‘It was a roller coaster’: One woman’s $17,000 egg-freezing journey

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Days 27 to 29: Hormone crash

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After 27 days of daily medication, she weaned her body off the estrogen and testosterone for three days, which she said resulted in a “hormone crash” that gave her a relentless headache. “The only thing that gave me relief was throwing up.”

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On Day 28, Robinson had her first clinic appointment since the process had started. She left with a “very large brown grocery bag full of drugs.”

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Of her nearly $8,000 in medication costs, her employer’s health insurance paid for all but $605.

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She covered the $9,650 bill for the rest of the procedure, including the first year of her $750 annual egg-storage fee. All of Canada’s 42 known fertility clinics that offer egg freezing charge clients to keep their frozen eggs.

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Days 30 to 38: Four needles a day

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Every morning, beginning on Day 30, Robinson injected into her lower abdomen a pre-filled pen needle bearing Rekovelle, a prescription hormone medication that stimulates the ovaries to grow extra eggs. Every night, she injected two larger, painful needles filled with additional hormone medications: Menopur for egg growth and Saizen for egg quality.

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The nighttime needles required mixing saline with a precise amount of each drug, which came in a powder form, to create a liquid she could draw up into her syringe and inject. The clinic did teach her how to do this, but she was nervous.

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“I’m here alone, and mixing drugs and doing these things that I have no experience doing,” she said.

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The bigger needles also hurt. As she applied significant pressure to get them all the way into her abdomen, her face contorted with pain.

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”It feels like (my body) is rejecting them, like the needles just don’t want to go in,” she said as she did the injections.

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Megan Robinson prepares one of the many injections she had to self-administer during egg freezing preparation. Photo by Lori Culbert /Postmedia

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While the clinic nurses were largely “wonderful” during her appointments and phone calls with them, she said she was a bit disappointed no one checked how she was doing while administering the big needles.

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“I was under the impression that they were going to be in touch more often just to check in,” she said. “I feel like I was misled a little.”

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The next morning, on Day 36, she went to the clinic to have her blood drawn. It was a Thursday at 7:45 a.m., and the place was packed.

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“It was so wildly busy,” she said. “A full waiting room, lineups to pay, busy bathrooms.”

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Also on Day 36, she added a second morning shot of the medication Cetrotide to prevent ovulation, which is when the ovary releases an egg. That brought the daily number of needles to four, a routine she would continue until her egg retrieval.

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“The lower part of my abdomen was just covered in green and purple, tiny bruises from all the spots that I’ve been injecting,” she said.

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Days 39 to 43: Ultrasound and retrieval

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On Day 39, she returned to the clinic for an ultrasound.

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Of the 10 follicles spotted at the beginning, only one had matured. Two more had grown, but they were not mature enough yet for retrieval.

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“Hoping for seven to 10, and then being told one, maybe three,” she said, “was really disappointing.”

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The doctor increased her medication doses, which added an extra $1,400 to her drug costs.

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The increased dosage worked. The three eggs spotted on the ultrasound fully matured, and a fourth was growing.

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Finally, she took her “trigger shot,” which helps the ovaries release mature eggs in preparation for retrieving them the next morning. It would be the 43rd and final day of her journey.