I can imagine being told by ALICE MANN that you are out of frozen eggs

When I read last week about more than a hundred women who discovered that their frozen eggs and embryos may not have been viable due to an error in the freezing process, my heart went out to them.

I'd like to say I couldn't imagine how they must feel, but I could—all too well. Because I know firsthand exactly what it feels like to have done everything you could to preserve your fertility, only to have all your hope ripped away from you. It's downright devastating.

In my case it wasn't due to a technical error, but I vividly remember the July 2017 phone call telling me that of the last seven eggs they had thawed, only five had thawed normally, and of those five only two were fertilized – both abnormal. There was no chance they would form an embryo, let alone the baby I so desperately wanted.

Years later, I can still remember how utterly devastated I felt. If I think about it too much, tears still sting my eyes.

'Nothing?' I remember asking. 'I do not have anything?'

In an instant, I felt like my dreams of motherhood had been stolen from me. I'm not one for daydreams and flights of fancy, but I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about the potential those frozen eggs held.

Even though I knew there were no guarantees, I couldn't help but think about what it might feel like to be pregnant; to hold my baby in my arms; to see that baby become a walking, talking toddler.

It only made sense that after doing everything I could to ensure I could become a mother – three years earlier, at the age of 36, I had three cycles of egg freezing, a total of 14 eggs for a sum of around £14,000 – I would wonder what my future descendants would look like, whether I would have a son or a daughter, and imagine the person they might become when they grew up.

Then in an instant there was nothing left.

So I know exactly how the 136 patients who froze their eggs and embryos in the assisted conception department of Guy's & St Thomas' Hospital in London in September and October 2022 must feel.

In recent weeks they will have received a letter telling them that there is a 'production issue' with some bottles of a solution that may have been used to freeze their hard-won eggs and embryos, which could mean they are 'finishing the thawing process' might not survive. and may not be useful in treatment'.

A sober list of hypothetical 'mays' that will undoubtedly have created a maelstrom of emotions.

After my own crushing phone call, I tried to explain how heartbroken I felt. But everyday language felt inadequate to describe the complexity of grief, loss and frustration I was experiencing.

On eggedonblog.com, the website where I documented my treatment, I wrote that I felt “sad, angry and resentful,” and lamented the fact that I had “nothing to say that didn't cry and rage at the world that it was so '. really unfair'.

Because, as I put it at the time, 'three years ago I froze my eggs, knowing that I might never have a child from those eggs, but knowing that it was a positive step I could take at a time when everything seemed very looked gloomy.

'I do not regret it. I really don't, but I didn't do it just because I wanted to be able to look back without regret. I did it because I wanted the opportunity to get pregnant from eggs that were younger than me. And I no longer have that option.'

Because those are frozen eggs and embryos: possibilities.

Some of the patients at Guy's Hospital will have been women, like me, who had not met the right person to have a child with, but were concerned about the impact their age might have on their fertility.

It is not impossible that they can still get pregnant with their own eggs. (I tried – and failed – this and ended up using donor eggs to become a mother.) Others, however, were cancer patients who may have since undergone treatment that left them infertile.

But I don't just feel pity for these women, I feel a seething, angry outrage on their behalf. Because the hospital knew this was a problem almost a year ago.

In March last year, just seven months after the women had frozen their eggs, they were informed of the problem. So why did it take so long for them to share the information?

This unnecessary delay has only exacerbated the tragedy. In a lifetime, a year may not feel like much. But when you talk about fertility, and every month counts, it can be the difference between success and failure.

When I underwent my own egg freezing treatment and then tried IVF with my own eggs at age 40, time felt like it was of the essence.

With each month that passed, I worried that my fertility was declining. I took a vacation so I could get treatment, and when a cycle had to be canceled because I had a cyst on my ovary, I feared this was the only one: my last fertile cycle.

So it is completely inexcusable that the clinic knew about these problems and – it seems – withheld this information from patients for 11 months. The arrogance, the complete disregard for the impact on patients' lives is – well, I was going to say unbelievable, but it's not.

Having been treated by four fertility clinics in the last ten years, and while many of the staff I encountered were friendly and compassionate, there is a culture in these places that seems worryingly prevalent.

Whether it's waiting hours for a scheduled appointment, having to chase down test results, or having to deal with thoughtless comments that feel casually cruel, like the receptionist telling me that if I didn't pay the £120 for a blood test there and then the results would be destroyed.

Then there was the anesthetist who hadn't read my notes and saw that I was trying to get pregnant myself with donor sperm, who asked where my other half was; and the nurse who cheerfully quizzed a desperate friend about her plans for Mother's Day. It all smacks of a lack of attention to the patient.

And this catastrophic delay in informing patients is the culmination of this.

I know that if you are one of the women affected, nothing I say will change what happened and the sense of loss and injustice you feel.

But as someone once told me after another failed IVF cycle: there are many ways to create a family and you will find the right one for you.

When I received that devastating phone call, I could never have anticipated that less than a year later, while trying – and failing – to get pregnant with the help of an anonymous sperm donor, I would meet the man who would later become my husband. and the father of my child.

Nor could I have imagined that having a child of my own would entail the altruism of an egg donor, or that I would have the ability to love a child to whom I am not genetically related in the way I fiercely believe. , proud and deeply loved. my son. They are without a doubt the right family for me.

Names have been changed.