Episode 016: Premature Menopause and Fertility Preservation with Bailey Walker
Bailey shares her walk through her premature menopause diagnosis at 25 years old and how it led her to fertility preservation.
Her Journey:
At the beginning of Covid she began having some symptoms that were out of the norm. She had severe night sweats and her hair was falling out in clumps.
Went to her OB and they ran a blood test to see what was going on with her
Doctor called back with results to tell her most of her hormones are normal however, AMH was severely low and FSH was high and told her she needed to freeze her eggs
Started with a fertility clinic to learn more about freezing embryos-as she found with her research she wanted to freeze embryos versus eggs
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5 rounds of IVF - Egg Retrievals with Dr. Jeelani
1st round only 1 embryo came back normal
2nd round retrieved 5 eggs, 3 were mature, 0 embryos
3rd round right back to back during grad school and this time tried a new protocol
23 days on Lupron* - she was only getting 4 follicles - 0 fertilized
Decided to take a break after the first 3 rounds- spoke with her twin sister about her donating eggs however, after much discussion she decided to not donate
4th round started with a testosterone protocol and felt amazing on it. 17 eggs, 13 mature, 5 fertilized, 3 day 7 embryos, 2 normal embryos
5th round with the exact protocol as 4th round and got 0 embryos
Felt like she needed to keep going since she has been on this rollercoaster and wasn’t sure what to do next. They decided to enjoy the holidays and just enjoy the break without having to decide on another ER or next steps.
She was in such a dark place after all of these rounds and was on hormones for menopause and was so upset with her body and felt like it was failing her. She felt very lonely, her husband had taken a job and was living in California and she was in Illinois by herself. She had suicidal ideations but thankfully worked with a counselor to help her with these thoughts.
After the holiday break and time to get her thoughts back together her and her husband decided they were going to do 1 more round. But this would be her last round!
6th round- really hoping to get 2 more embryos so she has 5 embryos banked and will feel comfortable stopping
6th round scheduled for this June! Stay tuned and follow along on her journey on IG at @IVFWITHBAILEY