Mum's The Word! The Parenting Podcast - Freezing Eggs with Sophie Porley

Episode Date: October 23, 2022

Actress and model Sophie Porley joins us this week to chat about her experience freezing her eggs and guides us through the process and her reasons for undertaking the freezing process. Get in touch with us on whatsapp at 07599927537 or at [e-mail]----A Create Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

well hello everyone i feel like i should start by doing a trigger warning because today we are going to be talking about fertility um and egg freezing so i know that fertility is obviously um a sensitive topic for lots of people and I understand that there are lots of people out there who are going through their own fertility journeys and struggles so yeah I will be discussing topics around fertility and egg freezing with my amazing guest today so if you feel like you would like to skip on then please check out one of the other episodes on then please check out one of the other episodes but I did want to talk about this today because a lot of my friends are still single or haven't met their partner yet or actually just toying with the idea of whether or not they actually want children and I was obviously single I say obviously it's probably not obvious at all but I was single for six years from 27 to 33 and in that time I personally never really thought about fertility much because I

didn't want children so how quickly my life and the direction I thought it was going to go has changed especially now that I'm here with a mum podcast that's something I never ever thought would happen but I suppose it shows the beauty of life you don't quite know for good or for bad where life is going to take you um but one thing I'm hearing about friends doing more and more is egg freezing and I think it's really interesting um and this is something I want to speak about with my guests so I will I'll try and keep this short but one thing I found in one thing I found quite frustrating during my single years was firstly at the beginning when I first became single at 27 I felt like I was so old to become single I was like I can't be single again it's almost over for me I'm in my I was like, I can't be single again. It's almost over for me. I'm in my late 20s. I

should be settled down. And it took me like a good few years of working on myself and thinking that actually, number one, I don't think I want children. And number two, I don't want to get married. So where is this sort of pressure coming from this societal pressure that I think women feel much more than men like that our worth is dictated. And the milestones even that we celebrate are sort of dictated by settling down. You know, there's all these horrific expressions like being left on the shelf, the idea that we should be picked by a man. And I guess in terms of fertility,'s even if you really really want children

you can't just click your fingers and have one and whether that's because you are going through fertility issues or whether that's because you haven't met your person or whether that's because you don't feel ready and I think these are conversations that we just don't have enough. And I really wanted to open that conversation firstly about this sort of invisible timeline, because actually I saw some really interesting statistics that said 51% of Brits aged between 25 to 44 are single. So number one, why do we feel like we're these freaks if we reach our late 20s and we haven't met somebody that we want to spend the rest of our life with and number two is the idea of time running out and the biological clock because another really interesting statistic I saw is that what's often said is that one in three children aged 35 to 39 will not get pregnant even after a year of trying.

And actually, this is mad. The source of this data were French births between the years 2670 and 1830. and 1830 so this was a time that was not only so long ago but it was when antibiotics electricity and fertility treatment weren't even invented um and there's again lots of research so like just last year in britain more than 2 000 babies a year are born to mothers aged over 45 so whilst that might take the pressure off there are of course also lots of women who find themselves with fertility issues much younger who wish that they might have thought about protecting you know doing what they could to do things like egg freezing um earlier in life so i've got the perfect guest today. She is an English actress and model.

I met her during her role as Ellie Nightingale when she was on Hollyoaks. She's also had roles in The Work Experience and Jupiter Ascending. And she's modeled for so many amazing brands, including Bravissimo, Two for Sainsbury's. And luckily, I did check her age because I was going to say that she's 29 but she's very lucky that Google is actually lying I get I get older than I am on Google but she is actually almost 35 so same age as me and it is Sophie Pauley hi sorry that was such a long-winded intro and probably a bit waffly but you are going through the process of egg freezing or you have gone through the process of egg freezing yes i've

already done it so i done it slightly earlier this year um in june july so um yeah i'm all i'm all wrapped up and done and do you know what I said to you briefly in the intro, but it's a topic that I really haven't heard much about up until very recently. And it's also something that I'm incredibly naive about. So please forgive any clumsy questioning or just like in general ignorance and naivety. I have a friend, a lesbian friend who's looking into egg freezing because she um is late 30s and hasn't met someone that yet and is really wants to have children and

