Knocked Up Podcast - Freezing Eggs with Olivia Molly Rogers
Olivia Molly Rogers shares her egg freezing experience.
Freezing Eggs with Olivia Molly Rogers
We answer some of your questions about egg freezing as well as asking Olivia:
How did you decide to go through with freezing your eggs
What did you know before you decided to freeze you eggs and what did you learn
When you freeze your eggs your go through education and counselling, did you find that this process prepared you enough?
Were you prepared for the physical side? What did you find challenging? What was easier than expected?
What did you find different during the process and how long after until you felt ‘normal’ again
Since completing your cycle how has your perspective on EF changed
Learn more about egg freezing Melbourne
Hosted by Dr Raelia Lew and Jordi Morrison
Dr Raelia Lew is a RANZCOG Board Certified CREI Fertility specialist, Gynaecologist and the Director of Women’s Health Melbourne.
Find us on Instagram - @knockeduppodcast
Have a question about women's health? Is there a specific topic you'd like us to cover? Email podcast@womenshealthmelbourne.com.au. We keep all requests anonymous.
TRANSCRIPT
Jordi Morrison:
Women's Health Melbourne is an innovative, holistic fertility and women's health practice. We are world leaders in IVF and egg freezing and provide our patients with every opportunity to achieve their goals. Our handpicked expert team provides the ultimate care experience for our patients. Reach us at womenshealthmelbourne.com.au and follow us at Women's Health Melbourne and at Doctor Raelia Lew. Hello and welcome back to Knocked Up, the podcast about fertility and women's health.
You are joined as always by me, Jordi Morrison and Doctor Raelia Lew, CREI fertility specialist. Welcome, Dr Raelia Lew.
Dr Raelia Lew:
Hi, Jordi. How are you?
Jordi Morrison:
I'm good and we have a special guest today. It's been a little while since we've had a guest. Today, we're welcoming Olivia Molly Rogers who is sharing her egg freezing experience with us. Welcome, Olivia.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Thanks. So good to be here.
Jordi Morrison:
Let's talk about how you came to freezing your eggs. So we'll start with that you came to us like any other patient, and we wanna be clear that this is not sponsored.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Mhmm.
Jordi Morrison:
And this was important to you. Do you wanna tell us why?
Olivia Molly Rogers:
I actually was seeing Dr Raelia Lew as my fertility specialist, in 2022. I was trying to get pregnant with my ex husband, and we were having some difficulties. We did some testing and and found out it was going to be difficult to conceive naturally. And so I was working with Dr Raelia Lew. That obviously didn't end up happening. I didn't get pregnant, and not for lack of trying, but it just wasn't meant to be.
My marriage didn't work out. And when that happened, I know Dr Raelia Lew could see how much I wanted a baby. I've wanted to be a mom since I was a baby myself. And I yeah. I think your nurses reached out to me and suggested the egg freezing.
And it was something that I had thought about, and then I think that was, yeah, that was my sign where I was like, okay. I'm actually gonna plan this properly and and and do it. I know I think just this year, more and more people have started talking about it, and it definitely became something that I was more aware of and thought it was important to do. And then after meeting with Dr Raelia Lew and she showed me I can't remember what it was called exactly, but the like, the calculator that showed your age versus your egg quality and and quantity and and how that changes, you know, the older you get. So I thought at 31 is a good time to do it.
Jordi Morrison:
And is 31 a good time to do it, Dr Raelia Lew?
Dr Raelia Lew:
From a biological perspective, 31 is the perfect time to freeze your eggs. I think both from a biological and also from a social point of view, freezing eggs in your early thirties is a time where you're most likely to have good insight into whether doing that is going to help you to achieve your long term reproductive goals. And I think women at that age, when they make decisions, have a lot of clarity over where they're at in life and what the next few years are likely to be like for them. And so it's a really good position from that perspective.
And from a biological perspective, eggs are healthiest when we're younger. Over 35, there's a significant and serious decline in egg quality every year. And also when we go through an IVF cycle, every year that we are older in age represents a lower number of eggs that we're able to collect in a given month because our reserve of oocytes or eggs in our ovary does go down with age. I really feel that the sweet spot for egg freezing is somewhere between your late twenties and your early thirties.
Jordi Morrison:
Olivia, what did you know before you decided to freeze your eggs about the process? And then what did you learn?
