By Maxime Billick
as told to Hilary Caton
I once had a professor tell me: “It’s easy to forget to have children.”
I didn’t really believe her at the time. However, it turns out it wasn’t far from the truth. In the summer of 2021, my 34th birthday was on the horizon. My career accomplishments were well on their way. I was the chief medical resident at Toronto General Hospital. I had invested a significant amount of time and energy in my studies, which included four years of undergraduate education, four years of medical school and four years of residency. I had a clinical fellowship in infectious disease with the University of Toronto that was set to start in July 2022. I had poured my time, energy and focus into my work. The results were clear.
But last August, the words of my professor came back to me, and I started to wonder: Will I be that person who forgets to have children? I began to reflect. I’ve often been labelled a high achiever, career-driven and independent. I was always the woman who didn’t need to rely on anyone, and that’s been very important to me. But I also knew I wanted to have kids one day. The COVID-19 pandemic had staggered my dating life and made me aware of the relatively narrow window of time I had left to have children. So as summer wound down, I acknowledged that my last few years of quality egg production were almost behind me — and that’s when I started to think seriously about freezing my eggs.
Making the leap
People choose to freeze their eggs for a multitude of reasons. Some have health issues, others haven’t found the right partner, and many just aren’t ready to have children yet. For me, freezing my eggs seemed like the best way to relieve some of the anxiety and pressure I felt about having children. To me, it was the ultimate way of taking control of my biological clock. I wanted to achieve my personal goals and have children on my own timeline, not on a timeline prescribed by our patriarchal society, in the way our work and our medical training are arranged. So I said, “Screw the patriarchy. I’m going to do this.” And I did.
Besides, I wasn’t alone — egg freezing is increasingly common for women in high-achieving careers. I know of lawyers, pharmacists and architects who have done it, but the opportunity rings especially true for female physicians. As it so happens, our prime childbearing years inconveniently overlap with our prime training and career-building years.
In a study recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers learned that female physicians “significantly postponed” pregnancy later than women who are not physicians. The data showed that female physicians typically don’t have their first child until they are 32 years old; for non-physicians, that age is 27. In my case, I was 34 years old and not in a long-term relationship.
My younger self had imagined myself having kids around this age. But my current self knew I wasn’t yet in a place where I could have a child on my own. And, I didn’t want to wait too long to have a child either. I needed a contingency plan. Choosing egg freezing was a tangible way of facing the reality of wanting kids but not finding the right person to have them with. Freezing my eggs just made sense for me from a timing and financial perspective.
Beginning the process
The first step in my egg freezing journey was speaking to my family doctor and booking appointments with fertility clinics to learn more about the procedure. Soon after, the entire process was laid out for me. Elective egg freezing, or cryopreservation, usually takes about two or three weeks from starting injections to harvesting the eggs and freezing them. In some cases, it can take a month.
It’s a short length of time; however, it’s a tough process that doesn’t come cheap, unless you happen to work for a company that covers some of the costs. According to a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the average cost of the procedure is between $9,000 and $17,000 per cycle, with private insurance possibly covering the $3,000 to $8,000 needed for the injections. Then, there is the annual storage fee that costs $300 to $500.
In my case, I was fortunate and privileged to be able to afford the procedure and have the medication covered by insurance. I know many women in this country don’t have this luxury. In January 2022, I made the leap and began the process. I was tasked with injecting four different types of medications and hormones into my body around the same time every day for 10 days. It was relatively painless, and the needles auto-inject the medication like insulin injections do. This part of the process helps stimulate the ovaries to produce multiple eggs at a time. It also involves frequent trips to the fertility clinic for monitoring via ultrasound.
Thankfully, I have a boss who was beyond understanding and encouraging throughout all of this. I was also in my chief resident year, when the majority of my work was administrative or leadership related. This meant more stable working hours, allowing me to discreetly manage the injections and appointments. While the injections were simple and small, the side effects were a different story.
I’m not usually one to veg on the couch, but I would come home from work exhausted, and I had to drag myself off the couch just to roll into bed. I became bloated to the point that it was painful to put on pants, and I had never seen my stomach look as distended as it was. That being said, while uncomfortable, this part of the process was still manageable. It became more challenging after the procedure, when I woke up with terrible cramping for several nights in a row. Physically, that was the hardest part of my journey. Going through the process made me reflect on where I was at in my life.
Not usually one to tweet about personal things, but I think this one’s important: I froze my eggs this week 🥚🥶(!!). It was a relatively straightforward decision, and one I had been thinking about for a while. 1/7🧵
— Maxime Billick (@maximebillick) January 29, 2022
The big day
The procedure of retrieving my eggs was similar to that of in vitro fertilization. On January 25, 2022, a doctor used a transvaginal ultrasound probe to locate the mature follicles in my ovaries and then used a suction to retrieve the eggs one by one. Overall, the procedure took about 20 minutes. After the procedure was the hardest part of my journey physically.
For several nights in a row, I woke up with terrible cramping. In retrospect, I think I experienced a mild case of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which can happen during this process. Simply put, it’s when the ovaries swell and cause pain due to water retention and the extra hormones in the system. But my eggs were stored in a lab in sub-zero temperatures in downtown Toronto. The eggs now wait for me there, for future use.
I felt liberated. Following a 20-minute surgery, I had successfully secured my fertility freedom. Thanks to the process, I now have the option of having a family later in life through purposeful partnering rather than panic partnering. Or, I might even choose solo parenting. I felt empowered and excited. When I’m ready, I can decide on my own time to have a kid, or two.
Telling my story
A few days after my procedure, I took to Twitter to share my experience because I wanted to empower people who were considering freezing their eggs. I know that in my case, I had unique circumstances. I had the support of my friends, family and colleagues, all of whom thought egg freezing was a great idea.
After I shared details about why I chose to freeze my eggs, I had hundreds of positive responses, including support from complete strangers. My decision seemed to have struck a nerve, in the best possible way. So many different people responded — and not just women contemplating the procedure. Some were curious about what the process entailed. Others shared their stories of success, encouragement or regret over not choosing to freeze their eggs.
If nothing else, I hope sharing my story helps normalize the cryopreservation process. My hope is that knowing about the option encourages people to contemplate their reproductive freedom and realize there isn’t just one path to parenthood.
Maxime Billick is a fourth-year resident at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, and a graduate of Bowdoin College and McGill University.