other than that I feel like it's only really recently that I'm hearing people share stories about it even being an option yeah well it's the same me. I really didn't know much about it at all. And so that's why I decided to share some of my experience online, because I just wish that I would have known a no embarrassment about it whatsoever. But I feel like when people talk to me sometimes, I had a friend recently who was standing next to her boyfriend that kind of whispered, how was the egg freezing? Like it was I don't I don't know, like I don't know the way we used to talk about periods or something like like it was something embarrassing. And obviously, I just don't see it that way whatsoever. don't see it that way whatsoever but so I do think that the more we normalize these topics like the better it will be for everyone because it's just another option for us to do yeah you're right I wonder why like where that sort of idea of taboo comes from and I guess it probably is because fertility is at least traditionally seen as this like thing that gives value in society. You know, like it's mad to think that up until the 70s,

women were called spinsters if they weren't married by 23 in the UK, Catherine X in France. And there's all these different terms throughout Europe and the rest of the world. Like it really was like, I mean, up until the late 70s, you couldn't even buy a house, open a bank account, get a loan without your father or a husband, even if you earn more than both your father and your husband. taking the pressure off ourselves and not feeling like left on the shelf or you know all the all the shame and embarrassment if you are going through a fertility journey um whether it's on your own or with a partner um what what made you originally look into it like had people you know done it what was it that you were like this is something i want to do

um a couple of different avenues actually firstly um my mum went through early menopause so she was around 40 41 um I mean she'd like I'm one of four so she'd already had all of her kids had no fertility issues whatsoever but she went through early menopause um and it is hereditary So I think it's really important for us women to know when your mom and when your grandma went through the menopause. But interestingly, my mom doesn't know when her mom went through menopause because they never spoke about it back then. So that was one thing that I knew that potentially it might be something for me. Then the second thing is I have a few friends that are older than me. So they were kind of like late thirties and a couple of people were going through IVF and were having fertility issues. And they just were really like banging on to me that if

they could go back to my age, being in my early thirties, that they would have got their fertility tested and they would have frozen their eggs. and that's something they really wish that they had done so it was kind of a two prong thing um and i was thinking about it for some time and then i just did a little google search and i'll say it when you initially do some research it makes it seem like it's a really easy process so um i just found the first google link that come up with the London women's clinic and they offer an MOT is what they call it. So you can go in and have your AMH tested, which the AMH is basically the hormone that's going to tell you roughly on a

scale, how, how many eggs you have left um for your age and um and then they also do a scan to check like your ovaries are all good and I think that they had like a special off on or something so I think it was something like 200 pounds so I was like okay great yeah so it's like that's like let's go and just check it out and also i had read that a round of freezing was 3 500 pounds which is a lot of money but i was like that seems doable um so but i will tell you it did not cost 3 500 pounds there's lots of added extras which i'll go into um i'm sure later. So, yes, I just went for my MIT test just to see where I stood with my fertility. So would they say you've got this many witches, good or bad for your age, and therefore you've got this long left if you were to try and conceive naturally? Is that the kind of?

Yeah. So, I mean, I'm again, I'm not an expert on this this is just um you know i was learning it all as i was going along but um they don't tell you how many eggs you have left but they have two different scales of because it's basically a blood test and so they test the hormone and they have a scale and the one that i was tested on it it started at, I believe, 0.1 and ended on 52. So on that scale, like, so the higher it is, the more eggs you have left. But that's not the number of eggs you have. It's just a scale, if that makes any sense. But yeah, so obviously, the higher up you are, the more eggs you have left.

And so when I got my results back on that scale of of 0.1 to 52 I was 2.8 which is obviously a terrifying result to get at the age of 33 at the time um when I when I got that and so obviously that's very sort of panic inducing because you don't know I'm like I still am at the stage where I could run out of eggs in six months. I could run out of eggs in a year or I could run out of eggs in five years. And I have no idea how quickly that's going to go down. But what I do know now is that I have a very low egg count. And so if I want to have children, which I do, I don't have the luxury of time.

