Deciding to freeze your eggs as a single woman is a surprisingly emotional and draining experience, Spin Presenter Michaela Hayes has said.

She was speaking after UK journalist Katie Roseinsky warned that egg freezing can be ‘emotionally, physically and financially demanding, raising hopes with no guarantee of success’.

Michaela told Newstalk Breakfast that egg freezing is certainly financially demanding – but for the rest, everybody’s journey is different.

She said she has always wanted to be a mother and took the decision to freeze her eggs late last year.

“COVID took many, many years from us – that’s what I am using as the excuse for being single at my fine old age,” she said.

“I really kind of thought I would be married with kids at this age and I’m not.

“I also found that, you know, we have a biological clock and they do recommend freezing your eggs before 35.

“Then another element was that my mam had a hysterectomy when she was in her twenties so in regard to familial history on menopause etc, I have no idea when that could be.

“It could be in my early 30s, it could be in my 40s – I have no idea, I’ve nothing to base that on so I just wanted to safeguard it.”

Spin Presenter Michaela Hayes

Michaela said egg freezing is a very expensive process, but it is worth it when you know what you want.

“The money I’ve spent on this, I could have put that towards saving for a house because obviously, I want my own place,” she said.

“But look, you can buy a house at any stage of life but with something like this there is a time constraint on it and you kind of have to just decide, ‘I need to do this because this is what I want and the house can come down the line’."

Emotional

She said she found the experience more emotional than she expected.

“When you go in to start this, they do a scan … and I remember looking at the screen and thinking, ‘There’s no baby there’ and then looking over my shoulder and thinking’ ‘There’s nobody here with me.’

“I’m doing this because I’m alone, which is my personal reason for doing it and I found that really, really emotional.”

Egg freezing

Michaela said going it alone is quite different to beginning IVF with a partner.

“You see IVF portrayed on TV and it is always a couple doing it together and you know, the partner will help with the injecting and for the emotional bits that they go through, there are two people so they share the burden of it

“Whereas when I’m doing it, I’m sitting in my room injecting alone, I’m going into my scans alone, I’m coming out alone, it is very, although my friends are interested and really supportive and sympathetic, there is no one I’m sharing the journey with.

“So it is quite emotional – it is draining to a certain extent.”

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