Vault: She wants to freeze her eggs

Summary

The Bert Show — “Vault: She Wants to Freeze Her Eggs”
Episode Date: July 3, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This episode centers on Melissa’s deeply personal and candid journey through the process of freezing her eggs. Over the course of the conversation, Melissa explains her medical motivations, walks the cast through the step-by-step process, opens up about the costs, emotional toll, and ethical considerations, and peppers the discussion with humor and heart. It’s an honest, informative, and often funny look at fertility preservation — and what happens when life, love, and science collide.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Why Melissa Chose to Freeze Her Eggs

• Medical and Personal Reasons:
  • Melissa reveals her decision was motivated by her age and medical history, specifically being a kidney transplant recipient. This makes future pregnancies riskier in case of recurring illness.
    • “One because I'm older than Katie and I'm also kidney transplant recipient. So just in case something, you know, the worst happens and I get sick again...” (01:00, Melissa)
• Future Family Planning:
  • She and Katie “definitely want kids — just not right this very second” and want to keep their options open. (01:37, Friend 1 & Melissa)

The Science & Logistics of Egg Freezing

• The IVF Process Explained:
  • Melissa provides an accessible breakdown of how egg freezing is the “first half” of IVF — the eggs are retrieved and frozen without immediate fertilization.
    • “It is the first half vitro fertilization. Correct...they are actually going to put them in the freezer.” (01:45, Melissa)
• Eggs vs. Embryos:
  • Her doctors recommended freezing embryos over eggs, as embryos are stronger for freezing and thawing.
    • “Freezing eggs is experimental, but freezing embryos is not. And apparently embryos are stronger to endure the freezing process and the thawing process.” (02:18, Melissa)

Navigating Sperm Donation & Ethical Dilemmas

• Choosing the Donor:
  • After an uncomfortable experience with sperm bank catalogs, Melissa and Katie chose a donor they personally know — a family friend, involved along with his wife.
    • “We almost felt like we were playing God because it's like you order from a catalog...It just was weird.” (02:46, Melissa)
    • “We pick somebody we know that already has a family, already has children. We've included his wife in this process. So it's them as a pair.” (03:00, Melissa)
• Humor in Awkwardness:
  • The conversation touches lightly on the inherently odd and sometimes funny aspects of these choices.
    • “Jeff is my sperm donor.” (02:40, Melissa, to laughter)

The Medical Process: Hormones, Injections, and Side Effects

• Birth Control & Hormones:
  • Melissa, who had never taken birth control, sought help from a friend on proper use — highlighting the steep learning curve.
    • “Most women know exactly what to do with birth control pills and I didn't.” (04:47, Melissa)
• Daily Injections:
  • After birth control, Melissa administered hormonal injections to stimulate her ovaries — describing the pain, locations, and support from her mother, who has diabetes.
    • “Where do you have to get the shots at? In the stomach.” (05:19, Friend 2 & Melissa)
    • “The needle was really small and I did it. And so I've been doing that for a week. Is it painful? That one's not.” (05:19, Melissa & Friend 1)
• Biology Lesson:
  • Melissa shares a surprising fact she learned: eggs develop monthly rather than sitting dormant and released one at a time.
    • “Every month there's the seed of one, but it does not develop until right before it's released...Which I didn't know.” (06:24, Melissa)

What’s Next: Procedures & Hopes

• Surgical Retrieval:
  • The eggs will be retrieved surgically under anesthesia and then fertilized before being frozen.
    • “I have to go under anesthesia and they go in and they physically take them.” (07:50, Melissa)
• Results & Risks:
  • Melissa faces the possibility that the process may not yield viable embryos, and shares honest anxieties about results.
    • “There is a possibility that I go through all this and nothing comes of it.” (08:05, Melissa)

