Severe Anxiety During Egg Freezing: 4 Things to Know If You're Thinking About Stopping

She was supposed to start stims this week. She's 32. She's been planning this. But the panic attacks started before the injections. And on Day 2, she stopped. She left two voicemails for her clinic's nursing team. They haven't called back. She has a gut feeling she needs to quit. And she's asking the internet because she has nobody in her life who's been through this. Health anxiety and egg freezing: a particularly brutal combination Health anxiety and fertility treatment are not a natural fit. The process requires you to inject your body with hormones, attend regular monitoring appointments where numbers either reassure or alarm you, and wait — for results you can't control. If you already struggle with medical anxiety, this process amplifies everything. This is not weakness. It's a real collision between a necessary process and a real condition. OHSS: what it actually is, how common, and who's at risk Mild OHSS — bloating, discomfort, nausea — affects around 10-20% of women doing stimulation cycles. Moderate OHSS affects fewer. Severe OHSS, which requires hospitalisation, affects roughly 1-2%. Risk factors include young age, low body weight, high AFC, high AMH, and a previous history of OHSS. Women described as 'poor responders' are actually at lower risk of OHSS, not higher. What to do if you freeze mid-cycle Stopping on Day 2 is not the end. Medically, you need to contact your clinic immediately — not leave a voicemail and wait. If they're not responding, go in. Clinically, what happens next depends on how your body has responded so far. Day 2 is very early. Your options may include pausing, adjusting medication, or cycling off. When quitting is valid — and when fear is running the show Sometimes the right call is to stop. If the anxiety is severe enough that it's causing physical symptoms and disrupting your functioning, continuing isn't always the answer. But sometimes fear does talk us out of things we actually want. The question I'd want to ask her: is the fear saying 'this isn't right for me' or is it saying 'this is hard and I'm scared'? Those are different things. You're allowed to be scared and do it anyway Get the clinic on the phone today. Not a voicemail — actually speak to someone. Then, when you have medical guidance, make the emotional decision from a slightly clearer place. You don't have to feel ready to do this. You just have to decide if it matters enough. If you are navigating egg freezing alone, Sopotion was built for you. Start at calendly.com/sopotion-info.