Olivia Molly Rogers:
I didn't know a whole lot. Dr Raelia Lew taught me a lot. I knew that it was somewhat similar to what I had been through. So the fertility treatment that I'd started was IUI, and so I went through a whole bunch of injections to, you know, stimulate my follicles. But the difference from what from my understanding, the biggest difference was in that process, you don't wanna overstimulate.
You don't wanna have too many, too many eggs because you'd end up with, you know, multiple babies. But, with egg freezing, we were trying to stimulate as much as possible. I think it was good that I had been through the injection process, so I I even though it was very different and the hormones were different, I knew that I could do that myself, and I was sort of prepared for that. Because I've I think that's something that people find pretty daunting, and it's actually not that bad. Well, I didn't find it that bad.
But, yeah, I didn't know I didn't know all that much. So I've definitely learned a lot this year.
Jordi Morrison:
What surprised you the most?
Olivia Molly Rogers:
I think probably how emotionally challenging I found it. Yeah. I the physical side of things, I kind of expected, you know, to be a bit uncomfortable and tired, and I was definitely that. But I think it probably brought up a lot of stuff for me from when I had been trying to get pregnant with my ex and then, you know, the fact that now I'm on a very different path to what I thought I would be on. And, you know, a lot of my friends are pregnant or have had babies this year and, you know, happily married, and they're on that path that I thought I was going to be on.
And, obviously, very happy for them, all of them. But it is hard to sort of see that happening and then be like, okay. Now I'm solo, and I'm freezing my eggs not knowing when when or if I'm going to use them, it's all pretty daunting. And it does I think at the same time, it's quite empowering. Like, you feel like you're taking control in a sense, and it does feel good to be doing something that is going to help my future, whatever that looks like. But at the same time, it was it was definitely confronting, and I found it, yeah, emotionally hard.
Jordi Morrison:
Mhmm. It is. It really is. I wanna come back to that, but I just wanna touch on IUI. You said you'd been trying IUI.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Mhmm.
Jordi Morrison:
And I don't think we've really spoken about that on the podcast. Dr Raelia Lew, can you give us a thirty second what is IUI?
Dr Raelia Lew:
IUI is a fertility treatment which combines two concepts. One is ovulation induction to try and release, in an ideal world, two eggs, and sperm optimization, preparation, and insemination, which means putting the sperm inside the womb. So it's giving the ovaries a boost and giving the sperm a boost to try and improve the chance of getting pregnant naturally.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
I remember the way that you explained it to me was like you're kind of fast tracking to the finish line, which I thought was a really good description.
Jordi Morrison:
Going back to where you talked about how emotionally it is quite confronting, one of my questions was actually about when you do freeze your eggs, you go through education and you go through counseling. Yeah. Did you find that that prepared you enough and did you find it useful?
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Yeah. Definitely. I don't know if it's the same in every state with the the counseling. Because when I'd posted I'd posted something saying that I had had that as part of it, and a few women reached out and said that they that wasn't what happened with them. I thought that was really good. I had a friend warn me. I had I was getting ready to go out somewhere, and I did my makeup. And she said, you probably shouldn't have done your makeup because you'll cry in your counseling session. I was like, no. I won't. I'll be fine.
And then it started, and I was just bawling. Oh, god. I wasn't expecting this. I had to redo my makeup. But it was good. It was it really made me sort of stop and think about why I was doing it, because I don't think I had that much. I was like, yeah. It's something that that makes sense to do it. I can do it. I'm lucky that I financially was able to.
And, yeah, I was just like, cool. Going through the motions kind of. And the counseling session — first of all, she was just so lovely, my counselor. And she sort of took me back and made me think about, you know, what got me to that point. And, again, I think it brought up stuff from from my marriage breakdown and and trying to get pregnant last year that I was like, I think I'd squashed down a bit, and it all just came out.
But, yeah, I think that that did definitely help to prepare me for it, because if I hadn't had that, then I don't think I would have thought about it in that way. And then that might have come out more with all the hormones and everything. Yeah. So it was good.
Jordi Morrison:
You mentioned about the physical process actually not being as difficult as you thought it would be.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Mhmm.
Jordi Morrison:
So what bit did you find challenging about the physical aspect?
