FROZEN IN TIME

A 33-year-old single woman recounts her experience of freezing her eggs.

- N SINGH

Traditional in-vitro fertilisation between a couple would feel, I imagine, like the ultimate creative collaboration. There are two people (sometimes more), there is an egg, there's sperm, and ideally, you take a baby home when you're done. This is the story of a 33-year-old single woman freezing her eggs without a collaborator, hoping to safeguard a far-off arbitrary dream. It felt terribly isolating, embarrassing, and singular in its experience.

Getting married, being a wife, having a baby, and putting that before any independent goal (not just professional aspirations) is embroidered into the fabric of every society. And the truth is, there is unkindness toward women who don't conform to these structures.

Now that I've prefaced this essay with every bit of feminist edge I was itching to let out, let's get into it.

In February 2020, my dermatologist asked me to do a hormone panel to understand why my pesky acne was flaring up. Studying the results, I locked in on a reading I had never seen before. The Anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH) indicates ovarian health and egg reserve. There was a figure considered "normal" for my age group and I fell desperately outside of it.

I was 29 and felt my body had betrayed me... or had I betrayed my body?

The proverbial biological clock took its place to remind me that I was running out of time. From then on, my AMH came to underscore every major I decision I made from then on.

Having children has always been my greatest wish. It wasn't until years later that I realised being single, perhaps never marrying or marrying later in life, wasn't a reason to not have them.