8.
“Egg retrieval is horrendous for a lot of women, but I just want to chime in and say that I had IVF and the retrieval part was no big deal for me at all. Perhaps I was one of the lucky ones in that sense. I had two retrievals. The drugs had very little effect on me mood-wise, physically I just got a bit bloated, the injections were easy and fine, and the actual procedure was painless with no after effects. I, too, had diminished ovarian reserves. I didn’t find out until we started IVF at age 40, after we’d been trying for a decade. It would have given me huge peace of mind to have been able to use eggs from my 33-year-old self, as older eggs carry greater risks for pretty much everything you can think of.”
“I don’t at all want to undermine those women who had a really tough time with egg retrievals, just to mention that it can be a very easy (if tedious) process for some. It’s luck of the draw, really. Should you choose not to use your eggs, you can also opt to donate them to science. I believe they’re used for training future fertility doctors. Also, being childfree is a right that women are fully entitled to without any need for explanation, just as it’s nobody’s business if you freeze your eggs, or if you don’t.”
—Right_Technician_676