Preserving Your Fertility in Your 20s, 30s and 40s
It’s simple to do and can save you from so much heartache!
Find a fertility specialist - no referral is needed.
Get your levels checked
I get it. You’re in your 20s and don’t feel stable enough to have children. Maybe you’re dating and having fun without even the thought of children. Maybe you think you don’t want to have kids right now.
Let me tell you, circumstances can change so quickly.
I thought my life plan was - to graduate high school, go to college, attend medical school, and have my first baby by 25. Boy, was I off.
I never went to medical school. I have a partner, but we are not exactly couple goals. I didn’t plan for this to happen. It just happens. Relationships are hard, and the reality is that mine certainly isn’t perfect. In my 20s, I didn’t think I would be standing here halfway through 40, wondering what was happening with my life. I probably had my life more together at 25 than I do now in some ways.
The moral of the story is that we change and we evolve. You have NO IDEA what your life will be like 10 years from now or 20. I don’t want you to end up like me at 40 wishing I had done something.
Here’s the deal. As women, we’re born with all the eggs we’ll ever have. We’re most fertile in our 20s and our eggs in our 20s have the highest chance of being genetically normal and making to implantation. In our 30’s, if we are fertile, there is a 20% chance of pregnancy with each attempt and this dwindles to 5% in our 40s.
So, can we have a higher egg quality in our 30s and 40s, if we want to wait to have children at that time? Yup.
What’s the solution? Egg freezing! Is it a guarantee? No, it is not. This is NOT an insurance policy. This is an additional opportunity. Is this costly? Yes, it is very costly for someone in their 20s to consider, but let me tell you that at 40 looking back, I would have loved that opportunity. That’s all we can call it is an opportunity.
I wish I had known more about this topic in my 20s. I asked my primary care doctor to see if I could have my fertility evaluated at 25 and she said, “No, you just have to try and get pregnant to know if you’re fertile.”That’s wrong!!
In my mid-30s, I asked my OB/GYN to test me to see if I was nearing the end of my fertile life window. She said, “No. You just have to try for 6 months to know if you’re fertile.” That’s wrong!! I was already 36!!
You CAN have your fertility evaluated NOW before you try and get pregnant, and you don’t need a referral from your OB/GYN or primary care doctor. YOU are your own referral source.
Why egg freezing? You can use your healthy, pretty, and normal eggs in your 30s and 40s IF YOU NEED THEM.
I’m so grateful that in my journey, I found Dr. Aimee Eyvazzadeh, the @eggwhisperer. I wish I could have gotten this information from her sooner! I would have checked in my 20s!
So, here’s what you do! No matter where you are, you can reach out to Dr. Aimee and get your levels checked! She’ll consult with you and tell you more about your fertility. I don’t personally know her or get anything from her. I think she’s this gem and sending a message we needed to hear all along! But, if you don’t want to go to her, search for local fertility specialists and ask them to help you order the blood tests to evaluate your fertility. We’ll talk about those tests next post! You can learn a lot just from listening to Dr. Aimee’s podcast also!
We learn when we’re young that we should exercise and eat healthily to prevent heart attacks and to live a long and healthy life. Why can’t we start looking at our fertility in our 20s to make sure we can prevent infertility, also?
We’ll talk about fertility in our 30s soon too! Stay tuned, and thanks for joining me!! I can’t wait to share more with you!!