-Slide all the way down to the bottom of the table
till you feel like you're almost falling off.
Perfect.
Just relax. -Okay.
-Knees to the sides a little bit.
Cold and pressure.
-Okay.
-How you doing? -I'm okay.
-Good.
You can see exactly what's going on up on the screen up there.
That's your uterus. It looks wonderful --
a perfect baby cave.
-Yay! -For when and if, you know,
you decide that you're gonna use it for that purpose.
Okay.
So, we're gonna now go over to your right ovary.
So, I'm seeing about eight little fluid-filled sacks.
Then on the left ovary,
I see about six follicles over there on the left side.
There's a great example of one
you can see right there on the screen.
-Oh, that's huge.
-See that, where I'm putting my little green marker?
That is a follicle, and it looks fantastic.
So, we like to see more than ten.
That's what we like to see.
And the lab results are gonna inform our information
even more about really what you egg quantity is,
and sort of what we would expect to get
if you were to move forward with egg freezing.
-Awesome.
-And here's another picture. -Yay!
-Souvenir of the tour of your pelvis here.
-The pelvic tour?
I think you just named the episode.
-Exactly. -This is a probe.
-Yah!
-It's used in trans-vaginal ultrasounds
to take pictures of your uterus.
This is my uterus.
And these are my follicles.
Follicles are probably the word
I've heard most throughout this process.
They're basically undeveloped or immature eggs.
-Hi, how are you? -Good, thank you.
-You can come follow me to the lab.
-Okay.
-Our body selects a few eggs every month
to be released from the ovaries,
but they don't start out fully-formed.
They rely on hormones to develop,
and we can measure those hormones
to get a sense of how many eggs we have left with blood tests
like the anti-mullerian hormone test
and the follicle stimulating hormone test.
Every month, our body selects a few follicles to mature.
Our brains, by way of the pituitary gland,
releases the follicle- stimulating hormone
into our bloodstream,
which tells our ovaries to stimulate or grow follicles,
just like the name says.
If you have a lot of follicles left,
the hormone doesn't have to work very hard
so hormone levels are low.
But if your follicle count is dwindling,
the hormone has to yell at your ovaries to get things going,
resulting in a high level of FSH in your bloodstream.
Follicles themselves also produce hormones,
and one of them is the anti-mullerian hormone.
So the more AMH in your bloodstream,
the more follicles you have.
Basically, by getting these tests,
my doctor can get a really good sense
of how many eggs I have left
and what my reproductive lifespan is.
I won't get my results for about a week,
but I talked to my friend Lindsey
right after my appointment.
She's my partner on this project,
and was behind the camera during my ultrasound.
-Yeah, you look great.
-I never thought in a million years
that I would be witnessing anybody's ultrasound but my own.
I know. I know it's crazy.
But, how are you feeling after all of that?
I feel like it was just kind of a whirlwind of tests.
-I was totally freaking out before,
and super stressed about shooting this
and, like, having it on camera.
But now I honestly think I'm more nervous
about getting my results back.
I feel like this is when things really get personal
and really get, like -- -It's a little bit crazy
because when we go in to get your results,
you're gonna get numbers that tell you
what's going on inside your body.
And so I don't know.
I'm just worried that you are gonna feel
really effected by the numbers
that you get at this next session with Dr.
Devine.
You can't go back to being in the dark,
and I think sometimes it's really nice to not know.
Are you sure you wanna find out these numbers?
-I definitely wanna know.
It is scary, but I also think that it's because it's new.
Like, I don't have any friends that have done this before.
And, you know, if I get some not-so-great news,
it's easy to think that I did something wrong
or that something's wrong with my body.
-Right. You kind of blame --
blame yourself for those things. -Yeah.
You blame yourself and you, like, you agonize
over these kinds of things.
There's so many women who don't talk about their fertility
or infertility or test results.
And not having an experienced shoulder
to lean on is scary to me.
-Usually, when women are 29, I'm telling them, "You should wait."
However, given that your ovarian reserve
is a little bit below average,
to preserve some fertility would be reasonable as well.
So, we like to see your FSH level less than 12.
And yours was 10.
6.
It's a little bit on the borderline, but it's good.
And so then, the last marker of ovarian reserve is called
anti-mullerian hormone.
So, we like to see that one greater than or equal to one,
and yours was 0.
9.
It is lower than average for someone of your age.
-Dr. Devine basically just told me
that my ovarian reserve is severely low for my age.
And for AMH in particular, my levels are even lower
than most 35-year-old women.
-I, like, came in having higher hopes
because of the antral follicle count.
-You know, if this is something that's really,
really important to you,
I think it's a reasonable thing for you to do.
But it depends on your own personal priorities.
-This means it could take twice, maybe three times as much time,
money, and cycles of hormones to get enough eggs.
That's a lot to take in.
-I can't change my fertility.
I can't change how many eggs I have left.
I can't change whether or not
that's gonna be an issue later in life.
The only thing I'm in control of
is what I do with the information I have.
I haven't talked to my parents yet,
and I don't know
how they're gonna feel about it.
I mean, I'm pretty sure they want grandkids.
But how we get there is a family conversation.
I've learned a lot so far, and this is just the beginning.
-Coming up in episode three -- -Every time she gets pregnant,
I'm formulating names.
-God moved the desire of my heart.
That was to be a mother.
-I don't really think I was allowed to grieve
because I had to support her.