Financial & Emotional Aspects

• Cost Barrier:
  • Coverage is a major barrier for most—insurance doesn’t cover the process, leading many to wait.
    • “That's why it took us two years to get here, is because it has taken us two years to be able to afford this. So, man. Because insurance doesn't cover it. But if a man wanted a little blue pill, he could have insurance. But that's a different story, too.” (08:14, Melissa)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I've gone through hormonal. I've gone through hormone injections and. And pills and that kind of thing...One of the reasons I wasn't going to talk about on air, because I knew Burton Jeff would try to egg me on, to try to either get me really mad or make me cry.” (03:12, Melissa)
• “So, by the end of next week, I will be a mother to ice cubes.” (07:41, Melissa)
• Friend 2: “Now finally, is this the wrong time to point out that I just had flying biscuit drop off breakfast and it can a lot of eggs.” (08:35, Friend 2)
• “That's the best you come up with is you knew chicken. Well it for the. Anyway I was gonna make some kind of egg white joke...Anyway so yeah, so I. So I'm currently shooting my stomach and and about to release like anywhere from 10–20.” (08:50, Melissa)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:00 — Melissa introduces her egg freezing journey and motivations.
• 01:45 — IVF and egg/embryo freezing process explained.
• 02:46 — Choosing a sperm donor; the oddness of sperm bank catalogs.
• 04:47 — Support from friends on birth control and hormone use.
• 05:19 — Hormone injections procedure and coping with self-injection.
• 06:24 — Biology lesson: what really happens with eggs each month.
• 07:41 — Surgical procedure and embryos being frozen: “a mother to ice cubes.”
• 08:14 — The cost of fertility treatment and insurance issues.
• 08:35 — Comic relief: breakfast eggs joke lightens the mood.

---

Overall Tone & Takeaways

• Candid, Informative, and Often Funny:
  Despite the serious subject, the conversation is peppered with laughter and relatable jokes, making the topic accessible.
• Empowering and Real:
  Melissa’s willingness to share both her vulnerability and the nuts-and-bolts of the fertility process opens up important dialogue about women’s health, choices, and the challenges LGBTQ+ couples navigate.
• Supportive Community:
  The cast supports her with humor and genuine interest, highlighting the value of friendship and safe spaces in navigating big life decisions.

---

For New Listeners

This episode is an excellent primer for anyone curious about fertility preservation, IVF, and the emotional and practical hurdles involved—delivered with “The Bert Show”’s trademark warmth and wit. If you’ve ever wondered how freezing eggs works, or simply want to hear a very real story about love, hope, and science, this one is for you!

Transcript

[Rachel]

Hey everybody.

[Lady Luck]

Lady luck here. And we're celebrating America's 250th birthday. Now all summer long, I'm going to be celebrating by playing on spinquest.com which is an American owned social casino. It obviously features over a thousand slot games and live blackjack, live craps, live bubble craps. Head on over to spinquest.com get yourself a $30 coin pack for just 10 bucks.

[Spinquest Announcer]

Spinquest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

[McDonald's Announcer]

All new drinks are now at McDonald's with refreshers like the Strawberry Watermelon refresher and the Mango Pineapple refresher with popping boba. To crafted sodas like the Sprite Berry Blast with berry flavors and cold foam. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire six? All new drinks are here now at McDonald's.

[Spinquest Announcer]

Refreshers contain caffeine.

[Melissa]

The bird show so last night I posted a blog to my blog site which is blog.melissatimes.com and it is something that I have, I'm now revealing to the world that I've been going through for the past five weeks and that is the process of freezing my eggs. Now I talked about this a couple years ago because Katie and I decided that we wanted to freeze my eggs. One because I'm older than Katie and I'm also kidney transplant recipient. So just in case something, you know, the worst happens and I get sick again and, and there's something that happens where, well, if I got sick again, they wouldn't be able to go through this process with me. So we want to go ahead and have the option of having my children and going ahead and freezing the eggs.

[Friend 1]

So this means you guys definitely want kids. Yes, just not right this very second.

[Melissa]

Yes, correct.

[Friend 1]

What that means, that's why you would freeze them rather than go ahead and

[Melissa]

just that is pregnant right now. Yes, it is ivf, but it is a, it is a stunted version of ivf. It's the first half vitro fertilization. Correct. It is the first half of it. But instead of like for instance, we tease like octomom is the worst case, worst case scenario where you know, too many eggs are put in, you know, the eggs were put back in her and then she got pregnant with all these babies. Right. With eight babies, that's the worst case scenario. That usually doesn't happen. But with me, instead of them putting them back into my uterus, that they are actually going to put them in the freezer.

[Friend 1]

So they're going to be Fertilized eggs.