And that's just a fact. So one of the things I will say about getting these tests done is I'm not sure I would have got the test done if I hadn't had the means to pay to have my eggs frozen. pay to have my eggs frozen. Or I think perhaps if you're single and you don't have a partner, I'm not sure that I would have maybe rather be ignorant in that situation if there's no means to do anything about it. Obviously, I've thought a lot about this. I'm still not sure how I feel. If you can't do anything about it, is it worth knowing that? I don't know. That's obviously up to the individual. I suppose it's a hard one isn't it because a lot of people might prefer to know because I feel for me and bear in mind I'm so aware that I am in a fortunate position that I got pregnant very quickly with Tommy I experienced loss but I'm pregnant again and I understand how fortunate

that is and to be in that position and I also I'm aware that and I understand how fortunate that is and to be in that position and I also I'm aware that and I don't want to be clumsy in my wording that because I haven't really had fertility issues although I have friends that have and I you know I had a friend that's gone down the adoption route so I know how painful and expensive it can be but I do feel like I if I'd have known at 27 that I had x amount of time, you know, one of my friends just given birth and she's 41. So if I knew that I had X amount of time, maybe I would have taken the pressure off myself and maybe broken up with assholes a bit sooner because I didn't feel like it was my last chance. And I hear sometimes my friend who's 32 and she's like oh well he's not really perfect but maybe you know it's a bit late to start again and and I think a lot of women have this sort of pressure or

biological pressure so maybe knowing actually yes it's good or even I guess because if ignorance is bliss but then you meet somebody in four years time and then you realize it's too late oh i know you probably would be like i just wish i knew but it's hard isn't it i guess it's so individual i guess the important thing is knowing that this mot is available and lots of people don't know it's available and like for me i'm quite shocked that it was 200 pounds because whilst that's a lot of money it's quite an affordable or like at least something that you can save to get it's not what i would thought which would be like it's 300 pounds just to get the mot so i guess empowerment knowledge is power isn't it so whether you choose to do it or not it's knowing that you could do it for me i'm glad that i did it but i do know that the

whole treatment isn't affordable to so many people because it it really did add up really quickly the cost so i know that egg freezing is is definitely um a privilege a privilege and like definitely not everybody can afford it and it shouldn't be really should it it shouldn't be a privilege when we have like the nhs and you know ultimately you can't pick when you're going to meet someone and you can't pick your fertility but i suppose that's a conversation for a whole other topic yes um but what i will say though is um finding out that i had a low egg reserve you then obviously catastrophize everything and like it becomes like quite scary but if you have a low egg reserve it doesn't mean you can't get pregnant.

So if I were to try and get pregnant naturally, I have the exact same chances as everybody else. So it doesn't mean that you're going to struggle getting pregnant. It just means that you're not going to be able to have a baby for as long as people with more eggs. So I think that that's a big sort of taboo around it as well, that people really made the assumption that it means that you have poor fertility and it's just not the case. It just means you have less eggs. What was the stage after the MOT? So you obviously chose to move forward

with the egg freezing thinking it would be about three and a half thousand pounds so what are the next steps and what is what stages do you have to go through so the next thing after that is um choosing your clinic and there are so many clinics it's really tricky to to decide who to go with because obviously i'm assuming most people would come into it like me not knowing much about it and um i have had a few friends that have gone down ivf route and so they recommended clinics to me i did lots of reading there's um there's a website if anyone's thinking about it that's like a governing body called hfea and you can go on there and it has like a big chart where you can compare all the different clinics so i chose the clinic based purely on the fact that they got good results. And I read the reviews and the reviews basically said that they do not hold your hand,

that they've got terrible bedside manner and everything was just saying how they're not personable at all, but they had great results. And so I thought, you know what, I'm a tough cookie. I don't even hold my hand. I decided to get therapy on the side. And I was like, I'm good. In hindsight, I would have had a much better experience with a different clinic, such a personal and involved thing that it's not fluffy to need good bedside manner. So I would really say when you're picking a clinic, go to a few different clinics and speak to them and sort of get a vibe from them.

