Tammy Sun, founder of Carrot, a community created to deliver insights for women who are freezing eggs and advice about fertility health, discusses how she decided to freeze her eggs after finding out that her anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) level was low for her age.
“I consider myself smart and capable. I go to the doctor, I take care of myself, and I do triathlons. But as soon as I started the process of my egg freezing cycle, I felt very disempowered. I was shocked at how little I knew about fertility,” says Tammy.
Egg freezing is an opportunity for women, typically 30 to 40, to capture their fertility before it starts to decline more rapidly. Some women may need to freeze earlier, depending on medical history and ovarian reserve.
The reason there are age guidelines for women interested in egg freezing is because the quality and quantity of a woman’s eggs decreases as she ages. At the same time, as a woman ages, the chance of miscarriage or a genetic abnormality increases. It’s important to note, in the context of these age guidelines, that we typically don’t recommend women freeze too young because the likelihood of them needing to use their frozen eggs is not as high.
How can we make egg freezing more accessible?
Regarding access to egg freezing technology, “women should have the freedom, the products, and the services to be smart about their fertility the way that we have products and services to be smart about our money or our careers, and other really meaningful things in our lives,” Tammy continues.
After talking to her friends and other women, Tammy discovered that she wasn’t the only one who felt in the dark when it came to reproductive health and preservation.
When searching for information about egg freezing, she explained that she, “ very quickly [ended] up in with the IVF community or a new mom or baby blog and that [didn’t] really speak to [her], and women like [herself]…who [wanted] to be prospective about their fertility health.”
Creating a Community for Women Who are Freezing Eggs
Tammy’s company, Carrot, seeks to provide advice, data, and recommendations for women who are “stuck in the middle.” Her mission is to help other women be smart about optimizing the chance that the preferred outcome will happen, even if the preferred outcome is to have more choices.
Her goal is to eventually increase access across all three dimensions: money, time, and identity, by removing the stigma and taboo. She also encourages women interested in freezing their eggs to check if they have insurance coverage for treatment—or at least the initial bloodwork and consultation fees—and to talk to their HR department about providing coverage (in cases where the employer doesn’t already offer fertility coverage).
Elective egg freezing is rarely covered by insurance, but diagnostic or ovarian reserve testing, as well as a physician consultation, is largely covered by Shady Grove Fertility’s 30+ participating insurance companies. In fact, 90 percent of our elective egg freezing patients have coverage for the initial part of the process, which includes diagnostic testing, physician consultation, nurse consultation, and a financial counselor consultation.
Advice from Tammy: Be a Smart Consumer
Tammy’s advice for women seeking answers is to be a smart consumer and ask the right questions, especially when an OB/GYN or fertility specialist is giving a certain protocol.
Shady Grove Fertility’s Egg Freezing Program recommends women under 37 with healthy ovarian function freeze between 15 to 20 mature eggs, while women over 38 or women at any age with diminished ovarian function freeze 25 to 30 mature eggs. We suggest these quantities in order to offer women multiple attempts to conceive and have a baby.
“We have the opportunity to be smart about this new technology and navigate it for ourselves, with the support, obviously, and the guidance of medical providers and professionals,” says Tammy.
Nobody should present egg freezing as a guarantee, but more of a decision to optimize a chance for a future preferred outcome especially since, as Tammy points out, “we make those decisions in every other area in life.”
To connect with Tammy, email here. To learn more about the egg freezing process or for more information about Shady Grove Fertility’s exclusive egg freezing financial programs, call 1-877-411-9292 to speak with one of our New Patient Liaisons, fill out this form to schedule an egg freezing appointment, or register for one of our upcoming patient educational events.
