My name is Valerie Landis. For my 33rd birthday as a gift to myself, I finally crossed off egg freezing from my bucket list and retrieved 22 beautiful eggs that resulted in 17 successfully freezing via vitrification or fast-freezing in 2015. It was an empowering experience that I am thankful to be given the opportunity to do and what effectively inspired me to start eggsperience.com.

I froze again in 2017 at 35-years old to collect another 12 eggs to add to my egg collection. During that time, I created the Eggology Club podcast to help expand the awareness about what egg freeezing can do for women. I decided to personally freeze one more time and document the process from start to finish. I spent the next year physically preparing my body for another fertility cycle. The goal was to see if lifestyle changes could improve my fertility outcome and build off my other cycles. I was able to successfully freeze 32 mature eggs in 2019, a month before my 37th birthday and to bring my grand total of 61 eggs frozen in the bank.

I am very public and open about my fertility journey and long-term fertility strategy. I help advise other women about their family planning choices through {her}strategies fertility counseling. I always knew I would freeze my eggs someday, it was just a matter of when. If I had been born ten years earlier, this amazing technology of cryopreservation, vitrification, and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) lifting the experimental label for egg freezing may not have been an option to have taken advantage of. I diversified my personal risks even further by using 3 different fertility clinics and different RE (reproductive endocrinologist) doctors to help me freeze my eggs. I was bound and determined to utilize vitrification while I was still young enough to benefit the most from egg freezing and share my raw experiences to help others in the process.

After being in startup land and the medical field for over a decade, I have extensive work history in women’s health, egg freezing, IVF, fertility, oncology, breast cancer, and clinical research projects. I was astounded by the lack of educational resources available for women. I struggled to find egg freezing/fertility examples, what to expect when freezing, or how the fertility drugs could be emotional roller coaster. I found it challenging to learn about other women’s experiences (not sensationalized by the news) who talked openly and honestly about their egg freezing journey. When I did find personal stories, I was encouraged and relieved to learn they experienced similar symptoms and side effects I had also experienced.

I wanted to create a “Girlfriend’s Guide” or “Egg Freezing For Dummies“ or rather “For Smarties” out there to refer to. I realized after going through the procedure myself what I wanted to read, hear, see, and learn about. I figured if I wanted to learn about those things, you might too. I wanted to create something to help women feel brave, to act progressively on these fertility decisions, and provide non-bias resources for the purpose of education at any reproductive age. Even being educated in the field of fertility, I didn’t know until I became a patient myself, what the true effects of injecting myself with hormones would feel like or how it would impact the way I think and feel. Now you can learn from not only my experience but the experience of countless others to be inspired to take control of your future today.

I’m the proud dog owner of an affectionate 4-pound Yorkie named Izzy. She is sweet, loyal, and a constant companion. Izzy acts as my pseudo kid until I take my egg-sicle babies out of the freezer and make my own anxious mother, a grandma someday. I am currently working on a video series and documentary film called This Is Egg Freezing to showcase my personal fertility journey, the history of egg freezing, and interviews of important people who help lead the way to advance the technology. This exploration covers every raw and real event during my fertility treatments and follows my daily journey freezing my eggs.

Overall, I’m just your average girl-next-door with a big heart and even bigger dreams with the desire to making a difference in the world one person at a time. I have a passion for people. I am not striving to be a household name like Beyoncé however, we do share the same birthday. Please tell your friends who may be thinking about or are struggling with this topic. Read, explore, and come join the ride as we learn from each other. Let me know what you think, I can’t wait to hear from you!

xo, Valerie

Find me online everywhere!