Fertility, family planning, & egg freezing
A panel of women discuss birth control, family planning and how to make choice on what is best for them. Infertility, infant mortality and menstrual cycles are also discussed.
Transcript
[UPBEAT MUSIC]
What are broadly the types of contraception that a woman might have access to? [UPBEAT MUSIC]
It depends on your lifestyle. OK, so you have long-acting-- like, we call them LARCs, Long-Acting Reversible
Contraception. And that includes IUDs. And there's copper IUDs, which are good for 10 years. And then you have hormonal IUDs, which
are lasting five to seven years now. Then we also have implants, which are rods that you put in your arm. And they're about good for three years.
Then, of course, we have our pills, our patches, our injections, our rings. It depends, again, on your lifestyle.
If you're the type of person that you always remember to take a pill, I think you'll be OK. You also have condoms plus spermicide.
That gives you a lot of protection. There are so many different options, depending upon your lifestyle and your communication
with your ob-gyn, what is the best thing for you? Knowing what choices we have is really vital to our well-being.
So how do women need to go about making choices for themselves regarding family planning?
In general, it's kind of just a nice idea to plan ahead. Figure out what you want, what you
think you might want your life to look like. Maybe create that five-year plan. Does that include having children? Does it not include having children?
Is it a maybe? Because sometimes that's the option. And it's just really taking some time to understand yourself,
what you want, what you don't want, and then taking that information and having a conversation with your health care provider to talk about all
of these different birth control options. Women are increasingly turning to egg and embryo freezing
and deciding to have children later on in life. You talk about what egg freezing or embryo freezing is-- slash and, because they're different.
What's the process? Yeah. So the process, simply put, women are given hormones in injections so that they harvest more eggs.
A needle is introduced into the ovary. The eggs are extracted. And for just freezing the eggs, those are taken and frozen.
But for the embryo, they are fertilized and then frozen. It's a similar process but one more step for the embryo.
This is really a conversation that not everybody is able to have. How much does egg freezing cost?
How much should someone expect to pay? Talk to us about how companies may be dealing with that. Is it covered by your insurance?
What I am hearing from a lot of my clients who are going through these processes, that they're paying $10,000.
$8 to $15,000 seems to be what's what the average amount is. And some companies are jumping on board
and wanting to help and support in this. What I'm seeing is that they're oftentimes reimbursement programs, which still
means people have to be able to come up with that $8 to $15,000 upfront and then submit it to their company
for reimbursement. For those of your patients who may be contemplating freezing their eggs, you know, what questions do you
suggest that women ask themselves or find out the answers to? I think, for one, it's a very personal journey.
Every single person is going to have a different story and a different experience and a different reason. And I think there's a lot of stigma too in there
that sometimes that this is only for, like, single women. There's many, many couples that I work with that are deciding to freeze their eggs because, you
know what, they don't want to have a baby right now. Maybe they want to travel the world. They want to do all of these different things. And a baby is just not where they're at.
And you know, that's OK. [UPLIFTING MUSIC]
I am very outspoken. I think that Tenisha softens me.
I've gotten to a place, especially in business, that I've realized that every conversation can't be a lion
coming out the corner to roar. I do enjoy having a partner in that in those meetings
and in those conversations, and even if she's not there, I'm stopping and saying, let me listen.
I'm going to run this by Tenisha to see if she's as offended as I am. And then I'll respond later. And so I think that's the biggest thing in how
we learn from each other. I think she-- she gives me strength, right? Not that I am weak.
But she gives me that strength of being able to speak up and speak out and just being able to express myself and explain what's going on
or how I feel. We're both not perfect. We have our challenges. We argue like sisters. Then, you know, I force her to hug me,
even though she don't want to. But, you know, it's-- you know, that's what we do, right? So-- I want to say this for your listeners
because there is going to be a Black girl out there that is told she's too aggressive. And I am that Black girl that's been told that probably
a majority of my life. But don't ever feel like you're too aggressive, you're too loud.
Don't ever feel like you have to tone yourself down, you have to dim yourself. You don't ever have to dim yourself
and especially if you know what's right. If you are passionate about it and you're advocating,
you're going to be told those things, especially if you're doing it for Black people. So to that little Black girl or that Black woman right
now, you are passionate. You remain passionate and do understand you're needed just as much as the quiet Black girl who
doesn't speak out as much or who might send the email instead of choosing to sit in a meeting.
Infertility today is much more common than most people know. And I think that part of the problem is no one wants to talk about it.
[UPBEAT MUSIC] Fertility is actually a mirror of our health, in general.
So the menstrual cycle for women can tell you a lot about your overall health, when it's irregular, when there are other gynecological issues
in play. For men, sperm is actually a biomarker as well. So sperm testing is not something that is done, you know, traditionally
in a doctor's office for any reason other than infertility. But it turns out we can actually tell-- you know, it can indicate cancer.
It can indicate other conditions that may not even be obvious. And so really, to me, you know, fertility in those two contexts
is actually a really important thing to understand about your body.
I want to debunk a couple things about egg freezing because I think that a lot of women who go into the experience believe that there's an automatic guaranteed
baby at the end of the road. And that's actually not true. Egg freezing is not a guarantee. The reason it's often not a guarantee
is the age at which women freeze their eggs. The ideal time to do it is when no one can afford it. And that is when they're in their mid 20s.
If you're freezing eggs in your late 30s, you may or may not end up with any viable embryos. So I think that women need to know that, yes, it's
an amazing technology that is great in many, many cases, and it's changed women's lives. And also, there's a reality there
that is uncomfortable to talk about because we all see it as this, like, women having it all narrative. If there's anything that I've learned becoming a parent,
it's you can have it all but just not at the same time. As someone who struggled with infertility, I actually had three total miscarriages.
The piece of advice that I would give first and foremost is to take care of your mental health. You feel like you're just in it alone,
even if you have a partner, even if you have great medical care. But you're not in it alone. There are many, many, many women and many couples out there
who are going through exactly what you are. So I think it's really important, even though it doesn't feel natural, to take a moment
and think about yourself. It could be breath work. It could be meditation. It could be something that lives totally outside of that. Maybe you like walking.
Maybe you like cooking. Maybe you like reading or a bath. I'm a big bath fan as well. So find the thing that helps you feel that you can process
what's happening to you. I think the second thing is you should always feel that you are able to work with your provider, hand
in hand. And if you can't do that, you should probably find someone else. [UPLIFTING MUSIC]
We have to start talking about sperm. It is half the genetic basis of human life.
I have had a number of men, both people I have met for the first time and also people I've known for a long time, who have said, I was the problem.
I was the reason that we had IVF, and I never knew. Men have a big job to do in taking care of their bodies
and making that sperm as healthy as they can. Men want to talk about this stuff. They want to be better partners.
They want to feel involved. We grow up, and we're taught to think that, like, all of these things are gross.
And it's just biology. [UPBEAT MUSIC] [SOFT MUSIC]
womens health
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