At 33, I thought I’d be a mother with another one on the way—not injecting myself with hormones after getting ghosted by my fiancé. (Message me for that story; it’s juicy and I love to gossip.)
The cultural narrative around egg freezing paints it as an empowering choice, a symbol of taking control. But for some (me), it can feel like a consolation prize, a deeply unsexy medical procedure wrapped in millennial-girlboss branding.
When the dust settled after my unexpected breakup, my friends urged me to freeze my eggs—not only to take the pressure off dating but because some of them had done it and felt triumphant, almost sovereign over their futures. “Don’t worry. The shots are easy. It’s just like Ozempic!”
They’d found ways to make the experience fun. One friend played LMFAO’s “Shots” during every injection. Another used her swollen tummy as a breakfast tray.
But as I’m reading through my 34-page packet in the fertility clinic’s waiting room (“Storage fee” this and “Risk of OHSS” that and “No guarantees!” and What do you mean, limit coffee?), I’m left with a knot in my stomach and tears streaming down my face.
I don’t want to be here.
This is empowering? A cold doctor disinterested in my oversharing about a failed destination wedding? “My dress is still in my closet, and I will wear that thing to my funeral if I have to.”
It’s empowering to have the future baby we named on our engagement trip to Napa be referred to as “a frozen specimen”? I should feel amped to shell out a shitload of my freelance writer’s “salary” on Menopur and Follistim when I would’ve rather used that money on summer camps and piano lessons?
I know it’s unproductive, but the anger I feel that a man can waste my time and it’s now costing me $20,000 and I have a FUPA and he gets to go on with his life scot-free sends me into a homicidal tailspin. (For legal purposes, I’m half kidding.) Sure, it is what it is. That’s biology. A woman’s plight. Blah blah blah. But for $20K, at least grant me the right to bitch.
Look, I wouldn’t say I don’t feel empowered. It’s just that empowerment isn’t exactly the primary emotion here. I feel privileged to have this option and pissed that I have to choose it. I don’t want to seem out of touch, because science really came through for me, but I’m sad that science had to come through for me at all.
This wasn’t a choice I made because my company offered it and I’m kicking ass on track for C.E.O. I’m not freezing my eggs because I’m on the fence about having children or because my partner needs more time. This is another stage of grief, a decision made for me by somebody who promised me the world, broke my heart, and then quickly moved on with a college girlfriend because he is just now realizing how badly he wants to be a dad. Gut punch.
So I work with the grief. Every 12 hours, I mix the meds and poke my stomach, praying it works because I really don’t have the funds, or the fortitude, to do another round. I watch over the coming weeks as my body swells with hormones and potential—a potential I’m freezing rather than fulfilling.
I apologize profusely to my loved ones for mood swings and weeping spells. “I’ve gained 10 pounds in two weeks! I look like the egg I’m trying to make!” On the plus side, between the bird flu and the price of eggs, I do feel very expensive.
After two weeks of trans-vaginal ultrasounds, scouring Reddit threads, and thinking about death, it’s time for the “trigger injection.” While I’m sedated with the “good kind” of fentanyl (terrifying), my ovaries are poked with a thin needle to remove the follicles (disgusting), then cryo-preserved somewhere in … Glendale. I thought about Venmo-requesting the total from my ex because if we’ve learned anything from Kendrick Lamar it’s that we’re not living up to our fullest petty capabilities.
I know that, with time, my anger will turn to sadness and my sadness to indifference, and my indifference will become purpose—a purpose for a healthy baby, however it may find its way into my family.
Chelsea Frank is a Los Angeles–based writer of fiction, comedy, and travel journalism. She writes a food column for Forbes and contributes to InStyle, Popular Science, TripSavvy, and Uproxx