[Melissa]

They're going to be fertilized eggs. We, two years ago, we talked about freezing my eggs, and the doctor said, well, you know what? Freezing eggs is experimenting. Experimental, but freezing embryos is not. And apparently embryos are stronger to. To endure the freezing process and the thawing process. But eggs usually are too fragile for that and may not survive the freezing process.

[Friend 2]

So when do you need me?

[Melissa]

So Jeff is my sperm donor.

[Friend 2]

Save that, save that, save that, save that.

[Melissa]

No, no, no, no, no. That's a whole other conversation about men. When you tell them that you need sperm for some reason, there's something instinctual in them, that even if they're married, even if they. Whoever they are, there are not. Jeff is not the only DJ in town that offered. Let me just say that.

[Friend 1]

Oh, really?

[Melissa]

So anyway. And I'm not talking about Q100. So anyway. Yes. So anyway. So, yeah. So anyway. But it is neither one of those men. And that we are not disclosing to the public who. Who he is, but it is somebody we know because we've gone through the process of the sperm bank. But that's. That is. It's a bizarre. It's a bizarre thing to go through because it's. We almost felt like we were playing God because it's like you order from a catalog. You order eyes and hair and height and, you know, and all that stuff. And it just was weird. But we. We went through that process, and it just. We didn't have a good experience with that sperm bank. So we said, you know what? Let's just pick somebody we know. We pick somebody we know that already has a family, already has children. We've included his wife in this process. So it's them as a pair. It's not him individually. And so anyway, so we know this couple and known them for a long time and are very secure with that. Anyway, so what I was talking about last night is for the past five weeks, I've gone through hormonal. I've gone through hormone injections and. And pills and that kind of thing. And one of the reasons. One of the. See, and one of the reasons I wasn't going to talk about on air, because I knew Burton Jeff would try to egg me on, to try to either get me really mad or make me cry. So I said, I'm not. And I told the fertility clinic, I said, I'm not telling the guys until we're just about done. So when we were on Birth's Big Adventure, I revealed it to Jen because she was My roommate and I. The first process was to take birth control pills because they were wanting to regulate my hormones. And I have never taken birth control pills because I have never been with a man. So I never.

[Friend 2]

Jen takes like three of them a day.

[Friend 1]

I take a lot. I know all about it.

[Friend 2]

Sucks them down like M&Ms.

[Friend 1]

I'm like an ex.

[Melissa]

They're in a bowl on your coffee table. Shut up.

[Friend 1]

Whatever.

[Melissa]

So I took my little packet out at birth week adventure in the hotel room and I told Jen and I said, I just, you know, I sought her advice on. Because I felt stupid that I. Most women know exactly what to do with birth control pills and I didn't. So I got Jen's advice on that.

[Friend 2]

It's funny.

[Friend 1]

And I told her, I said, if you miss a couple days, don't take them all at once.

[Bluff]

No.

[Melissa]

Because that's. You will be sick as a dog.

[Friend 1]

I'm not telling you how I know.

[Melissa]

I don't know. So I took those for three weeks and then I started injections after that where I give myself shots.

[Friend 2]

Oh Lord.

[Melissa]

Where do you have to get the shots at? In the stomach. Wow, like in your ovaries? No, just in the stomach because it's absorbed. It's absorbed faster in the stomach. So if now my mother is, you know, most, most people when they grow older become diabetic. It's just. It just seems to be. That's the case. And so Millipe has been diabetic now for a few years and she has to do self injections and I've helped her with that. So I'm glad that I saw her do it and have helped her because the. This injected. The needle was really small and I did it. And so I've been doing that for a week. Is it painful? That one's not. But then I. Then what I've been doing this week is a cocktail of where I have to mix it myself. And again I've all this is the descriptions of the blog, but I have to mix it myself. And then it's a bigger needle and a bigger injection and that one stinks a little bit. So I have.

[Friend 1]

What is it a cocktail love or is that too detailed?

[Melissa]

Well, it's. With a woman you have a certain hormone that your body produces right before you have your cycle. And what I didn't realize is I always thought that the eggs.

[Friend 1]

Isn't that called progesterone?

