The one test every woman should get

I’ve been thinking about what to do for fertility week – a week that means a lot to me. I wrote about my struggles with infertility after my miscarriage last April and again after I announced my pregnancy with Scarlett. Through my experience, I learnt so much. I spoke to other women who had similar experiences, I had multiple opinions from multiple doctors and I read for hours online.

One thing consistently blows my mind. Although this was not my issue, I kept coming across women who had low AMH levels and were at the risk of not being able to get pregnant with a biological child. I’m not a doctor, so please take this with a grain of salt, but your AMH level is sort of a measure of the amount of eggs you have left. Women are born with their lifetime supply of eggs at birth (crazy, right?) So actually, the eggs for my grandchildren were developed in my belly – or something like that! Typically, your AMH level decreases with age. As you grow nearer to the end of your child bearing years, your AMH level drops.

Some women could have very high AMH levels in their 30s, and some could have low. Some women could have very high AMH levels in their 20s, and some could have low. We are all ticking time bombs and have no way of knowing where we are until we are tested. Most people don’t get tested until they tell a doctor they are struggling to get pregnant or already decide to freeze their eggs. I have multiple friends who couldn’t get pregnant int their 20s, went in for IVF to find that their AMH levels were so low that if they waited to try to get pregnant until their 30s, they may have never been able to have biological children.

Calculating your AMH level is a simple blood test. It blows my mind that this is not tested for the way that many women do genetic testing when they are thinking about having children. Even further, why isn’t this part of a routine exam for women who are thinking about children in 5 years? What if you were 24 years old, not looking to have children, but discovered you had unusually low AMH levels? You could roll the dice and try to get pregnant naturally when you are ready in a few years, or you can freeze your eggs – which essentially solves for the problem of time. What if you have one child and want to wait a while to have your next? The scenarios are infinite.

Men don’t have the same time pressure women have. We were born with a biological clock that ticks down the time until we can no longer have children. Maybe this is why we stereotypically are more inclined to “want” relationships earlier in life. It’s not emotions, it’s science. Just as a woman’s role in the workplace has evolved, so too has science. I am not saying that freezing eggs is for everyone, and I am not saying that it is easy, but what I am saying is that it should be an option that is routinely discussed. It should not have to be inquired about, it should be part of a routine conversation with our doctors. Oh, and it should be covered by insurance – particularly if it is due to something like a low AMH level. Unfortunately, today, many insurance companies still consider having a child elective – or ding us for wanting to put our careers first and wait to have a child.

This conversation is huge. It’s massive. Change needs to happen and I am confident at some point it will. Women have jumped through harder hurdles (like remember when we couldn’t vote!?) I’m a believer that society has come a long way and will continue to move in the right direction. Maybe I’m just an optimist. But until then… spread the word to request an AMH level test!