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Nov 3, 2009 10:02 pm US/Central
Unfertilized Egg Freezing Offers Texas Women Hope
By Melissa Newton
DALLAS (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
For Tamara Jolee, motherhood has always been a part of her plan. "There was nothing I want more in my life then to be a mother someday," Tamara said.
"She was the mama of her siblings. She was the teacher when they played school. She was that person," explained Tamara's mother, Vicki Metcalfe.
However, when Tamara was diagnosed with Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma in September, it nearly crushed her dream of having a child. "They told me you have stage-four cancer," she said. "It's advanced."
"It was horrible" her mother sobbed. "It's something you don't want to see your kid go through."
Tamara will receive eight months of chemotherapy; a process that can have devastating effects.
"With the chemotherapy there's a very good chance that her ovaries will be damaged so severely that they may stop functioning all together,"
Dallas fertility specialist Michael Putman said.
"I never cried or got upset about the cancer, which is weird," Tamara recalled. "The first time I ever cried was knowing that I would never be able to have a child." The 29-year-old career woman, who is single, decided to harvest and freeze her eggs.
"This is new," Dr. Putman said. "This has been really still in the experimental stage. We've always been able to freeze sperm and have great results, and we've been able to freeze embryos, but only recently have we been able to freeze eggs and have successful thawing and fertilization."
In the past, unfertilized eggs were often destroyed during the thawing process, but advanced technology has changed that.
In fact, experts say there are now about 500 babies, worldwide, born from frozen eggs; none in North Texas, yet.
Doctors in Dallas are now seeing more women trying to preserve their fertility. When a woman has her eggs harvested, she is sedated. The entire process is done vaginally and takes place in a dimly lit room, to prevent the eggs from being exposed to light.
"Each egg is in a tiny sack," said Dr. Putman. "We actually watch our needle go into the small sacks. The needle goes in, drains it, flushes it and that fluid is passed to our embryologist."
The embryologist looks at the fluid through a microscope to see if an egg was successfully retrieved. Once the eggs are harvested, they are separated from the fluid, and can be frozen and stored indefinitely.
For patients like Tamara, the medical breakthrough is a life-giving advancement. "Young women who are faced with this type of cancer, there is hope for them now," said Dr. Putman.
And hope for a child and for life after cancer. "When I meet Mr. Right, and he's going to ask me, 'Do you come with baggage?' and I'm going to say 'No, but I come with frozen eggs and the possibility of multiple births," Tamara said with a laugh.
The procedure costs about $10,000, and isn't covered by insurance, even for those undergoing cancer treatments.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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