Should my teen daughter freeze her eggs?

[Gemstone19]

My daughter is 15 and recently suffered an ovarian torsion, they didn’t know what was wrong with her until the late stages so she had emergency surgery immediately and lost one ovary and Fallopian tube as they had died inside her :(
Follow up scans showed her one remaining ovary is polycystic so they think she has PCOS, we have been waiting 7 months for a gynae follow up because covid got in the way so we have had no answers to any questions and I cannot find any other info or experiences of other teenage girls who have both PCOS and one ovary lost due to ovarian torsion (only menopause age women or cancer related)

Should we consider egg freezing to preserve her fertility for the future?

I can understand why this is worrying for you and your family. Especially after having lost one of every, I guess there is always a fear of losing the other.

I have PCOS and as you may know it effects egg quality, after years of trying (and a natural pregnancy which ended in miscarriage) I've needed IVF to get pregnant. I was 36 when I conceived and it has been a long journey and baby is still not in my arms yet as I'm 21 weeks and I have a lot of fear and anxiety that if something goes wrong, I may not get another chance. Many women with PCOS need IVF but lots do get pregnant naturally too, but I think the fact she could need it eventually should factor in to your decision.

Being 15 your daughters eggs are likely to be good quality, my advice would be that if you can afford it, it may be worth doing it. Bare in mind that there is likely to be a yearly cost for freezing, my clinic is an NHS one so the cost is £250 a year but I know that others are much more expensive.

Yes I would discuss egg freezing with her - I've had to go through 5 rounds of IVF as I lost both my tubes and my egg quality has also got worse

Just bear in mind that the current limit on egg freezing is 10 years so she would need to use them by the time she’s 25.

I'd probably wait and do it age 20-25 then the 10 year limit would take her up to 35 but I know they are looking at amending the law on this as my clinic is campaigning to increase it

Your daughter has been through a lot, poor girl.
Definitely a conversation worth having but I think she might benefit from some counselling. I'm assuming she'd have to do the whole IVF drugs and egg collection which can be unpleasant, but could be worth it of course.

I advise speaking to someone with expertise in the area, how many eggs would she be aiming to collect, would they do more than one egg collection, ensure she is prepared that there are no guarantees. Its a lot for a 15 year old to deal with but then so is infertility later on.
Is it possible to freeze some ovarian tissue?
Could she have eligibility for egg freezing on the NHS? DH had sperm frozen for fertility preservation due to cancer so his sperm is frozen for 55 years at no storage cost to us, but have to renew consent every 10 years.

Good luck.

At my fertility clinic you can get an extension to store your eggs for up to 55 years. It is for people in certain circumstances.

You could always chat to a clinic and see what they’d recommend for your daughters case. You sound like an amazing mum 😘 xx

Thank you all for your comments, I was worried about what people might say about her being so young to be thinking of doing this sort of thing however you’ve all been very supportive and given me lots of points to think about, what a lovely supportive place to be :)

We don’t really know anything about PCOS, I think it’s crazy that she had this horrendous ordeal before Christmas and here we are in July and no one has even spoken to her, diagnosed her or checked her since and she is still having pains which we have no idea of the cause. My husband rang the gp yesterday (after I called them last week) and they have agreed to send her for an urgent ultrasound whilst she waits for the gynae appointment so we can have some reassurance about the pains she is currently having.

The thing is that I’m guessing PCOS on its own is not enough to warrant egg freezing in a young girl and the one ovary isn’t enough either I don’t think - after her operation the surgeons said her fertility wouldn’t be affected (before they knew she had cysts on her remaining ovary etc) as the remaining ovary takes over and would release an egg every month. She isn’t having periods regularly, she’s had 2 this year so far.
It’s the combination of the two that is making me so worried, if she has the same situation again that would be the end of her fertility in the blink of an eye, I feel like she is a ticking time bomb :(
The ovarian torsion she had is much less common in her age group but PCOS and other things like strenuous activity puts her at an increased risk - she is an athlete and before the op she was heading towards national level in her sport which is extremely strenuous.
She will be carrying on with her sport because she loves it and also because PCOS is helped by being fit and healthy. So with that we will always worry about the ovarian torsion happening again :(

I know if my fertility was not certain I would be beyond devastated and it would have had a profound affect on me. Therefore I want to do everything I can to avoid infertility for her.

We aren’t rolling in money however if I had to then I would pay because for me there is no price I can put on fertility.

