'Age 19, I was diagnosed with cancer. Within hours, I was told to freeze my eggs.'

Egg freezing. Some are rejoicing for its ability to offer a woman's choice against the backdrop of a ticking biological clock, while others are sceptical about its viability as a fertility preservation option because of uncertain success rates. 

I’ve even seen conversations where people debate if egg freezing is empowering, or if it is just another capitalist exploitation of women’s fears.

Watch: This is Lea, she is an international exchange student who at 21 years of age was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. Story continues after video.

This egg freezing discourse, while interesting, always stings to read. Most people contemplating the procedure tend to be in their late 20s or 30s, wanting to delay having kids for the sake of building a career or waiting for the right partner.

These women usually have many months, even years to engage in these back-and-forth discussions, to ask questions, to carefully weigh up the pros and cons based on the circumstances of their own life and their vision for their future.

Unlike these women, I was not afforded the luxury of time.

I was 19, sitting in a doctor's office being told in the space of a few minutes that:

1. I had stage 4 lymphoma that had spread throughout my lungs, neck, and chest.

2. The treatment needed to save my life would likely leave me infertile.

I had to start an emergency IVF cycle the day of my next period and ended up getting 11 eggs on ice. I used to get squeamish at blood tests, but I was suddenly self-injecting all my hormones while trying to process the whirlwind that is a cancer diagnosis in your teens. It was bizarre to be making big decisions about my future when I had only graduated high school a year and a half earlier.

For the next five months I endured a harrowing. high-dose chemotherapy regime that made me lose all my hair, weakened my body, and threw me into a chemically induced menopause.

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In 2020 I finally reached remission, but the end of active treatment did not mean the end of my cancer experience. In fact, those first months after I finished chemotherapy were some of the darkest and most challenging months of my entire life.

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Along with trying to put together the broken pieces of a person I barely recognised, I was desperately grieving the loss of the life I had known. People love to indulge in the story of an inspirational cancer survivor, but they don’t want to hear the truth about how difficult it is to come out the other side. It’s not inspirational to hear about a 20-year-old with dreadful hot flashes and a fear of intimacy because of her menopause.

I had no libido when I was supposed to be in my sexual prime, a fact that made me feel like a failure and a disappointment, both as a woman and to my partner at the time of my treatment. No matter how many times he would tell me he didn’t care, and he still loved me regardless, I felt an immense guilt that I could not have that connection with him. A bald, menopausal woman wasn’t what he signed up for, and while I never said it to his face, this plaguing feeling was a huge part of why I decided to end that relationship.

I would never say this aloud because of guilt, but I often feel infuriated seeing older women complain about menopause and perimenopause. While I can empathise with the unpleasant experience, for them it is happening at the age that nature intended. It is such a privilege to be able to age as nature intended.

I went on HRT for symptom management from 2020 to  late 2021 and went off it once my body started producing a natural menstrual cycle again. I was ecstatic to have my period back, but this excitement quickly dulled when my fertility team told me that a regular period does not necessarily mean a recovery in fertility. My hormone levels were still extremely low, and there was no way of knowing if I was actually ovulating or not.

In September this year, I elected to try for another round of egg freezing with the hope to freeze some more eggs. I had to pay just over a thousand dollars out of pocket, and it was money that came out of my (small) savings as a university student working only part time.

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The first cycle failed before I even got to the surgery due to a poor ovarian response and threw me back into menopause for nearly two months. With the help of my incredible acupuncturist at Village Remedies, I regained a menstrual cycle and got on top of the worst of my symptoms. In November, we tried again, opting for what they call a ‘natural IVF cycle’ and aimed to retrieve only one egg.

This time, I made it to the surgery, but I cried through the entire procedure (the sting of the local anaesthetic inside me is a feeling I never want to relive) but felt so relieved when I saw they had successfully retrieved something from the follicle. However, this relief was short-lived. After the scientist cleaned off the outer cell layer, they called to tell me it was empty inside. No viable egg. Another failed cycle. Over a thousand dollars down the drain for nothing.

What little hope I had left in me was crushed after receiving that news. I felt my body sink into the seat underneath me as the doctor apologised to me over the phone. It felt so backwards for me to say ‘thank you’ as I hung up the phone. I had to tell my boss at work that I’d need yet another day off, but at the same time I didn’t want to take that day off because then it would make the failure real. I wanted to push the memory away and go back to yesterday. Yesterday when I was still hopeful and I could pretend like this never happened. It was too confronting to consider that maybe no matter how many times I try, I could never get another egg.

I’m currently seeing someone, and upon hearing the news that the egg retrieval had failed I felt those familiar thoughts from my previous relationship start to creep back in. He didn’t sign up for this. Who would want to be with a woman who can’t have children? What if I only have a few years left to try, and he doesn’t want to have kids in those years? 

I feel like I am constantly at war with my body. I feel betrayed by the fact that it developed cancer in the first place, but grateful that it got me through treatment. I feel furious at the fact my body keeps failing to produce viable eggs for me, but so amazed that after everything it's been through, I still get a cycle each month.   

I don’t know what the future will hold for me in terms of my fertility. I don’t think I have it in me, physically or emotionally, to try another IVF cycle this year. I’m still only 22, and I’m exhausted of having to plan my life, money and time around circumstances that feel so out of my control.

However, whether motherhood is on the cards for me in the future or not, I know I am amongst the lucky few that get a second chance at life after a cancer diagnosis. For that, I will always be grateful.

Feature Image: Instagram @mxddieking.