Don't just go with who online has the best results. Yeah, I think that I think I would have had a much easier time if I was with a different clinic. But as I say, everyone's going to have a different experience. also um there's lots of prep work before you even get started so they say um i actually have two books that i was recommended um so before doing anything i read the book everything egg freezing and that kind of gave me a good overview of what to expect and then lots of people recommend this one too it starts with the egg this one tells you lots about the vitamins and things to take so then off the back of that I went and found a nutritionalist who recommended I think I was on

like 20 vitamins a day and I don't I wouldn't want to share exactly what they were because they were so personal to my situation but I definitely would say I would recommend going to see a nutritionist because you want to get your egg as physically good as you can and so that meant I didn't drink alcohol for three months before so basically had three months of prep of getting my body like like all good and going and i'm such a perfectionist i took this all so seriously so for me the egg freezing really did take over my life for uh like six months it's such a big investment as well that you'll probably be like i just want to do everything i can absolutely i wanted to know that my eggs were going to be the best possible quality and blah, blah, blah. So, yeah, the first day of your period, you have to go in to take a blood test and have an internal scan.

And I went there to start that month. And they said that my results came back and it was not a good month to start. My hormones weren't optimal to start. So then I just had another month of them waiting and being like oh hopefully next month i just wanted to get on with it so then the following month um again first study period you go and get tested and they said my levels still weren't amazing but with my egg count they said you know it's up to you and so i just said said, let's just start. And I was told that the process usually is between 10 and 12 days of injecting yourself. And then they collect the eggs. But actually, mine went on for 18 days because I wasn't reacting enough to it. So it was 18 days of injections.

And it's not just that. It's actually the process was so all-consuming. I actually couldn't work at all during the time I was doing this. So I don't know how people who, I don't know, if you have an office job where you have to be there every day. At my clinic, which I went to ARGC, you would have to take the time off work. Basically, a day in the life of it is you'd go there at 7am for a blood test. And then you'd have a blood test every single day at 7am and every other day at the clinic. And then every other day it would be a blood test and an internal scan for maybe like the first five days. Then after that, I would have my blood test and my scan. And then I had to be within half an hour of the clinic

because they would call me back to come back for a blood test and maybe another scan. My whole day was sitting in cafes near the clinic, waiting for them to call me to go back in for more blood tests and more scans. And then they would tell me what medication to take. And because I wasn't reacting very well to it, then I also, I was on a strong dosage and then I also had an injection that I had to get up at 5am and take so I was up at 5

injecting my belly then going for the blood test at 7 and then probably going back between 11 and 2 and that was for 18 days I lost my mind like I, I'm someone who doesn't react well to hormones anyway. And like the pill never suited me. And so I was just very emotional, very drained from the whole thing. I found the whole process really, really tough. And I really hadn't quite thought how, how hard this would be on, on my body physically and mentally but yeah so it's it's not something that you just go in on your lunch lunch hour break and and do and then go home it's

it's a long ordeal and I I do appreciate that mine was longer than most people's just particularly because of how I reacted I do know that other people at other clinics, it has been a lot simpler. So again, I'm saying that this is my experience of it, which was really difficult. But I know that other people have had a lot nicer experiences. Welcome to Paranormal Activity with me, Yvette Fielding, a brand new podcast bringing together people's real ghost, extraterrestrial and paranormal stories, as well as getting some inside details from those who study the supernatural. I'll be listening to your paranormal stories every week and try to understand them, as well as chatting about

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You can find us wherever you get your podcasts from, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Acast. Just search for Paranormal Activity with Yvette Fielding. It's so crazy to me that you have say people like you going through egg freezing you have women going through IVF which I've heard is as equally as kind of um draining and and you know the the hormones that you have to inject in yourself it sounds um like similar in terms of like the reaction and I wish that we knew more about this because imagine how much more compassion there would be for what people are going through even I can compare it to the first year of motherhood like it's seen as this like rosy thing or you know at least for me like postnatal depression it was seen

as something like oh what's your hormone it was this hormonal thing as opposed to like the psychological impact and the permanence of of everything that you go through and it it's just why i mean look on it's not concerned it's more thinking like i was thinking why aren't we taught about any of this stuff in schools because imagine how much more understanding we would be and even just to know that it's an option for people as well but yeah i wasn't concerned it was more that i was like frustrated at the fact we just don't know people are going through this the egg freezing is the exact same as ivs but the only difference is once they collect your eggs at the end of it with ivs i guess they then implant them back into you whereas with the egg process

