Background Circle Background Circle
Move Past Conflict

Amy Schumer Gives Update on IVF Journey

Amy Schumer is so open about her IVF journey to have a second child that she’s giving fans an even more intimate look at the long, excruciating process…even in the examination room.

The 38-year-old Trainwreck star and comedienne, known for her candor, revealed earlier this week that she had started taking injectable fertility drugs and posted a photo of the bruises left behind on her abdomen. She said they are freezing her eggs and “figuring out what to do to give Gene a sibling,” referring to her and husband Chris Fischer‘s 8-month-old son, their first child.

On Saturday, she shared on Instagram a photo of herself inside her fertility clinic, lying casually in her clothes on a gynecological examination chair next to an ultrasound machine prepped for someone to carry out a transvaginal scan.

“Thank you ladies and a few gentleman. We are gonna freeze embryos hopefully,” she wrote.

Schumer is set to take the drugs for a few more days. They contain hormones and are aimed at stimulating her ovaries to produce extra follicles, in the hopes of producing as many mature eggs as possible that her doctor will then extract in a single retrieval. The success of the process depends mostly on how her body will respond to the medication regimen, as well as the quality of her husband’s sperm that will be used to try to fertilize them.

When women reach a certain age, usually between 31 and 35, they start to produce fewer good-quality eggs that would yield good-quality embryos, which could be why Schumer has decided to undergo this process so quickly after giving birth. In addition, the star has endometriosis, in which tissue that lines the uterus grow on other pelvic organs, such as the ovaries, and has an adverse effect on egg quality and quantity.

Schumer has not disclosed whether Gene was conceived naturally or with assisted reproduction technology.

 

After eggs are retrieved and fertilized and embryos are created, which will take between five and six days, Schumer and Fischer will have them frozen for a future transfer to try to create a pregnancy. Frozen, good-quality embryos are more durable and more likely to thaw than frozen eggs.

While the couple may have chosen to wait to actually have another baby and are undergoing this process as a safety net, some fertility doctors maintain they have higher success rates using frozen embryos. Schumer and Fischer may also opt to have their embryos tested for chromosomal and genetic diseases, and they too must be frozen afterwards.

An egg retrieval is carried out within a manner of minutes under intravenous sedation—Schumer will be unconscious for it. She may suffer pain and extreme bloating after the procedure, depending on how many eggs were retrieved.

“I learned to eat salty food after and drink Gatorade,” Schumer wrote on Saturday. “Ice the area. Take Arnica and put Arnica on the bruises. To be patient and kind to myself and that there are sooooo many of us willing to be there for each other.”

In her previous message, Schumer had said that she was “feeling really run down and emotional” and asked for advice from anyone who has undergone IVF.

“Your stories helped me more than you can imagine,” she wrote on Saturday. “I feel incredibly lucky. I’m really hoping this works and staying positive. Much much love!”




Source link