Olivia Molly Rogers:
I — when I did IUI, I think I found it harder because it was the first time I'd done anything like that. But I learned a few little things from that time that then I think I incorporated when I was doing the egg freezing, like, icing.
Dr Raelia Lew:
I was gonna say yes.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Yeah. I remember I remember you saying that you used the ice.
Dr Raelia Lew:
Yeah.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Because when I did IUI, I was covered in bruises. But this time around, I'd ice before doing the injections and then straight after, and I didn't have a single bruise. So that was good. I was also well prepared with a heat pack. I got one of those electric heat packs that — it's just from I think it was from Big W or Kmart or something. You just plug it in and it's like a hot water bottle, but it heats up and stays warm.
Jordi Morrison:
Yeah.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
And it's so good. It stays hot for so long. So I just had that on me the whole time. So, yeah, the bloating was a bit uncomfortable, but also kind of what I expected. There was one point where I looked pregnant. So this is good to see what it would maybe look like. I was very bloated. And, yeah, just really tired. Yeah. And I did — you know, that was hard, but I had also sort of prepared for that. I tried to not have a super busy schedule that week so I could sort of take time to rest, and I was just trying to be really kind to myself and — which I think is really important. I think a lot of women just sort of assume that they can go about their lives as normal while they're doing it. And I think if they can, then it's best to sort of step back from a few things because it definitely takes a toll.
Jordi Morrison:
Yeah. And you're really sporty.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Yeah.
Jordi Morrison:
How did how did that change? And when did you go back to normal?
Olivia Molly Rogers:
I didn't run — I think I ran a couple of days into the injections. I think it's ten days from memory.
Dr Raelia Lew:
Yeah.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
So maybe day three, I think, I went for a run. But Raelia had sort of said, you know, just listen to your body and also getting closer to the the pointy end. We don't wanna be doing anything high impact. I didn't wanna risk anything. Like, you know, you're putting so much into getting it right, so I wanted to make my chances as strong as possible. So I was listening to my advice from my doctor, and I, yeah, I ran a few days in, and then I just didn't — I walked a little bit, but, you know, I get a bit antsy when I can't run because I love it. But I also knew that it was for a good cause, and I knew it was temporary. So, yeah, I just took a break.
And then on the other side of it, the recovery was a bit harder than I expected. Knocked me around more than I expected as well, both mentally and physically. So, yeah, I don't think I ran until maybe five days after.
Jordi Morrison:
Yeah.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
But I was just, again, just trying to listen to my body and just not be too hard on myself. It does take a little while.
Jordi Morrison:
Has your perspective on egg freezing changed now that you've done it?
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Yeah. It was interesting posting about it because people online are sometimes lovely and sometimes not. I had a lot of people sort of letting me know as I was going through the process. They're like, you know that this isn't a guarantee. Right? And I'm like, yes, I'm aware. Thank you so much, while I'm injecting myself every day. It's so nice of you to say that.
But they kept sort of telling me all these negative things. And I think that's the trouble with sharing any sort of fertility journey online is you get support from a community, which is great, but then you also get insights that you don't want. And people love to share their negative stories. I think it's human nature to wanna, you know, be open about that stuff. But it's hard when that's all you're hearing.
And, you know, people telling me that they froze, you know, a solid amount of eggs, but then none of them survived the thawing process and, yeah, telling me all these things that I'm like, oh, great. Like, why am I doing this then? But then I have heard of women who, you know — and from stories Dr Raelia Lew told me — people who've used their eggs, you know, years down the track, and it's worked. And I just think for me, having that sort of — I know it's not a set insurance policy, but somewhat. Just knowing that I have that is comforting to me, and I'm really glad that I did it.
And despite the negative stories, I would just hold on to the positive ones, and, yeah, I don't regret it at all. I'm really glad that I did it.
Jordi Morrison:
Our next episode is actually about using frozen eggs.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Oh, perfect. Perfect. Well, I would love to listen to that.
Dr Raelia Lew:
You need some positivity.
Jordi Morrison:
Yeah. Well, coming back also to a point that you were making earlier — if you don't freeze your eggs, it doesn't change the circumstance that you're in the moment.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Mhmm.
