Do I need time for Pre-HRT Reproductive Preparation?

So this one is about to get wayyyy more personal. I froze my eggs last month. I went through the several-month process of abruptly stopping HRT, beginning birth control, and doing daily injections to one day potentially have kids with my eggs.

As an enby who feels extremely gender fluid, there was already a feeling of being in the “limbo” of figuring out whether or not I should start HRT in general. Then came the confusion with whether or not to have kids (risking more dysphoria). When I finally started T, I experienced it for three short months before doctors flagged that they hadn’t talked to me about fertility preservation. I was glad they offered me the option and thought, “I’ll just do this quickly, it’ll be easy, then I will go back to being on T.”

Boy, was I WRONG. It was a massive hormone shift, lots of pain, stretching, bloating, constipation, and confusionnnnn. In the end, I am glad I did it, but gosh, that recovery was a process.

After I abruptly stopped HRT, there was a drop in my sex drive; I was moody, down, and still sweaty as hell. Once I started the birth control two months later, I felt okay. I had been on the pill in the past, so crying a lot more was expected. Some weight gain occurred due to the birth control, but nothing drastic.

What really challenged me were the daily injections.

They were hell. I am not someone who is or ever has been afraid of needles, but every week I was getting two blood draws, two intravaginal ultrasounds, and two to four daily injections (half in the morning and the others at night). I started hating needles. I felt queasy, nauseous, and pass-out-level dizzy every time I went near one. I could not be out of town for more than two days due to the scheduled protocol, so I felt trapped in Sacramento, forced to be sober, and absolutely mind-bogglingly grumpy. (Thank you to all those who put up with my grumpy for that month)

Some folks who have gone through egg retrieval or IVF say it is a super condensed experience of the first trimester of pregnancy. Although I don’t believe that to be fully true for me, I did gain several pounds, looked about eight weeks pregnant, and could literally feel my uterus growing and stretching (I am not kidding—look it up). Thankfully, my partner was able to inject me through the whole process because I reached a point where I was unable to stand or watch while doing these injections (ty, ily bb).

Though the process was grueling, it was easy to forget about the shots in between my busy schedule and face them only while they were happening. The early doctor’s visits and blood draws were prescheduled for me, and all I had to do was show up, get my uterus looked at and/or my blood drawn, then walk out.

The rest of my body changes, though, were not so easy to ignore. By the end of the first week of injections, my boobs had doubled in size, my appetite was all over the place, and I could have easily thrown up if you waved anything stinky near my face. It takes around two to three weeks of injections before the removal procedure, and you’d be surprised how quickly your body adjusts to the hormones. It was jarring, weird, and sometimes fun to see what was once my very loved flat chest bounce for once.

Two weeks and a few days later, I did my retrieval. A quick 8:00 AM procedure where they put me under, retrieved the eggs, and woke me up 30 minutes later; I was finally done! Or so I thought. The days to follow were the worst for me. The extreme cramping, the weird empty feeling in my uterus, and the hormonal tirades quickly ensued. The withdrawal from the hormones might have been the worst part if not for the injections. Despite all of this, would I do it again? 1000%.

I am not sure whether I will say it was worth it in a few years, but to have the option to decide is relieving in itself. Having reproductive options is always better than not (including abortions). & It would be remiss of me to not mention that some folks go through this process (egg freezing and or IVF) because it is their only option. Despite the challenges of my experience I am incredibly lucky to not have to have had the added fear many may feel when viewing this as their only option.

Anyways, that was my journey!

For most trans folks, fertility preservation conversations are something they encounter while in their “waiting room” for HRT. Being told you need to navigate fertility preservation (sperm banking, egg freezing) before you can start hormones is a common process by doctors. For those of us who want or are considering kids we usually are alerted to this early on (or should be).

Yet, there are other difficult factors to consider as trans folks. Reproductive preservation forces a hyper-focus on the exact “biological” parts causing many of us distress. It is an immediate catalyst for dissociation and spectatoring (floating away from the body to survive the medical process). To be completely honest, until I started writing about spectatoring last week, I did not realize I had been doing it throughout the process of egg freezing. HA! Isn’t that ironic? The sex therapist telling the readers to “watch out for spectatoring” and “use coping mechanisms” while also having been essentially non-existent in my body for the process of egg freezing.

Spectatoring happens, dude. The one thing we can remind ourselves of is that it doesn’t need to be “fixed, stopped, or ignored, but instead sat with!” Sound familiar? Yeah, last week’s advice is also relevant for me.

ANYWHOO, my point in sharing all of this is to give you a sneak peek of what it was like to go through repro preservation and emphasize that reproductive prep did not stop my journey, and it does not have to stop yours.

Egg freezing and having kids isn’t an all-or-nothing for me, and it isn’t an experience I think about often. But I am extremely privileged to have a full-time job that allowed me to get this covered and done before I had to really grapple with the “kids?” question. In the future, I may feel grateful, sad, or indifferent, but for right now, I did something extremely difficult, I made it through, & you could totally do it too!

Feel free to drop any questions below or in my DM’s. I am very open to discussing this process more in depth. I will also be making an instagram post about it so follow there for more. Best of luck to you and yours <3