Past the Eleventh Hour

Peace of mind can be so expensive

- LAURD SALEN

This is what 41-year-old writer Kate Alvarez has to say about egg freezing. It was in 2014 when Alvarez first learned about this medical intervention. Alvarez says something "sparked" within her when she discovered what seemed like a marvelous treatment for expanding one's fertility window.

In egg freezing or oocyte cryopreservation, women are given the possibility to store unfertilized eggs in an attempt to preserve fertility in the future. The treatment can also be used in medical emergencies, such as for patients with newly-diagnosed cancer and women who need to undergo removal surgery.

The loud ticking of the biological clock is what every woman in her adulthood constantly hears, so for Alvarez, reading anecdotes of women subjecting themselves to the treatment was inspiring.

"I could relate to the career-driven and empowered women who decided to do it, whether they were in a relationship or not," Alvarez tells MEGA. "I knew it was something I wanted to do."

Five years later, after much research and having enough time to weigh the pros and cons of the procedure, Alvarez had her eggs frozen: "In 2019, I turned 38, and after years of reading and thinking about egg freezing, I was finally ready-emotionally, physically, and financially."

But the journey was not an effortless feat. Before the egg harvesting procedure, it is advised for patients to have a healthy lifestyle, which entails avoiding alcohol, caffeine, and smoking.

From tight follicle monitoring to daily Gonal (hormone releasing medications) and Cetrotide (infertility medication) jabs, Alvarez recalls treating the Center for Advanced Reproductive Medicine and Infertility (CARMI) at St. Luke's Medical Center like her second home during her two-week ovarian stimulation: "During waiting hours, I would set up my portable office in the café, and then chatted with my 'egg' neighbors in CARMI while waiting for the doctor."