I sat down and had a chat with my daughter yesterday to see what her opinion was and to my surprise she said she had already wondered about it herself and had talked to her best friend about it. She was absolutely mortified about the procedure to remove the eggs though! She just thought it would be a few injections and that’s all lol.
The fact that she had thought of it herself tells me she is worrying (she likes to keep things to herself and definitely doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve like me!)

I wonder whether the NHS would find it and what the criteria is?

The 10 year storage time limit is annoying but if we waited until she was older and then say she lost the other ovary before then I would never forgive myself.

Honestly, the procedure to remove them is not that bad. I was asleep during mine and had some pain the next couple of days but it wasnt even bad enough to take paracetamol. She just needs to take it easy for a day or two and its very fast, I was down and dusted in half an hour.

I was diagnosed with PCOS at 14 and I'm now 37. If you/she have any questions, please feel free to ask.

Polycystic ovaries occur in up to 30% of women at some point. Pcos is an endocrine disorder and one of the symptoms is pco.

Blood tests would be needed in your daughter's case, as it's possible the lack of periods could be caused by her sporting activities, so are not a conclusive indicator.

Two of three generally needed to diagnose pcos:
Polycystic ovaries
Symptoms (lack of periods, weight gain, spots, among others)
Bloods (an lh:fsh ratio of 2:1 or greater).

I would agree that it's not crazy to be thinking about fertility preservation. It may be difficult to convince a clinic to treat her before she turns 18.

But first you need answers...

Poor girl, that's a lot to cope with at such a young age. Egg freezing is a decision she will have to make for herself, maybe after talking to a relevant doctor and/or counsellor. I would say that PCOS is not necessarily the end of the road. It can be very effectively managed through diet, exercise and supplementation. The sooner your daughter can get on top of it, the better her chances will be. I would think that this approach would have a far higher success rate than egg freezing, which carries the same success rate as an average round of IVF. (i.e. not that high)

Thank you, some informative points there - it’s good to hear all sides, pros and cons etc so thank you.

My daughter, although an athlete is very curvy and very developed - she stands out next to others at her club because she is “solid” not fat or overweight but muscly and curvy. My instinct tells me that her sport isn’t the reason behind the lack of periods - she started puberty very young (8yrs) and went to see an endocrinologist for a couple of years to be monitored, they said she was fine in the end but said she would start her periods by 10.5 but she didn’t have any at all until age 14.5 - the month before her ovarian torsion - the ovarian torsion was caused but a ruptured cyst that heamoragged (spelling?) - they said the cyst was probably a failed ovulation? Does this sound like PCOS?

The most frustrating thing is that she was on the waiting list for gynae before all this happened to find out why her periods hadn’t started, she then started 2 weeks before the appointment so I cancelled the appointment, then she had all this horrific surgery etc and now we are on a waiting list for an appointment for the same clinic all over again. (It took months and months before!)
The go did send her for a blood test but she ended up having the emergency surgery etc before we could get to do a blood test so she didn’t end up having one yet (and I didn’t take her after because I thought she was ‘cured’ after the surgery - before we knew about all the cysts on her other ovary.
She also has cysts on her kidney, I’m not sure if that is related?

There’s no family history on my side but her paternal grandmother has had every gynae problem going so there’s genes there possibly?

We just really need to see the gynaecologist I guess

defanitly freeze eggs.. also tell her ive had 2 egg collections ( and i am the biggest wimp around) and they are nothing... you don’t feel a thing.. the dentist is worse than egg collection

Good luck x

Please do this.

I'm 23 and have been trying since I was 21. I have suffered 6 misscarriages now.

One day the fact that you have frozen her eggs, may stop her feeling so much heartbreak. ( and you, my mum has struggled watching me go through what I've had to the last couple of years)

Haven't RTFT so apologies if someone has already said this but a lawyer told me recently that they're going to extend the 10 year storage limit and she seemed to think this was certain.

That said, it sounds like your daughter might get round it any way given her situation is one of medical rather than social need. Take the medical advice obviously but my inclination would be to say that yes, it's a good idea.

Def freeze this not sure if will allow before 18

But def worth asking clinics and either getting on nhs or paying for a cycle for dd

I think it is a really sensible thing to be considering given the various factors involved 💐

You are doing the right thing and it is fantastic that your daughter is happy to talk about her concerns openly with you 💖

I hope everything works out well xx

(P.S: I found the IVF drugs easy and the egg collection was the best sleep I’ve ever had 🤣 The only difficult part for me was the emotional aspect because I was at last chance saloon rather than freezing proactively xx)