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Fertility: Should You Freeze Your Eggs?
Sima Taghi Zadeh, RN, MHA, shares her story of freezing her eggs, including why she made the decision, how she found the process to be, and what her life is like now.
Featuring:
Sima Taghi Zadeh, RN, MHA,
Sima (Gholamali) Taghi Zadeh RN, MHA, has been working in the field of infertility since 2008 as a back office Medical Assistant. Sima continued her education and became a Case Manager. After finishing her nursing degree in 2014, she managed all types of fertility treatments IUI, IVF and third party cycles. In 2016 she graduated with her Master’s Degree in Healthcare Administration and Management. In Jan of 2018 Sima was hired as the Nursing Supervisor for Reproductive Science Center of San Francisco Bay area. She is a fertility advocate, IVF Nurse and IVF patient. Sima is passionate about educating all people on the common, yet often misunderstood infertility journey. Transcription:
Bill Klaproth (Host): On this episode of the Fertile Edge, we get a firsthand account of IVF treatment with Sima Taghi Zadeh. She’s a registered IVF nurse and the assistant director of nursing operations at Reproductive Science Center of San Francisco Bay. She is going to share her story about freezing her eggs and IVF. That’s coming up. This is Fertile Edge, a podcast by Reproductive Science Center of San Francisco Bay. I'm Bill Klaproth. Sima, thank you so much for your time and sharing your story with us. So let’s learn about your story. Why did you first decide to freeze your eggs?
Sima Taghi Zadeh, RN, MHA (Guest): Well, I had always imagined having a family of my own with kids. Since I worked at a fertility clinic, I was very curious to check the status of my fertility. I knew that the finite number of eggs a women are born with declines steadily as we age. So I did a bunch of blood tests just to check the status. Sadly my lab results weren’t very promising. It indicated that I had less ovarian reserves left, and that was at a very young age. 31 is not an infertility age. That made me think fast to come up with a plan for the future just to make sure that I can get to my dream of motherhood.
Host: So I take it at that time you weren’t in a relationship and you weren’t ready to start a family?
Sima: Correct. I wasn’t married. I wasn’t ready to start a family. I still had four or five years of my education left. I was working full time. I was going to nursing school full time. I had great knowledge of fertility treatments and the very fast growing technology of egg freezing. So I had the knowledge of that. I knew that I had options. So that quickly pushed me towards doing egg freezing.
Host: So you made the decision to freeze your eggs. Can you tell us the process you went through then to have your eggs frozen?
Sima: We had a consult with my doctor, the doctor that I worked with. He gave me a plan. We did a bunch of testing. Screening labs, genetic screening, infectious diseases, a panel or hormone testing. Once those were all within normal range we planned the stimulation. Stimulation being daily injections or hormones in the belly fat. Those injections start on day two of a menstrual period. You do a blood test, check to make sure everything’s okay. Ultrasound to make sure there are enough follicles, and then we started the injections.
Host: So tell us more about the injections.
Sima: Injections are a little bit uncomfortable, but fortunately the needles are very small and skinny. Routinely I had to go back to the clinic, have them check the growth of the follicles, routine blood test just to check and make sure how many follicles are growing, how much the body is responding, and we’ll go from there.
Host: Then how long was each session? How long were you there?
Sima: Each appointment is about half an hour to 45 minutes. It includes a blood draw and a vaginal ultrasound.
Host: Now I know sometimes this can be a touchy subject. Did you tell your friends and family? How did they react?
Sima: I told a few of my close friends. Of course I told my coworkers because I was doing my cycles at work, but I did not tell my family. My close friends all just reacted very differently. Some were very supportive and understanding, some just asked a lot of questions and were skeptical. My coworkers fortunately they're very, very supportive. They helped me. They even helped me with the injections. My family, I didn’t tell them until much later in time and that was because I knew they were going to be skeptical about it. I told them a few years after, and they were happy that I did that. Then, like I said, this was six/seven years ago. There wasn’t that much knowledge.
Host: So you did that several years ago at the age of 31. Fast forward to where you are now.
Sima: Well I graduated my nursing school and I got a different job and I married. Now actually today I'm 29 weeks pregnant with my first child and I had to use the frozen eggs.
