wanting to keep their options open– egg freezing is something to think about.
Genea fertility specialist Dr Danielle Robson says the best age to freeze eggs is before 35-years-old.
“The reason for that is that women over 35 years achieve poorer pregnancy outcomes from frozen eggs relating to oocyte quality deterioration with advanced maternal age,” says Dr Robson, adding the caveat that this doesn’t mean anyone over 35 years old can never freeze their eggs.
“It just means that your chance of success is slightly lower just as we know with natural ageing, we have decreases in the quantity and quality of our eggs.”
“So there’s no exact cutoffs or thresholds, it’s just about having informed conversations with women about when is the best time,” she says.
When it came to the actual process of egg freezing, Dr Robson says it’s “very similar to running an IVF cycle for a couple with infertility.”
There’s an initial consultation with a gynaecologist and then a treatment plan is developed, which includes receiving hormone injections to grow follicles on your ovaries. Following that, medication is given to stop ovulation, and then the patient undergoes egg collection.
For Caines, she didn’t tell many people about her egg freezing process while she was taking the injections but wishes she’d been more open about it.
“I sort of kick myself for keeping it such a secret and not really leaning on – even my work colleagues to say, ‘hey I’m going through this thing at the moment – I need a bit of time – bit of timeout or my emotions all over the place’,” she says.
“I feel so empowered now that I went through that experience, and I’m really happy to share my story with as many women as I can because I just want people to be educated on how great this experience and this opportunity is.”
To learn about more reproductive health topics from health experts, check out the rest of the podcast series, “Fertility Unfiltered”, as new episodes are released each week. We’re creating a safe space for conversations around fertility, ranging from the possibility of parenthood, seeking guidance on reproductive health and even the science behind conception.