The Future Family Experience – Chandra J.
Meet Chandra, a 39-year-old Future Family member from North Carolina, who works in public health. She enjoys yoga, dancing, trying new foods and traveling. Read a little about her egg freezing journey with Future Family.
How did you hear about Future Family?
I heard about Future Family through my fertility clinic. They presented it as an option for financing because fertility preservation is very expensive. I knew I would be able to cover some of it from my savings, but Future Family would allow me to finance without using all of my savings, especially since there was a lot happening at the time. My clinic said a lot of people use Future Family and that you had a great reputation. So I thought about it and went to check out your website. The application was a pretty easy process– from signing up to filling out the application and everything else.
Why did you decide to freeze your eggs?
My gynecologist recommended it, and I was like ‘oh no, I'll find somebody.’ I was 32 about to be 33 and thought by 35-36, I’ll definitely find somebody, and won't need to preserve my eggs. Then this topic came up again last year. We had done some testing, and my AMH level was just OK. So based on my age, she recommended checking out a fertility clinic. We did a couple more tests, and the doctor told me that my AMH was a little lower than we would like for my age, and so if I were to freeze my eggs, I should do it now.
My current employer does not have any type of fertility benefits. In fact they consider it to be infertility treatments. Well it's not that I'm not infertile, I just want to preserve my fertility! But they didn't have anything available to help me. That's where Future Family came in and said, ‘Okay we can definitely help you,’ and provided a lot of great assistance.
Did you consider any other type of financing?
I didn't. Once I found out about Future Family and spoke with the Fertility Finance Specialist who ended up helping me, I felt very comfortable and said I'm gonna go for it. I had taken out a personal loan years ago through my bank. But I thought, here is this option right in front of me, and the terms were pretty simple. The Future Family rep said, ‘We can handle everything for you. You don't have to do anything money-wise. We send everything for you (for your treatment), and we'll set you up with the payment plan, it comes out automatically” I thought, ‘Wow, okay, this is great!’
How has your Future Family experience been?
Everything has been really good so far. There's no penalty for paying it off early, which I'm hoping to do, once I get a couple of other bills out of the way.
Working with my fertility coach [Caryl] has been so helpful! Caryl has been there through every single step. Even when she had a medical emergency, she was very apologetic that she was unavailable. I was telling her you need to take care of yourself too! She was just wonderful to work with and very helpful and was very honest with me and up front. She gave me honest, but I think, very kind advice. Overall she's just very kind, that's the big thing I appreciated.
How was your clinic’s fertility coach?
The clinic didn't provide a coach, so it was nice to have someone at Future Family I could reach out to. The clinic has a portal system where you could ask questions, but there really wasn't anybody that was contacting me regularly or calling or emailing and being like, ‘Hey, how are you doing? How are the shots?’ Caryl went through every single step with me and was like ‘If you need to go over this again just contact me.’ The people at the clinic were nice, it's a great clinic, but they have so many patients that they are not able to have that one-on-one time with people.
What did you enjoy most about Future Family?
I felt supported and that's the nice thing. My coach is very supportive and even when I was going through the loan process and the paperwork, someone was there to say, ‘well these are your options.’ It wasn't just like, ‘Take this loan. Whatever.’ Instead someone walked me through my options and answered all of my questions. Overall it was a good experience and I definitely felt supported.
What advice would you give to people going through this process?
Be patient with yourself, be patient with this process. It is a lot and sometimes it can take longer than you imagine. My process was a little bit longer because my body wasn't responding to the medications the way my doctor wanted. So it took a little bit longer than the 10 days. So be patient with your body, be patient with yourself and ask questions. It's okay to be like, ‘I don't know what I'm doing.’ There are people out there to help, there are providers, there is your coach that has gone through it before. You're not by yourself. Don't feel like you have to tell everyone. It's not anybody's business what you're going through, what you're doing. So find those people that you feel comfortable telling so that they can pray for you, think about you, ask about you. I think that is important as well.
What is something you’ve learned from this process?
Your body is amazing. It's amazing what women especially do. It's wonderful and beautiful what women go through every step of this process, what our bodies are able to do. What we go through every month is nothing compared to this process. It was just amazing to experience this and very eye-opening to the fact that we can have some control. Yes, time is not our friend but we do have some control over our fertility. Yes it is expensive. Yes it takes some of your time, but it's an amazing process. I think about my aunt and my uncle who are in their 70s. They could not have children, but this process wasn't available back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, so it's amazing that we have these options today.
So I say, If you want to have a child or even if you're thinking about it, just do this. It's never definite. But nothing is.
If you have this option, take it and do it earlier rather than later, depending on what you want your life to look like. I wish I would have done this a little bit earlier but you know, timing, its finicky. At the same time, if you end up doing it almost at 40, that's okay too.
Seek Financing with Future Family
If you’re thinking about freezing your eggs and need financing, reach out to us at financing@futurefamily.com or take our risk-free application today to see what you could qualify for.