[Melissa]

You know, they gave it another name. Yeah, but apparently with women, I thought that your eggs were already in your ovaries. And set. And they just come out one at a time. But every month they grow. Every month there's the seed of one, but it does not develop until right before it's released.

[Friend 1]

Really?

[Melissa]

Which I didn't know. I didn't know that.

[Friend 2]

I thought you just had a ton of tiny little chickens.

[Melissa]

That's what I thought. That's what I thought. But the reason I have to go through this process. Not chickens, but, you know, So anyways. So. But these. But all these hormones are to force my ovaries to develop more than one so that I have a large amount that are now growing. And then next week, I will be out of the show for one day, but I don't know which day, because it depends on the progress.

[Friend 2]

Because now that's what bird said.

[Melissa]

Right. But they. But I go back in tomorrow and I'll be there at the fertility clinic every day getting blood work and getting ultrasounds done to see the progress of these eggs. And then one day next.

[Friend 1]

Release a whole bunch of them.

[Melissa]

Release a whole bunch of them.

[Friend 1]

Capture them like they go fishing.

[Melissa]

Exactly. And then next week, when the day that I'm out is the day that I'm getting it done. And then what they do is they take all those little eggs and then they take all this little sperm and they put them all together, and then I find out how many embryos have been created, and then they go in the freezer. So by the end of next week, I will be a mother to ice cubes. How do they get the eggs?

[Friend 1]

That is amazing.

[Melissa]

Is it like a surgical process? I have to go under anesthesia and they go in and they physically take them. Wow, that's crazy.

[Friend 1]

Dude. That is so cool. Thank you for letting us follow along the whole process.

[Melissa]

So next week, I will, I guess, technically be a mom kind of.

[Rachel]

Yeah.

[Melissa]

I don't know. But yeah. So if it takes. Because all those. Anybody who's done IVF know that there is a possibility that I go through all this and nothing comes of it.

[Friend 1]

And it's expensive, too, isn't it?

[Melissa]

That's why it took us two years to get here, is because it has taken us two years to be able to afford this. So, man. Because insurance doesn't cover it. But if a man wanted a little blue pill, he could have insurance. But that's a different story, too.

[Friend 1]

That's a different blog post.

[Melissa]

That's a whole. Yes. So anyway. So, yeah. So that is.

[Friend 1]

How exciting.

[Melissa]

So I'm freezing my eggs and I. Next week I will have eggs in

[Friend 2]

the free now finally, is this the wrong time to point out that I just had flying biscuit drop off breakfast and it can a lot of eggs.

[Friend 1]

You knew he was gonna have to say come on. It's like way too adult and serious of the conversation. You knew that had to come up.

[Melissa]

That's the best you come up with is you knew chicken. Well it for the. Anyway I was gonna make some kind of egg white joke or something, you know, egg joke that whatever. But anyway so yeah, so I. So I'm currently shooting my stomach and and about to release like anywhere from 1020. Thank you very much.

[Friend 1]

Congratulations.

[Bluff]

Get it the bird show. What's going on everyone? It's bluff here and we're driving through the states in the bluff mobile and the best thing that we can do is play our favorite casino style games. On Spin Quest they have over a thousand games including live dealer blackjack and craps. With tons of slots and unlimited options, you can get a 30 coin pack for just $10. For new users sign up today, go to spinquest.com right now Spinquest is a

[Spinquest Announcer]

free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

[Rachel]

One crunchy bite of a Hershey's cookies and cream bar and I'm taken right back to college. Move in day I was a little overwhelmed by the newness of it all.

[Friend 1]

Boxes were everywhere.

[Rachel]

I needed a break from unpacking. But just as I was able to take a breath and open my Hershey's cookies and cream bar, my new roommate Rachel walked in. I offered her a piece, but she said no. Then after a beat, she said, actually,

[Friend 1]

those are my favorite ones. We left.

[Rachel]

The ice was broken and we've been friends ever since.

[Friend 1]

Hershey's, it's your happy place.

[McDonald's Announcer]

All new drinks are now at McDonald's with refreshers like the Strawberry Watermelon Refresher and the Mango Pineapple Refresher with Popping Boba to crafted sodas like the Sprite Berry Blast with berry flavors and cold foam. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire six? All new drinks are here now at McDonald's.

[Spinquest Announcer]

Refreshers contain caffeine.