it stops there so it's exactly the same as IVF, but they just, they have another stage afterwards for the IVF, but otherwise it's the same. But just to finish off how it finishes. So after 18 days of injections, I'll say that on the very last day of injecting myself, I had to inject myself with needles 11 times that day. And I'm told that the hormone is very similar to like the first three months of pregnancy. My belly was just so bloated and it was just bruised all over. I'm trying to find a section of belly that wasn't hard so that I can put the needle in. And I'm someone who's completely fine with needles. So that wasn't a big concern for me, but it's still a bit grim. But the actual physical pain I was more okay with than like the mental,

like when will this end? Because it was just another day, another day. But eventually when they say, okay, we're ready to go. So they say we trigger. So they give you an injection to um stimulate whatever hormone it is you need and then you go in in the morning and you have a little operation where they remove the eggs and then you sit patiently and you wait for your results you're under general anesthetic yeah you're through you're asleep for it again it was more painful than i'd anticipated

i woke up and it just felt like one of the worst period pains that I've experienced, but also wanting me to wake up really quickly and get me out of there because there was someone else coming in next. I felt very rushed to leave. And this is obviously private as well. It's not even NHS, which not getting that much better treatment on private. Then obviously they can't guarantee results. So to give context, they say if you could collect 20 eggs, they might be able to guarantee a baby from that. From my first egg collection after going through 18 days of all of that, I got one egg. So it just feels like you spend all of that money regardless if you get results and you've gone through all of that. And

I have one egg from that round. Do you mind me asking from that round what the cost was of that? Was that the three and a half thousand? Three and a half thousand, I think that that's, I can't remember what that was supposed to include but basically that didn't include all of your medication, which really adds up. So I ended up doing two rounds because obviously I only got one egg. And so I did two rounds. And I believe the cost was somewhere between $15,000 and $18,000. Wow. Huge. And so for the second round, they said that if I went straight into it, so I had the operation and then I had two days off

and then I went straight back into taking hormones again. And they said I should get more eggs the second round. And the second round was, I believe, 12 or 13 days. And we collected four eggs. So yeah, all together, I have five eggs um frozen and look one of the like right now I'm still hoping that I'll never need to use them you freeze your eggs with the hope that that they're in the freezer and you know I hope to have a loving relationship that we have babies naturally and that I never need them um but should I need them in the future,

then I've got five there. But I guess it's hard not to feel disappointed when I know that that's not really enough to guarantee me a baby. And so it is amazing that we have this there. But for someone in my position that's got low egg count, you're unlikely to get a lot of eggs collected because you've got a low egg count. So it's a real tricky one because you're doing it knowing that your results might not be great. I really, really would love to come on and say how happy I am that I did it and that I really recommend it because I think it's such a good thing to give women options. And there are some women who this would be amazing for. So if you don't have a low egg count, then this would be really great for you.

And also, I think if I'd have done it in my 20s, I would have got a lot more eggs. I wouldn't have had the money in my 20s and I definitely wouldn't have given up booze for six months in my 20s and been like dedicated to it so it's a real tough one this is the hard thing in general isn't it because it's that sort of benefit of hindsight in the same way that the reason you did it or part of the reason you did it was because there were women in their late 30s saying I wish I'd done it in my early 30s but then you're saying in benefit of hindsight I wish I'd done it in my 20s but I suppose like you said from earlier there is that chance that you can still conceive naturally if and when the time comes but at least you do have some eggs and I presume

there are like positive stories that have come from like a small egg count being successful. So I suppose that's what you would cling on to. And I know other women who have collected 27 eggs on one round. That must feel amazing. If I would have collected 27 eggs from my round, I think that all of the negative experience would have felt so worth it. And I would feel some relief that I had some little babies in the freezer, just in case, you know, I need them at some point in the future. I would 100% then feel like that was also totally worth it. I think that obviously, if you don't get a good result, that's going to kind of cloud in the experience. Yeah, it's like what you said earlier that it costs regardless of the results. And that's quite a big thing, isn't it?

Yeah. a big thing isn't it yeah how do you wish people like reacted or responded or supported you during this time and even after this time when you talk to people about it because i find it very difficult to know what the right thing to say is and i feel like sometimes that's all you want isn't it it doesn't even have to be extravagant you just you just want to be heard or you just want to be listened to like what what advice would you give for people that maybe know people going through whether it's this experience or IVF for me I'm I'm I'm not offended by anything that anyone says about it and I think it's very different for someone in my situation and someone who is going through IVF because I was doing it not to make a baby.

