تدريب Shadowing: Freezing My Eggs at 34 - Here's Everything Nobody Tells You - تعلم التحدث بالإنجليزية عبر الفيديو

So, I just did my egg freezing a few weeks ago  and I want to share with you guys my journey, why I did it, the ups and downs, the challenges.  First, I am now 34. I remember right after my divorce 3 years ago, some clinic approached me  and I still said no. I just felt like I would go into new relationships and then just see how  things unfold naturally until earlier this year in January after my breakup and it was also my  34th birthday. That's when I start to think, okay, maybe I can consider this idea. Growing up with  our cultural upbringing and societal expectations that the traditional path is getting married,  having kids before certain age and then now suddenly finding myself at an age where I might  feel a bit running out of time in terms of meeting someone and then building a family. I think part  of me did associate it with a bit of a failure and it felt like kind of a sad thing to do alone and  just so happens I met with Sow Fertility which is a fertility consulting and concierge platform. The  founder was a friend of mine from many years ago.

It really reframed my mindset because the founder  herself, she's around my age. She's married from a really long-term relationship and she too  froze her eggs. And I'm like, why if you're in a long-term relationship? And she said both her  and her partner wanted to focus on their careers in their 30s. And so they want to only think about  kids maybe in their 40s. And then through her I met more girls who work in the fertility industry  where this girl from the clinic she also had a breakup in her early 30s and then she froze her  eggs and then after a year or two she met her now husband and actually their first born was natural  and then when they wanted to have a second baby in her late 30s that's when they used her frozen  eggs from before. So now she has two kids, happily married. Hearing these examples helped me reframe  it from something that's all really sad and am I failing in life to give myself more options and  time that right now instead of feeling like, oh, I need to maybe rush into a relationship, I can take  the time to really find the right person. When that happens, one day I can consider having kids  because I do know some people when they finally meet someone and want to have kids, with age it  becomes really difficult and for some that option is actually no longer possible. So yes, I want to  give myself that option and that's why I explore this path. And now to be honest, I even wish that  I did it earlier because you know as we age, the number and quality of the eggs do decrease every  year. And I do hear examples of girls who want to freeze their eggs in their mid-30s and find out  that they actually have so little eggs left. And so some might have to do a few rounds. For some,  that option might not even be possible anymore. A lot of times, we only think about doing this after  a divorce and breakup. And back then, in my 20s, I was in a long-term relationship. So, I would  never even think about this option. And the thing is, relationships don't always work out the way we  hope and plan to be. You just never know. It's not just with relationship. You also don't know your  body and fertility like how it will be, you know, at what age. I've also had women sharing with me  that it's not just relationship. Sometimes our mindset also change. A few years ago, I wasn't  even sure if I ever want to have kids. And then for some women, when they do realize that they  want to have kids, it's already too late. And that's how I started talking to Sow Fertility.  It can be quite overwhelming because there's a lot of information even choosing where to do it,  how to prepare for it. There's a lot of logistic and schedule planning as well. So since I live in  Asia, we were deciding between Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Thailand. They showed me the pros and cons  of each location, the restrictions. For example, for some places you need to be legally married  one day to be able to use your frozen eggs. Some places you cannot export it to somewhere else,  which means your eggs would be under the laws of just one place. And for example, if one day  you really want to use them while not married, you cannot. So the eggs would be wasted. And  pricing as well. For example, Hong Kong is at least twice the price of Taiwan. And also the  technology, the survival rate of the frozen eggs.

For example, I'm so glad I picked Taiwan, a clinic  called NUWA Fertility Center. I personally really, really recommend it because I had a few friends  who were also doing egg freezing around the same time, you know, in other countries. And I  realized no matter with price and service, Taiwan is really much better. In just 2025, NUWA  Fertility Center had over a thousand cases of mom successfully conceived. The frozen eggs and embryo  survival rate is over 96% which is a lot. It means that for example, if you had 10 eggs frozen, then  10 years later when you want to use the eggs, you have at least nine eggs left. Because I did  hear from my friend that someone froze her eggs at 35 and when she's 40 she want to use the eggs  but none of them were usable. So she had to do the whole process again in her 40s. So checking the  clinic's frozen egg survival rate after thawing is really important. I think international  average is only around 70 to 85%. And also they have a really transparent lab where you can  see the whole environment where your embryos and eggs are stored. And so once I decided to go with  NUWA Fertility Center in Taipei, we started the process of first doing the checks, blood tests and  ultrasound to see your AMH and how many follicles you have, which I really recommend girls to do  even if you don't consider egg freezing because I think it's really good to know realistically  what's the fertility situation at your age right now and then you can decide what to do. And I  was pretty lucky. my numbers were quite good and because you never know, right? Like some people  think, oh, they live a really healthy lifestyle, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you have  a lot of eggs because it can be genetic. Some people have uh PCOS and other fertility issues.  So, I still think it's good to know. SOW fertility helped me book my procedure with NUWA Fertility  Center around 3 months later to prepare with supplements, diet and Chinese medicine to really  maximize and optimize the quality of your eggs.

So that you know you have to go through all the  injection and procedure anyways. You might as well you know make sure it's the best quality.  And so we saw a nutritionist who prescribed me the supplements to take for these three months.  Told me about the diet that would be best for fertility. I didn't know that I would need to  eat five servings of vegetables every day. I'm someone who already usually eat pretty healthy,  but five servings of vegetable is a lot. It's like five bowls of broccoli because the antioxidants  from the dark greens really help. I was uh pretty obedient. I did eat a lot of vegetables throughout  the three months. SOW Fertility also took me to Chinese medicine. We went to Chains which is one  of the most famous Chinese medicine place for fertility. And Dr. Sam there was really helpful.  I would go see her once a month. Apart from that, what really helps is acupuncture. During this  process, it would really help if your cycle is regular. Um because a lot of the logistic and  schedule planning depends all on your cycle, when to start the injection, uh when to do the  procedure and then to plan the flight to Taiwan.

And every time if I'm worried that my cycle would  not arrive on the expected date, I would go there for acupuncture and every time within 24 hours my  period would come. That really works wonders and it also helps with my sleeping, digestion. I know  a lot of people including myself that during this process of preparing for egg freezing that we feel  like our health is at the most optimal state. One girl said she felt so glowing like she's a walking  fertile egg. And so during these three months I was mostly in Bali where I ate really healthy.  I was super active. I got into padel as well.

So I dance, play padel, gym. on my third cycle.  The second day was when I was back in Hong Kong um doing the ultrasound, blood test, and also  starting the hormonal injection for around 10 days until the egg freezing procedure in Taiwan. This  is the part where it can gets a bit complicated with logistic depending on where you do it. for me  because I don't want to spend whole two weeks in Taiwan. I did first half of the injection and test  still in Hong Kong where I could still work, spend time with my family, my dogs, my friends. And SOW  Fertility really helped because you need to do the injection every day around the same time. I'm  super scared to inject myself, but I think a lot of women they do it themselves, which will be much  more convenient. But for me it's either I would go to the clinic or according to my schedule.  Sometimes SOW Fertility really helped. They would arrange the nurse to come to my home. Some days my  mom would have to do it for me. She's super scared as well. So we're both like, "Oh my god." Um but  we had no choice. But to be honest, the injection itself is not painful at all. I could barely  feel it. It's just the idea of the needle. You can't really predict your flight like which day  you're flying in advance because it all depends on the test like how your follicles are growing.  So, it's not something you can like completely plan and book. It's really last minute. So, you  have to leave your schedule pretty open. That's where I struggle a bit. I think I flew to Taiwan  around day nine. It really depends on the growth of your follicles. For a lot of people, they  actually only need to be wherever you're doing your egg freezing 3 or 4 days. I end up needing to  be there for 8 days because my follicles were not growing at the same pace. So, some were growing  faster, some were really slow. I had to be there longer for some of the follicles to catch up  while the big ones don't overgrow. Basically, you need to do a trigger shot around 36 hours, or  depending on the doctors’ recommended time, before the egg retrieval process. So the trigger shot was  I think probably the most painful thing throughout the whole process. So which means it's not really  a painful process. I think the procedure itself is only like 15, 20 minutes. I was under anesthesia  so I couldn't feel anything and there's no scar, no wounds, anything. I think my biggest personal  struggle with the whole process was that because I'm usually so active and movement is a big anchor  of mine in my life even for mental health and joy and fun once I start the injection for like  two weeks and then after the procedure for recovery until my next cycle come which is almost  1 month that I could not exercise because there is risk for ovarian torsion, meaning that because  your follicles are, you know, growing in size, right? With high impact exercise, they could  twist and people can actually die from it. My doctor is on the safer side. I know some people  only stop exercising for one to two weeks and I didn't want to risk it. And again, you're doing  so much for this process. You want to optimize for the best result. And so, I was a very obedient  student. I follow my doctor. However, it is hard.

