A woman has gone viral after sharing the details of her egg freezing experience on Twitter.
Safina Adatia lives in Montreal, Canada, and decided to freeze her eggs at the age of 32, as her “insurance policy for the future”.
She said that she wasn’t sure if, or when, she wanted to have children, but that her medicine career is intense, and “things are always harder after 35”.
In her efforts to “de-stigmatize the process” she wrote about her experience, including that “it hurt like hell”.
Writing on her Twitter, she said: “Process involves: initial baseline ultrasound, blood work. Then waiting for period before starting injections. My meds were: menopur for seven days (stimulates the follicles) and on day four, orgalutron (stops ovulation). Then they do another ultrasound to see the number of eggs/size.
“Once they see how you respond to the injections, they decide if you need more hormones (I needed one extra day then went back for another ultrasound). They decided I was ready. Then I had to inject Suprafact (I think it also prevents menstruation) 36 hours before collection.
“No injections day before collection. Today I basically went in and using really mild sedation (which is why it hurts so much) they go in with ultrasound and use a needle to aspirate the follicles. I was lucky they managed to collect 25!
“Now I’m taking one last medication to prevent ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome for eight days, and antibiotics for a week. I have quite a bit of cramping and nausea. It’s hard to eat tbh [sic]. I’m just resting. I had a good friend with me pretty much the entire day!”
She was also frank about how expensive the procedure was, stating that it was the equivalent of about £2,205.08.
She said: “And many are asking about cost/insurance - $3800 for the retrieval. All appts, ultrasounds, bloodwork covered by province. Will begin paying storage/year of approx $400 next year. Meds mostly covered by my private insurance plan. Overall not bad and grateful to be Canadian/in QC.”
At the time of writing, her Twitter thread has been liked more than 40,000 times, and retweeted nearly 6,000 times.
One person commented: “Thank you for this! I’m heading to the fertility clinic next month to probably freeze my eggs.”
Another said: “Thank you for sharing your journey and the process to de-stigmatize the procedure as well as the decision to freeze your eggs. It takes courage to put yourself out there and I certainly admire your strength to do this. Sending hugs, and prayers for a speedy recovery!”