Jordi Morrison:
Like, if you're not having a baby and your friends are having babies and you just are not in the right situation to do that at the moment, but it's something that you really want for the future — if we don't take proactive action, we still get older, our fertility does still decline, and all of those things still happen, but we haven't created a resource for ourselves for the future. And the way I think about frozen eggs is as an asset—
Dr Raelia Lew:
Yeah.
Jordi Morrison:
—that you have. And it's true that there are some people who will freeze a really good number of eggs and still not have a baby, but they are the vast minority of people who freeze eggs at the right age and freeze a good number.
Dr Raelia Lew:
If you freeze 20 to 30 eggs in your early thirties, you've got more than a 90 percent probability of having two babies from those frozen eggs. And of course, there's gonna be someone who misses out and it's gonna be really upsetting for that person. And I always say to pretty much every patient who comes to freeze their eggs, hey, the only guarantee that you're gonna be able to definitely have a baby is to have one. And if that is something that you aspire to, let's talk about sperm donation. If you're single, let's talk about other ways to get pregnant immediately, if that's what you want.
But freezing eggs is, aside from trying to get pregnant, the single best thing you can do to improve your probability of success ultimately.
Jordi Morrison:
Yeah. Olivia mentioned about some comments you got about when the eggs were defrosted — were thawed — that they all got lost. What are the statistics in terms of thawing the eggs?
Dr Raelia Lew:
Statistically, we know that we lose about 10% of the eggs that we have when we warm them. That's a 100% expected. Like any statistic, that's an average, and there'll be some people who lose no eggs, and there'll be some people who lose more than 10% when they, as an individual, warm the eggs that they have.
There are strategies that I often put in place for my patients who are trying to have a baby with frozen eggs to try and optimize their chance of having a baby given the asset of frozen eggs that they have. Strategies like batching the eggs when we warm them, making sure that we’re optimizing everything else about their chance of getting pregnant when it comes to embryo transfer from their frozen eggs. Like anything in biology, there's going to be some people who do worse than average, and we should acknowledge that.
The way to try and buffer for that statistic is to make sure that we have more eggs in the freezer from the start and that we counsel conservatively so that when the time comes to use those eggs, we set ourselves up for success.
Jordi Morrison:
Olivia, I wanna ask about your friends.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Mhmm.
Jordi Morrison:
And what did you find out that they knew about egg freezing and fertility when you started talking about this process?
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Not much. One of my best friends just had a baby through IVF, so she was very much across, you know, a lot of the ins and outs of things, and she was a great support. And then another friend of mine has been through egg freezing twice. She's done two cycles, so she was a great support as well. I think people who haven't been through anything like that, they just don't really know what questions to ask because it is such a foreign concept. But it was good. I'd — you know, I said no question is a silly question, and I would prefer that you ask me anything. And if I can answer, I will.
So it was good. Like, it was great to have those conversations with them, and they all wanted to learn more. And everyone was really supportive, and, yeah, it was good. Like, I just think the more conversations we have about these things, the better.
Jordi Morrison:
Absolutely. What was the most surprising bit of information that you shared?
Olivia Molly Rogers:
I think they didn't know just how much you're boosting your hormones. And, you know, the way that I would talk about it with them was sort of — if you think about a normal cycle and that your body is releasing generally one egg, and then you're trying to get somewhere between, you know, 20 to 30 eggs in one go — that's when I think they were like, wow. Like, that is a lot. And it makes sense why you are so tired and the hormones have such a big impact on you because it's — yeah. It's a lot.
Dr Raelia Lew:
Mhmm. It is a lot.
Jordi Morrison:
I should say for a lot of people, those kind of numbers are just not possible in one cycle. The average number of eggs collected in an IVF cycle, if you look at the population of women and couples doing IVF, is about 10 eggs in a cycle. So it's quite normal for women who do freeze eggs to, like your friend, take a couple of months to build up a really great resource of frozen eggs.
Dr Raelia Lew:
There's also in IVF and egg freezing, a little bit of attrition that happens because we stimulate the ovary with medications to get follicles to grow, but not every follicle yields an egg that's suitable to make a baby. Some will not yield an egg, so you might have more follicles. I say the follicle is the house the egg lives in, and that's what we can see on the ultrasound. The egg is the microscopic single cell inside the follicle, and sometimes a follicle no longer has an egg inside. The egg just hasn't made the distance in our lives, remembering we made our eggs when we were a fetus.
