Actor and director Meagan Good was in her late 30s when she made the decision to freeze her eggs.
“When you say you’re not sure you want to be a mom, people look at you like you’re a bad person. As if something’s wrong with you,” Good, 39, told Romper. “But I was never really that girl who said, ‘I can’t wait to get married,’ ‘I can’t wait to be a mother.’ I was very much a tomboy, and I started my career so young that I’d always been very business-oriented.”
The "If Not Now, When?" star and director, who wed producer and author DeVon Franklin in 2012, took the first step on her journey to motherhood three years ago when she froze her eggs.
The process, she said, "wasn't a nightmare at all," though when doctors initially found only 10 eggs, she was devastated.
"I busted out crying," Good said. "But I had something like a cyst inside my uterus that needed to be shrunk by doubling up on birth control pills, and when it shrunk they found 17 eggs."
Of those, 14 survived, and seven were viable after a chromosome test. Four fertilized eggs made the cut.
Injections were another story. "I wanted to have someone come inject me because I couldn't ever imagine injecting myself," said Good, who was "terrified." But once she tried it, the only issue was tenderness. "Once I got used to it, it was like, 'Let’s get this thing done!'"
Though she experienced intense anxiety from the hormones, Good, whose new film is streaming on Amazon and Apple TV, is at peace with her decision.
“The process gave me peace of mind, 100%,” Good told Romper. "I’m a believer in what the Bible says: ‘Faith without works is dead.’ I have my faith, and freezing my eggs, to be proactive instead of reactive, is me putting in work with my faith. You’ll never regret doing it, but you might really regret not doing it.”
Statistics show that the best time for a woman to freeze her eggs is between the ages of 32 and 35, said Dr. Brian Levine, practice director of New York City fertility clinic CCRM.
“After 35 there’s a decline in the quality and quantity of eggs available,” Levine previously told TODAY Parents. “With that said, I always advise patients, no matter how old they are, that they are the youngest the moment that we’re talking, and they’re just going to get older.”
Good, who is now certain she wants to be a mom, has no regrets about taking her time.
"I want a family and I'm just now to a place where I think it's about that time," she said. "I can't wait to get to it now. That's a very new thing for me. It's a really cool feeling."