For many, the decision to freeze their eggs may be one that they ponder over for months, if not years. For me, however, the decision was a pretty quick one once I had been for my MOT!
For those of you not aware of what’s involved, a fertility MOT usually combines a few tests to evaluate your current fertility. Traditionally I believe a test called FSH used to be performed and still is by GPs, however, the Anti-Mullerian Hormone(AMH) test is now thought to be more reliable, as it’s not affected the timing of your cycle.
The AMH test is performed by taking some blood, a very straight forward process, unless of course, you have a strong aversion to needles! The second part of the MOT is the scan, which is also completely painless. Like many things women are subject to, it’s more a dent on your dignity than anything more serious!
The scan is internal and is all over fairly quickly, I think mine took around 20 minutes or less. The purpose of this scan is to assess your ovarian reserve. They will also check how healthy your uterus, ovaries and follicles are. I believe many of things they are assessing aren’t just to do with your egg count, but also whether there are any issues which would prevent you carrying a baby. Usually, the final part of the MOT is a consultation with a specialist, who will talk through your results with you.
In previous posts, I’ve talked about my disappointment when I was told that I had low AHM results for my age group, but I haven’t really spoke much about how I prepared myself for the treatment, despite this disappointing news. My mind was made up pretty much instantly but I gave myself the weekend to take a step back and think. After a few days of feeling a bit sorry for myself, I started to think about how best to prepare my mind and body for what lied ahead.
I asked the clinic if there were any do’s and don’ts that I should be aware of, in order to prepare myself for the hormone injections. They provided some useful pointers, all of which were pretty straight forward and basic common sense really, however, I took it all very seriously and stuck to it by the letter. The basic gist was to stay fit and healthy and try and relax, easier said than done believe me!
For anyone that knows me, I’m not the dieting kind, not that I see anything wrong with dieting, but over the years I’ve found that if I tell myself I can’t have something, I have this overwhelming urge to eat it even more! My normal diet is really just a balanced approach to eating and I think that works for me, but in this situation, I really did give my whole diet an overhaul. My main focus was increasing the good food groups, and cutting out all bad things completely. Yes, that’s right, no crisps, no pizza, no sugar and absolutely no wine, in fact, no alcohol or caffeine at all! As I said, I don’t eat that much rubbish anyway, but this was definitely the longest period in my life that I abstained from all the bad stuff and I think it was only 7 weeks in total! I have no idea how other women do this for months, I guess they are more disciplined than me?!
I found Deliciously Ella a brilliant inspiration during this time, as I focused on substituting some foods for alternatives, i.e if I wanted to grab a snack, and fresh fruit didn’t quite hit the mark I ate dates instead. Yes, I can hear some of you say, that’s not a snack, but trust me it’s definitely changed the way I look at food and definitely for the better. Some of the good habits I picked up during that time are still very much part of my life, even after egg freezing.
Although somethings to do with your health are uncontrollable, I do believe in the saying ‘You are what you eat’, and that ethos was part of my preparation. I don’t know if any of the tweaks I made had any effect on the quality of my eggs and I guess I’ll never know, but at least I can say that I did everything I could regarding my diet and no one can take that away from me.
There are a few more areas of my life that I also focused on in the run up to my egg retrieval, which I’ll talk about another time, but if you’d like to ask me any questions please feel free to contact me directly.
As I’ve said before I’m no way an expert as it’s all so new to me as well, but my experience may be able to help you where others aren’t able.