As far as I know, I don't have fertility issues and hopefully it would be fine me getting pregnant naturally. Just need to meet the right partner who wants to do that with me. But obviously someone going through IVF, I can't speak for them because I'm not trying to have a baby. So yeah, I'm sure they'll have sensitivities towards it, which I don't have because I'm not trying to have a baby. So yeah, I'm sure that they'll have sensitivities towards it, which I don't have because I'm not in that position right now. That's why I don't find the egg freezing a taboo subject. And I don't mind how people speak to me about it because I don't

find it. It doesn't make me feel bad because it was just something I was doing to try and, you know, give myself more options in the future. And yeah, it wasn't a great outcome for me, but you know, that's the risk I took. With the benefit of hindsight would you do it all over again and what advice would you give for people that are maybe toying with the idea of it for various different reasons? It's a really difficult one I think the thing is if you have a good AMH number a good egg count then you're a really good candidate for it. And you're going to get lots of eggs, but you're less likely to need to use them. Whereas someone in my position who has a low egg count, you're less likely to get a good result. But we're the people that need it the most. I think maybe in five years time, if I need it, and then if I was

to get a baby from this, oh my God, I will be so grateful I did it. But then there's always the fact that it might not work. And you did spend all that money and it was mentally and physically quite draining. So it's such a strange thing that you're doing all of this and you hope that you never, ever need it. And I know that actually in America, I've had conversations with people that it's becoming a lot more normalized for girls in their 20s to do egg freezing younger and just kind of get it out of the way. And so I do wonder whether this would become more sort of normalized in society and people will do it when they're younger i suppose it's one of those things as well that maybe in your 20s you think

you don't want children or it's not important you know it's like it's like somebody saying sort your pension out and you're like oh i could spend my money going out it's like you know you don't really think about things until you sort of need it. But people like you who are talking about it, number one, it does let people feel more comfortable to ask questions around it and not feel like it's taboo. Like, you know, you're saying you have people that whispering or me kind of not knowing how to respond. It normalizes things, which is what we need in so many walks of life. From menopause to postpartum bodies to egg freezing to IVF and the more people

like you talk about it then I guess the more it's in people's minds that it is an option which will take pressure off women and presumably I mean I'm no economist but surely it's better say if this was funded by the NHS like the initial MOT thing that it would future-proof the people who do need it so that they're not having to find alternate methods further down the line, which I presume are more costly to NHS. I know that some things are available in the NHS and some things aren't, and it's a bit of a postcode lottery. I know that they do offer it on the NHS with some people that have undergone cancer treatments and things. There are certain people that do qualify for egg freezing

on the nhs for those reasons and if you did freeze your eggs in your in your 20s or whatever then if you did have any medical issues in the future that such as cancer that would prevent you from potentially um getting pregnant then you know that's that's a really great thing that you have that there as well so there is also things like that to consider i'm honestly not so grateful like you came to talk about it with me and i think it's um yeah like something that i find really fascinating because it's something that i've never really had to think about at all i would also say there was a podcast that i listened to um at the time which was called Freezing Time by Sophie Moneykoots. And she really documented throughout the whole process.

Hers was a lot smoother than mine. And spoiler alert, she got a lot better result. So if anyone is thinking more about it, I would recommend that podcast, Freezing Time. No one knows what the future holds, but yeah, hopefully it was just a massive waste of money and i'll never ever need to use them but if i do need to use them then fingers crossed they work if not there are so many other things you know that you can do in life and uh yeah oh sophie

thank you so much it's honestly it's so fascinating and interesting to hear and i know that it will help so many people that are considering whether or not to go on this journey. I'm not going to do any questions today, but obviously I do love to hear from you. If you want to get in touch about this episode, then obviously you can WhatsApp, you can send a voice message. It's free. You can do it anonymously if you want.

So that's 07599927537. Or of course you can email at askmumstheordpod at gmail.com and i'll of course pass on any relevant emails to sophie and um of course you can contact sophie on instagram if you have any specific questions what's your insta at i will put it in the bio but it's very easy it's my name absolutely poorly um and yeah i hope you enjoyed the episode. I know I wish I listened to it a few years ago. And yeah, I'll be back with another episode, same time, same place next week. Thank you so much, Sophie.

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