Episode 199: Food and Lifestyle to Fertility: Ashley’s Egg Freezing Journey

Ashley Chukwu: My mom called me one day, I think I was like, 28 and she was like, one of the Kardashians froze their eggs. You should do it. Normally the things my mom says are kind of off the wall crazy. But I was like, okay, that’s actually a good idea. And then when I took a deeper dive at like, some of the benefits that my job offered. Honestly, I just thought that some of my insurance coverage would kind of take care of some of it. But then I noticed that we have Progyny, and I was like, this could actually work.I knew literally nothing. I just knew that if I froze my eggs, my eggs would be just as good as the age that I froze them and I knew that within the next year or two, I did not plan on having any children, but I wanted children in the future. Kind of like a backup plan, and it’s still going to be a backup plan, even if I happen to have a natural pregnancy the first time, I still want to keep them just in case. It’s my kind of like, my forever backup plan.

My first step was calling Progyny to make sure that I actually did have the benefit. Even before I registered, they gave me so much information, before I was even officially a member, they were super helpful. So, after I got registered and I had a PCA, I had a chat with her, and from there, I was like, so how do I find a doctor? And they gave me a list of doctors that were local to me, and I did my research on all the providers, and I found one that I just felt like, this is the person.

Ashley Chukwu: The injections, you are actually mixing some of the injections yourself. So you have to take it in a three-hour span. So that means first in the morning, I’m in my kitchen, mixing ingredients like a chemist, like, making sure I do this correctly. I’m still kind of sleepy. I’m having coffee, and then you give yourself an injection, and you’re giving yourself injections twice to three times per day, and it kind of hurts. But what I found very helpful was I would ice it. I would ice my injection area, and then I would clean it, and then I would give myself the injection, which helped tremendously. And the needles are super thin. They’re super tiny. It’s literally a mind over matter.The day came where the procedure was gonna happen. When you’re on injections, you feel bloated and just uncomfortable, a lot of discomfort. And I’m just like, I wanna get these eggs out. So, they call me, like, you can go ahead and take your trigger shot and we’ll see you in a day or so. I was ecstatic. Then, in the procedure room, and I was kind of freaking out, but it was, it was great. 

Ashley Chukwu: I feel like I don’t have to worry about my biological clock. When I started the process, I thought about it like when I was 28 and I kind of reached out when I turned 29 but I didn’t actually freeze my eggs until I was 30 because this is a long process of finding the doctor and all that fun stuff. So, when I first started the process, I was dating someone, but I didn’t know how serious it was going to be, and then we ended up breaking up before I even started to freeze my eggs. So that was a reassuring moment for me. Like, this is definitely what you need to do. You can’t wait for the perfect person, and you don’t want to settle for someone. So now it’s peace of mind. I love traveling, I have my blog, I’m very busy, and I don’t have to think about that anymore. It’s like, once I’m ready and I have a partner that I feel like, hey, this person I want to spend my life with, then I’ll take the eggs off ice. But I don’t feel like I’m being rushed to have a kid or anything like that.

Dan Bulger: Earlier, we shared that Ashley has a wine and food blog and a strong presence on social media as well, and she decided to leverage that platform and use it to help her share her experiences with others.

I honestly just wanted to be candid. I didn’t know any black women at this age that were freezing their eggs. So, I wanted to share with the world, and I got some good feedback, so that was good, but I just wanted to let people know that it’s possible, it’s doable, and we black women can do it as well.

Ashley Chukwu: This has made me love my current company a lot more. I cannot envision going to a different company because I’m afraid that this benefit would not be offered. I feel like it’s been super helpful with my journey, and I can focus more on working and just being an individual person, without having to think about the ticking time clock that is my biological clock. It’s given me peace of mind. I don’t know what I would do or how I would afford or be in a position to freeze my eggs if it wasn’t for Progyny. And I’ve also started to talk about Progyny amongst my other coworkers that didn’t know that we have this benefit available. So, I really feel like it makes my company stand out, and it is a perk that I absolutely love. It’s a great benefit. Never get rid of it.