Do I Feel Empowered? Maybe.

Do I still have time to bump into Chris Evans while picking up coffee? 100%.

All of my fertility decisions up until this point were not decisions. Or at least they weren't intentional decisions.

I grew up in the ‘90s on a steady diet of pop culture. As far as I knew, life was going to be easy. I would go to college, get a great job, bump into a doctor who was the son of an iconic talk show host while working one of my many temp jobs and get married at one of his mom’s houses, and then have adorable kids. Is that the plot to Monster in Law? Yes. Is that how I thought my life would work? Also, yes. What can I say, there’s a part of me that is deeply delusional and thinks my life is a rom-com. It’s a com for sure. 

I spent the bulk of my 20s working dead-end jobs and freelancing, hustling to be the #GirlBoss I always saw myself as. In the back of my mind, this year would always be the year when Chris Evans would walk into my local coffee shop and fall madly in love with me. (I told you I’m delusional.)  Instead, it was the barista or the bartender who was endearingly cute but just not the right person for me. Every year I talked to my doctor about my options just in case I didn’t meet THE ONE until I was older and I didn’t have any options. Every year she told me I had time. She wasn’t wrong, but she wasn’t right either. 

One day I was 36 and incredibly anxious about where my life was headed. The person I dreamed up for myself at 16 seemed incredibly close and farther away than ever.  I was finally making great money, cue Material Gworl, but I was in a new relationship and needed a longer runway when it came to motherhood. My doctor was still saying “you have time,” but she added, “not everyone is supposed to have a child.” She also threw in something about embryos being people and I do not need that kind of doctor in my corner the way reproductive rights are/aren’t set up in this country. 

Eventually, I found a doctor who kept it real with me. I did have time but it was running out. If I wanted to keep my options open, I needed to take an active role in my fertility and stop leaving it up to romantic comedies. That meant going to an endocrinologist, understanding how fertile I actually was, and developing a plan. I started the process of freezing my eggs last summer. Unfortunately, it is extremely cost-prohibitive and I had to give up on it when I changed jobs. Thankfully, I’m changing jobs again and fingers crossed I’ll be able to complete everything this summer before I turn 38. Do I feel empowered? Maybe. Do I still have time to bump into Chris Evans while picking up coffee? 100%.