Dating : Why I’m Freezing My Eggs

Spoiler: It’s not because I want children, necessarily

“Is it hard to date in San Francisco?” the doctor asked me, my legs in stirrups and a paper sheet draped over my naked lap, like a tablecloth. “My patients tell me it is,” he offered.

Considering that I’ve dated more 30-something-year-old men who act like teenage boys on a Rumspringa and have the same level of emotional intelligence, and that we live in a tech-heavy, engineer-dense city, I wanted to tell him that, yes, as a mostly straight woman, you could say it is a little hard to date in San Francisco.

But I didn’t. Instead, I smiled politely. Because my legs were in stirrups. And because I was 31 and at an egg-freezing consultation, and my mind was preoccupied.

I completely resented the luxury of time that men of my age are granted in the reproductive department.

Do I even want kids? I thought I did. I loved growing up in a house of chaos and love and kids and mess. We didn’t have much, but we had that, and in many ways, I couldn’t imagine not experiencing that kind of upbringing from a parental perspective. But I also know that I could have a very full life without kids, content with being an auntie to friends’ and siblings’ kids, with five dogs and more disposable income instead.

I completely resented the luxury of time that men of my age are granted in the reproductive department.

This question nagged at my brain nearly every day—in the shower, in bed, on BART. And now here, on this sterile exam table.

I completely resented the luxury of time that men of my age are granted in the reproductive department. The last guy I dated was in his late 30s — he wasn’t sure if he wanted children but wanted to keep his options open. Out of all the women he’d dated, I was the oldest one, he told me. “Because after 30, women want to get ‘serious’ right away if they want kids,” he said.

I ended up in this office because my place of employment offers egg freezing as a benefit, as other tech companies in the Bay Area do, and I wanted to consider the option, knowing full well that the ability to consider it was an extreme privilege.

The truth was that I didn’t want to think about any of this yet — injections I’d have to give to myself alone, who was going to pick me up from the hospital, the children I might or might not have, the eggs I might or might not have to thaw in order to have children.

I spent hours doing research about the questions I should ask in the consultation and fell into a serious YouTube hole. I did so much research, in fact, that when the time came for my appointment, I was sure I was going to barf or pee because of my nerves.

When I walked into the reproductive-health center, women holding swollen bellies of baby loitered in the waiting room. The lighting was mild and kind, and the fertility doctor introduced himself as I followed him into his office so we could “chat.” His fingernails were just a little too long, and there was a bottle of wine behind his desk that, I assumed, a couple had gifted him for a successful pregnancy.

“So what brings you here today?” he asked.

“I’m considering freezing my eggs, but I wanted some more information first.”

“We?!” he asked, mishearing me, clearly excited that a progressive San Francisco couple was getting ahead of the game by freezing eggs. Excited probably to recommend freezing embryos instead (they are “heartier” and have a bigger success rate, I had discovered in my YouTube hole).

“Er, no, just me,” I said. He appeared disappointed but steadied his face and asked me a slew of questions that did not help my nausea: When do you want kids? How many do you want? Are you single? Does your mother know you’re here today? How many years apart do you want your children to be? How many kids does your my mother have? How old was she when she had her first?

He opened a binder that detailed the full process of egg freezing, beginning with injections and ending with the egg harvesting (which is as gross as it sounds). He told me that at that moment, my ovaries were the size of almonds and that after I completed the process, they would be peach size. In fact, I might appear to be pregnant. And then he flipped to a bar graph of fertility and ages. The bars were relatively the same height until age 35, when things took a steep decline.

The next step was to complete a thick packet of documents — official paperwork for my decision about what I’d like to do with my eggs if I were to die. And, yes, I had to complete the documents before I could move forward with the rest of the consultation. My options included donating them to an infertile couple or to research, or destroying them. I liked the idea of donating them to another human and also thought that the idea of producing offspring from a dead woman’s donated egg could be the plot of a Lifetime movie, but I did not share that with the doctor.

After I signed the paperwork, the doctor enthusiastically revealed that we would now assess my fertility! My nausea intensified. I was terrified, as I didn’t know that that was part of the consultation. And I know knowledge is supposed to be power, but I was worried that I wasn’t mentally prepared to receive this particular information about my ovarian reserve—that it could make me feel powerless.

I threw my underwear in my bag and wondered if it was weird to keep my flats on my smelly feet while I was naked from the waist down during the vaginal ultrasound. Ultimately, I decided to leave them off. In case you were wondering, the doctor was not in the room for this.

During the ultrasound, he pointed out my ovaries on the monitor and revealed that my uterus was slightly deformed, making it heart shaped. Then he counted and yelled out the number of follicles, which the nurse was quite pleased with.

“Great job!” she said.

Since I don’t work in a reproductive center, the numbers meant nothing to me, and since I was unsure if I wanted kids and had done nothing except exist with a paper sheet over my lap, I didn’t think I deserved the congratulatory remarks. But because a giant wand was inside my vagina at the moment, and because I wore flats that made my feet smell, I just smiled instead.

The doctor told me that my ovarian reserve was great. That it was nice to meet me. That his assistant would talk to me about next steps once I was dressed.

And then he deserted me, this man who had just revealed my fertility and the shape of my uterus, and who had asked me personal questions about my future children and had me sign away my frozen eggs. He walked out while I was still naked from the waist down with a sheet over my lap.

This wasn’t about my future children, necessarily. This wasn’t about dating being hard or living in San Francisco or not settling down. This was about something my straight male counterparts have the privilege of that I don’t—time.

Once I was dressed, the doctor’s assistant handed me a folder of information that detailed the blood work I needed to complete before we could begin. To move forward, I would need to come back and take an injection class. As someone who feels faint when changing their earrings, the idea of giving myself an injection was a true nightmare.

Leaving the office, I wondered if it would be worth it. The month of hormones, the mood swings, the ovaries the size of peaches, the injections, the egg harvesting, the no-sex, the swollen abdomen—all of it for this thing I didn’t know if I really wanted (this “thing” being a baby.)

But I came back to the reason why I had gone to the consultation in the first place. Along with being paid more and manspreading on public transportation, men have the luxury of ambiguity when it comes to their decision surrounding children, and they have the option of seeking or dating a younger womb always—er, I mean woman (well, if women are their thing).

And I didn’t have that option. This wasn’t about my future children, necessarily. This wasn’t about dating being hard or living in San Francisco or not settling down. This was about something my straight male counterparts have the privilege of that I don’t—time.

More time to decide; more time to date without feeling the pressure of this life decision; more time to avoid questions and judgement from coworkers, family, friends, or society. I hated the necessity of having to make this decision about having kids before the men in my life have to — before my guy friends, the men my friends have dated, the men I’ve dated.

That is why I decided to freeze my eggs.