Host: Wow, pretty cool. Well, congratulations. That is great to hear. I know we don’t want to disclose too much of your personal story. Let’s just say that for reasons you want to keep to yourself, you had to use the frozen eggs. Can you give us a brief reason why?
Sima: We did have a little hiccup with that. We had to do IVF. That didn’t have to do anything with me, but we had to do IVF. I got lucky that I had frozen eggs years ago.
Host: So it’s a really good thing you decided to freeze your eggs back when you were 31. Were there any other benefits because you decided to do that when it came time for you to try to get pregnant?
Sima: The nice thing about it is that if you do IVF and you have the frozen eggs then you can do fertilization in the lab. You have the option to genetically test the embryos, make sure there’s no abnormality in the embryos before you transfer those. Plus you get the time to prepare the uterine cavity, make sure everything’s going to be great before you transfer the embryo that way you can diminish the chances of losing the pregnancy, miscarriage, any kind of problems. So you increase the chances of a successful pregnancy with egg freezing and embryo freezing.
Host: So that’s an important point to make as well. With freezing your eggs, you can test them to increase the likelihood of a full term pregnancy and having a healthy baby. So you're 29 weeks along right now. Congratulations. So at this point knowing what you’ve gone through, what would you say to someone who is thinking about going through IVF?
Sima: I am so happy I had the chance of freezing my eggs because it really extended my biological clock. It made me avoid extra stress while I was really focused on my school, on my career. It made me really calm in my relationships. I didn’t have to rush into relationships. I wasn’t stressed to try to get married quickly, have kids before it’s too late. I really think that that has something to do with the success that I have today. I'm really grateful that I had this chance to do this.
Host: Your 31 year old self made a really good decision Sima.
Sima: Yeah. That’s why I try to educate a lot of women as much as I can on my social media, everything. These days there’s a lot more information about egg freezing fertility preservations. It’s good and bad. It’s good because it gives a lot of knowledge, but it’s bad a little bit because it causes a lot of stress. Still it’s better to know than not to know. I really would like to educate a lot of women about them.
Host: Well, you're doing that right now. So thank you for doing that and congratulations on your pregnancy. Thank you for sharing your story with us. We appreciate it.
Sima: Of course, thank you very much.
Host: That’s Sima Taghi Zadeh. To get connected with Sima or a physician, please visit rscbayarea.com. That’s rscbayarea.com. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out our full podcast library for topics of interest to you. This is the Fertile Edge by Reproductive Science Center of San Francisco Bay. I'm Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening.
Bill Klaproth (Host): On this episode of the Fertile Edge, we get a firsthand account of IVF treatment with Sima Taghi Zadeh. She’s a registered IVF nurse and the assistant director of nursing operations at Reproductive Science Center of San Francisco Bay. She is going to share her story about freezing her eggs and IVF. That’s coming up. This is Fertile Edge, a podcast by Reproductive Science Center of San Francisco Bay. I'm Bill Klaproth. Sima, thank you so much for your time and sharing your story with us. So let’s learn about your story. Why did you first decide to freeze your eggs?
Sima Taghi Zadeh, RN, MHA (Guest): Well, I had always imagined having a family of my own with kids. Since I worked at a fertility clinic, I was very curious to check the status of my fertility. I knew that the finite number of eggs a women are born with declines steadily as we age. So I did a bunch of blood tests just to check the status. Sadly my lab results weren’t very promising. It indicated that I had less ovarian reserves left, and that was at a very young age. 31 is not an infertility age. That made me think fast to come up with a plan for the future just to make sure that I can get to my dream of motherhood.
Host: So I take it at that time you weren’t in a relationship and you weren’t ready to start a family?
Sima: Correct. I wasn’t married. I wasn’t ready to start a family. I still had four or five years of my education left. I was working full time. I was going to nursing school full time. I had great knowledge of fertility treatments and the very fast growing technology of egg freezing. So I had the knowledge of that. I knew that I had options. So that quickly pushed me towards doing egg freezing.
Host: So you made the decision to freeze your eggs. Can you tell us the process you went through then to have your eggs frozen?