So not every follicle gives us an egg, and not every egg is freeze worthy when a scientist appraises the egg. It hasn't always done what it needs to do to get to the stage where it can be fertilized with a sperm. So some eggs are collected but not frozen. And so when we talk about that 20 to 30 goal, it's the number that are in the freezer, put away for the future, and that's important.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Yeah. And on that, I haven't shared the number that I that I had. You know, more were taken than were frozen. But I know from having friends who've been through IVF that numbers can be so triggering for people. And even for me, I thought, I don't wanna share it because then I'll have people sharing theirs with me, and I don't wanna compare to them. And, yeah, I'd never want to make anyone feel bad about, you know, the number that they got.
And Dr Raelia Lew also said to me — because I said, okay. What are we going for? Like, what's the target here? Because I like to have a goal in mind in anything I do that I'm like, okay. We're gonna hit that goal. And you wouldn't give me one, and I was annoyed. But you said that it's all — it's all relative and because you said to me that, you know, say you have a really low egg count and you end up with four eggs, you might be absolutely stoked because you might have thought you wouldn't have any.
So, yeah, I thought that that was a really good point that you said to me. You can't — it's not possible to give everybody some sort of goal number because no matter what, you could be really disappointed in some way. So, yeah, I thought that that was really important. And people still ask me, but I just — I'll tell my friends, you know, if they ask me in person. But online, I just don't think that I will ever share that.
Jordi Morrison:
And was there any backlash in that decision?
Olivia Molly Rogers:
No. Mainly people just being grateful. People who had been through fertility and even have had, you know, had success said to me they still find it triggering when they see numbers, people talking about numbers. So I think in any sense, you know, when you're talking about weight or — I just don't think sharing numbers are ever helpful, and it just leads to comparison, which always makes someone feel bad. So—
Dr Raelia Lew:
Yeah. Definitely. I agree. And my goal as a specialist is really to look at an individual person and see if we can get the best out of them that they're able to achieve and that their body's able to achieve — to try and aim for that personal best for them in that month. And comparison to others can be really unhelpful because sometimes someone has a very different baseline set point.
And regardless of how hard they try, how perfect their regimen is, they're just never going to be able to achieve in one cycle what someone with a larger ovary or a higher follicle count can achieve. Direct comparisons, I think, lead to pain—
Jordi Morrison:
Mhmm.
Dr Raelia Lew:
—and are not in any way helpful to the patient.
Jordi Morrison:
Yeah. We've got a few listener questions for a mix of both of you. Raelia, first one's for you. If you have a longer or irregular cycle, will it mean longer with injections?
Dr Raelia Lew:
Not necessarily. No. So one important point is when we do an egg freeze treatment or an IVF stimulation, we actually completely take over the natural cycle. So the natural cycle really has no impact on that. And one way that we have tried to change things up and really shake up the paradigm of egg freezing at Women's Health Melbourne and at Life is to divorce the concept of having to start with a menstrual period — because that kind of got into the way that egg freezing has been traditionally adopted only because IVF came first.
And when you do an IVF cycle and you try and get someone pregnant in the same month that you're stimulating the ovary — which is one way to do IVF — you do start with a period because you need the uterus to be hormonally in sync with the ovary so that when the time comes to put an embryo inside the womb in that same month, everything is appropriately set up.
With egg freezing, that's completely irrelevant because we're not trying to get the person pregnant. And what that means is we can literally start a cycle on any day of the menstrual cycle. It will usually take roughly two weeks from when we get started to when we do an egg collection. There's a bit of individualization around that because we look at your scan about ten or eleven days into the egg freezing stimulation and we say, okay, so what do your follicles look like?
It's going to be that there are some that are ahead and some that are in the middle and some that are a little bit behind, and we wanna pick a time for egg retrieval that's the best fit for most. So we do need a bit of flexibility, but we'll be able to kind of nominate a zone of about a week, and the egg collection will fall for 99% of people in that zone and probably for two standard deviations of people around a mean in the middle of that zone.
So you can actually look at your diary and say, hey, this would be a not bad time to have an egg collection for me and my schedule, and we can actually schedule your start date to fit in with that.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
That's what we did.
Jordi Morrison:
Yeah.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Yeah. And it's great. And you don't have to be at the mercy of your menstrual cycle. And some people have a really irregular menstrual cycle, so it can be really hard to plan if they have to start with day one of their period.
Jordi Morrison:
I also was really surprised. I have a Mirena, and we were able to do it with that.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
That was — and my friends found that surprising as well.
Dr Raelia Lew:
Oh, it surprises me still. I'm like, how— it's so confusing. But it's great.
Jordi Morrison:
Yeah.
Dr Raelia Lew:
And the reason for that is that we're actually literally just speaking to the ovaries. We're not having a conversation with your uterus when it comes to egg freezing. So what's going on in the uterine environment is—
Jordi Morrison:
Doesn't matter.
Dr Raelia Lew:
—really irrelevant to the process.
Jordi Morrison:
We touched on this actually, but we also got asked by a listener, and it's — why might a patient be a poor responder for IVF or egg freezing?
Dr Raelia Lew:
There are lots of reasons that that can happen. Firstly, it can be that they have a low ovarian reserve and you can't stimulate a follicle unless it's there to begin with. So some people don't have many follicles, and so we can't ask them to mature in a cycle.
But some people have a lower than anticipated response to stimulation despite having good measures on scans and blood tests like the AMH blood test. That's unusual. It doesn't happen often, but it can happen. And sometimes that's because of genetic changes in the way that our receptors to follicle-stimulating hormone are made. That's called receptor polymorphisms. And I'm sorry, that's a very big and strange word, but it just means that the receptor, which is like where the hormone fits in a lock-and-key model to activate the downstream chain reaction that makes a follicle grow, is a little bit genetically different.
And in that circumstance, sometimes the first thing we try is a different combination of medications that might fit that lock-and-key model a little bit better for that person, and sometimes we can find a better combination. Sometimes it's just the way that your ovary responds. And if you're one of that very small minority of people that is a very poor responder to stimulation in egg freezing, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're gonna have trouble getting pregnant, remembering that in a natural cycle, we do only release one egg.
And what we're trying to achieve in egg freezing is really asking your body to swim upstream and override the process that millennia of evolution has really created to help us have one baby at a time. It's something that I would say is not a common problem, but if that is something you've experienced, I would say have a one-on-one conversation with a CREI specialist about it.
Jordi Morrison:
Mhmm. So it really is a mix of — sometimes you'll know before you start that someone won't produce as many eggs as they might for their age, say. Well, they might hope to achieve.
Dr Raelia Lew:
I actually had a conversation with a patient this week about that. She had in her mind that she thought that 20 to 30 eggs could be produced in a cycle for everybody. And I had a conversation with her in the context of her ultrasound showing that she had 12 follicles and that if every single follicle gave us an egg, we would get 12 and that not every follicle always gives us an egg.
So if you set a patient's expectations realistically through education, I think that can be really helpful in how they perceive their own outcome. And it can be that if you don't set expectations realistically with biological limitations in mind, it's possible for someone to achieve an excellent outcome and perceive it as a negative. So that's really important.
Jordi Morrison:
But there will still be some where we won't know how they'll respond until they start.
Dr Raelia Lew:
You never know how many eggs any patient is gonna get to the freezer on the basis of their ultrasound and AMH testing. That tells me about their ovary compared to other people's ovaries in a limited fashion. It doesn't tell me how their body's gonna respond to medication, and it doesn't tell me what their egg quality is going to be like and what proportion of their eggs are gonna make it to the freezer.
So it gives us an idea. It helps me to avoid some of the complications of medication side effects. It helps me to choose an appropriate dose of an appropriate medication for that person to reduce their risk of something called hyperstimulation syndrome, but it does not tell me how many eggs they're going to have in the freezer. And even when I have a patient who has numbers on paper that look very positive, I still warn them that it could take more than one cycle of egg freezing to achieve their goal.
Jordi Morrison:
The next question is about — I can never say this — adenomiosis?
Dr Raelia Lew:
Adenomyosis.
Jordi Morrison:
That. And is egg freezing harder when you have adenomyosis?
Dr Raelia Lew:
Yes. I think we might have once upon a time done an episode on adenomyosis. It's kind of a cousin of endometriosis where the glands of the uterus become distended and the uterus grows larger. Adenomyosis can be stimulated by hormones, so it's quite possible that the process of egg freezing might make the adenomyosis a little bit worse, and you might have a very heavy period after an egg freeze cycle if you happen to have adenomyosis.
If it's extreme, it can probably make the anatomy of the pelvis a more difficult anatomy to traverse for an egg collection, so it could increase the risk of having eggs collected. It's often a condition that has a huge spectrum, so it can be really mild and have absolutely zero impact, or it can be really severe and be really problematic for pregnancy. And I think there's no real general advice I can give because of that — about adenomyosis.
Jordi Morrison:
Once eggs or embryos are frozen, can they be moved?
Dr Raelia Lew:
Definitely. And that's a really important point. I've had patients who've moved interstate or moved internationally and have been able to take their eggs or embryos with them very safely. And sometimes we do need to transport eggs, sperm, and embryos for various reasons.
Jordi Morrison:
We also have a past episode on that very topic on Knocked Up.
Dr Raelia Lew:
We do.
Jordi Morrison:
Olivia, if you could give one piece of advice on egg freezing, what would it be?
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Can I give two?
Jordi Morrison:
You can give two.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Firstly, find a really good doctor. I think I got very lucky with you, Dr Raelia Lew. I mean, you did come very highly recommended, but I think that makes a huge difference.
My other thing would be to sort of try as best you can to prepare yourself for after the egg freezing. I had a hormone crash. You warned me about that. I don't think I really listened that much. I was like, I'm gonna be fine. I was not fine. It was really intense, and I wasn't — I don't think I, yeah, really prepared myself for that.
And I think if I had, then I might have, once I was in it, known that it was — that that's what it was. I just felt like my brain was a bit broken for a period there. But then one day, I woke up and I was like, oh, I'm back to myself. So it was temporary, but it was pretty full on. Yeah. So I think making sure you have really good support around you and, you know, talking to someone about it — whether it's one person, just finding someone that can support you through it — because it's a pretty — like, it's great and it's so amazing that we can do it, but it is hard, especially if you are doing it as a single woman.
Jordi Morrison:
Yeah. Does it hurt?
Olivia Molly Rogers:
I was in a bit of pain after the retrieval. It felt probably just like period pain, crampy — you know, nothing excruciating, but just uncomfortable.
Jordi Morrison:
Olivia, you've recently launched your own podcast.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
I have.
Jordi Morrison:
Do you wanna tell us more about Tell Me More?
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Yeah. For sure. It's something that I've been working on for two and a half years now since the concept first came about. It's taken a long time to get to the point where I felt like it was exactly what I wanted to be doing. But essentially, I love to talk. I love to talk about vulnerable topics and, you know, be really open and honest about my experiences. And I think through that, I've been able to connect with a lot of people over the years. I think there's a lot of strength in vulnerability, and I just intend on having really open conversations about important topics.
So there'll be a lot of fertility talk on there, because, yeah, I think the last couple of years, I've just learned so much about fertility and how difficult it is for so many people. I think, you know, as young adults, you pretty much try your whole sex life to not get pregnant, and then you just think, well, when I decide to get pregnant, it will just happen. And then it's definitely not that simple. It's been really interesting and connecting with other women online who have been through similar journeys to me or are still going through it, and it's been amazing to sort of build that community. So that's definitely something that I wanna talk more about on the podcast.
Jordi Morrison:
Yeah. We'll link to it in the show notes as well to make it even easier to find.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Thank you.
Jordi Morrison:
Thank you so much for joining us today, Olivia. It's lovely to hear the insight of someone who's been through something, especially so recently. This was only a few weeks ago.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Yeah. It was pretty recent.
Jordi Morrison:
Yeah. So thank you for sharing.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Jordi Morrison:
And thank you, Dr Raelia Lew, for your insight as always.
Dr Raelia Lew:
Thanks, Jordi. And can I just say it's so brave of you, Olivia, to be so open about your story and your personal story?
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Oh, thank you.
Dr Raelia Lew:
Yeah. So kudos to you for being such an example for young people who really have often quite a stigma around these topics.
Olivia Molly Rogers:
Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.
Jordi Morrison:
To support Knocked Up, leave us a review or recommend to a friend. Join us on Instagram at @knockeduppodcast and join Raelia at @doctorraelialew, and email us your questions to podcast@womenshealthmelbourne.com.au.