I think for me, mental health wise, especially  when you're doing the injection, you're more hormonal. I felt more irritable because I did  this after breakup during my solo journey. It's also just emotionally not the easiest. There are  still moments where, you know, when I felt alone, especially a lot of friends around me are getting  pregnant, it is hard. I'm not going to lie.

taking away even the movement part which is a big  anchor in my life and to me that was the hardest and during emotionally low moments where it's  harder to connect back to you know that power within yourself that you know movement often  gives me however I think you can do more low impact like yoga stretching you can walk actually  when I was in Taiwan I walk a lot even like it was so hot I would walk at least an hour a day so  that helped me a bit. But that's also another reason why I'm really glad I chose Taiwan because  you know in Taipei the clinic is right beside Da An MRT Station. Super convenient. There's so  much to do in Taiwan and I went by myself. My mom did offer to come with me but I also know you  know during this more hormonal phase I don't want to have to manage others emotions and have to  plan activities. I also had quite a bit of work I wanted to do. And so I want to be able to do  my own thing. And for example, on some days if I really felt low, I could just, you know, be sad in  bed. And so I went to Taiwan thinking, "Oh my god, it's gonna be a really sad thing, but I just have  to, you know, suffer through it. It's okay." And then on the flight there, I started to think,  but why do I decide now it had to be suffering?

What if I reframe it to be a solo retreat to  discover and explore following my curiosity and creativity? And that's actually what I did.  I went to make ceramic mirrors. I painted like a really squishy cat. I walked around bookstore. I  went shopping. Even did sound healing. Taipei is a really fun place. So I was eating so healthy  for 3 months, right? And then especially during the hormonal injection, I think it's kind of  like maybe you know when people are pregnant, their appetite changed. I think a few days before  the egg retrieval process, I could not stand the healthy food anymore, which was weird because  most of the time I love healthy food. And then in Taiwan, suddenly all I want is to eat like  dessert and spicy beef noodles, mochi, and I just didn't care because it's either I would not  eat at all, which is not good. So I'm like, "Okay, I just follow whatever I want to eat." And Taiwan  has so much yummy food. So I had a blast just trying all the different really yummy local food.  Every meal I was so excited to go find like a new trendy spot. My mood there was actually lighter  and happier than during the first half of the injection back in Hong Kong because the novelty  of just exploring. I was also really productive.

I took my laptop to work in all different kind  of really cool cafes, even cat cafes. In general, I really think NUWA Fertility Center has amazing  service because I did hear from other clinics where you know the doctor would charge by minute.  You feel like you can't even ask more questions and you don't get your test reports quickly  because a lot of time your schedule depends on the results of the test, right? My friend, for  example, had to chase the nurses again and again.

Where at NUWA Fertility Center they have this app  and you can see all the results like blood test, ultrasounds within an hour which is so efficient  and especially as someone who is really forgetful.

I always can't remember what's my last test  results, where did I put it. to have it all on the app with all the dates is really  helpful for me to keep track of the record.

And they also assign a coordinator just  for me who speak fluent English because their customers are from everywhere. So they have  translators from you know who can speak Cantonese, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian. And I think it's  quite important to not have language barrier and so the service itself did sound a lot better  than my friends experiences in other places.

Throughout the process, I think everyone's body  react differently. A lot of people I heard they felt more low and tired during the injection. For  me, it was the opposite. I was super high energy, especially in Taiwan. And I think because usually  I exercise a lot. Now that I'm not exercising, I have all these extra energy. On the day of the  surgery, it went very smoothly. When I woke up, I still thought I would, you know, as usual,  have a lot of energy. So, I went out for lunch.

I went to work in this really pretty cafe. After  a few hours, I suddenly felt so sleepy, so tired, which the clinic did warn me. They're like,  "Okay, usually after the surgery, you know, maybe just go back to the hotel to rest." I didn't  listen. I was almost passing out at the cafe, so I just order an Uber to go back home. And I  think that was probably the only day I felt tired.

The next day I did go back to the clinic for, you  know, just a final check. You know, everything's good. She's like, "Oh, you're recovering well."  And she told me about the results of how many eggs I got that they could freeze. I'm happy that  I got it done with one round. And then that day, I fly back to Hong Kong. I'm really glad  I got egg freezing done. Now that my 34 years old eggs are frozen and stored in Taiwan,  now I am back to living my life. And you know, who knows what's going to happen one day.  Would I use those eggs? I don't know. It's knowing that I gave myself that option to be  more abundance with time. And that's it for my egg freezing experience. And if you  have any questions, comment down below.