Sima: We had a consult with my doctor, the doctor that I worked with. He gave me a plan. We did a bunch of testing. Screening labs, genetic screening, infectious diseases, a panel or hormone testing. Once those were all within normal range we planned the stimulation. Stimulation being daily injections or hormones in the belly fat. Those injections start on day two of a menstrual period. You do a blood test, check to make sure everything’s okay. Ultrasound to make sure there are enough follicles, and then we started the injections.
Host: So tell us more about the injections.
Sima: Injections are a little bit uncomfortable, but fortunately the needles are very small and skinny. Routinely I had to go back to the clinic, have them check the growth of the follicles, routine blood test just to check and make sure how many follicles are growing, how much the body is responding, and we’ll go from there.
Host: Then how long was each session? How long were you there?
Sima: Each appointment is about half an hour to 45 minutes. It includes a blood draw and a vaginal ultrasound.
Host: Now I know sometimes this can be a touchy subject. Did you tell your friends and family? How did they react?
Sima: I told a few of my close friends. Of course I told my coworkers because I was doing my cycles at work, but I did not tell my family. My close friends all just reacted very differently. Some were very supportive and understanding, some just asked a lot of questions and were skeptical. My coworkers fortunately they're very, very supportive. They helped me. They even helped me with the injections. My family, I didn’t tell them until much later in time and that was because I knew they were going to be skeptical about it. I told them a few years after, and they were happy that I did that. Then, like I said, this was six/seven years ago. There wasn’t that much knowledge.
Host: So you did that several years ago at the age of 31. Fast forward to where you are now.
Sima: Well I graduated my nursing school and I got a different job and I married. Now actually today I'm 29 weeks pregnant with my first child and I had to use the frozen eggs.
Host: Wow, pretty cool. Well, congratulations. That is great to hear. I know we don’t want to disclose too much of your personal story. Let’s just say that for reasons you want to keep to yourself, you had to use the frozen eggs. Can you give us a brief reason why?
Sima: We did have a little hiccup with that. We had to do IVF. That didn’t have to do anything with me, but we had to do IVF. I got lucky that I had frozen eggs years ago.
Host: So it’s a really good thing you decided to freeze your eggs back when you were 31. Were there any other benefits because you decided to do that when it came time for you to try to get pregnant?
Sima: The nice thing about it is that if you do IVF and you have the frozen eggs then you can do fertilization in the lab. You have the option to genetically test the embryos, make sure there’s no abnormality in the embryos before you transfer those. Plus you get the time to prepare the uterine cavity, make sure everything’s going to be great before you transfer the embryo that way you can diminish the chances of losing the pregnancy, miscarriage, any kind of problems. So you increase the chances of a successful pregnancy with egg freezing and embryo freezing.
Host: So that’s an important point to make as well. With freezing your eggs, you can test them to increase the likelihood of a full term pregnancy and having a healthy baby. So you're 29 weeks along right now. Congratulations. So at this point knowing what you’ve gone through, what would you say to someone who is thinking about going through IVF?
Sima: I am so happy I had the chance of freezing my eggs because it really extended my biological clock. It made me avoid extra stress while I was really focused on my school, on my career. It made me really calm in my relationships. I didn’t have to rush into relationships. I wasn’t stressed to try to get married quickly, have kids before it’s too late. I really think that that has something to do with the success that I have today. I'm really grateful that I had this chance to do this.
Host: Your 31 year old self made a really good decision Sima.
Sima: Yeah. That’s why I try to educate a lot of women as much as I can on my social media, everything. These days there’s a lot more information about egg freezing fertility preservations. It’s good and bad. It’s good because it gives a lot of knowledge, but it’s bad a little bit because it causes a lot of stress. Still it’s better to know than not to know. I really would like to educate a lot of women about them.
Host: Well, you're doing that right now. So thank you for doing that and congratulations on your pregnancy. Thank you for sharing your story with us. We appreciate it.
Sima: Of course, thank you very much.
Host: That’s Sima Taghi Zadeh. To get connected with Sima or a physician, please visit rscbayarea.com. That’s rscbayarea.com. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out our full podcast library for topics of interest to you. This is the Fertile Edge by Reproductive Science Center of San Francisco Bay. I'm Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening.