01: I Froze My Eggs - With Mandi Anyangwe

Living African

The decision to freeze one's egg is a difficult one to make considering the cost, health procedure, unintended discrimination, and harsh judgment our community passes on couples who try to use unconventional means (advance technology) in their reproduction journey.

Unsurprisingly, when people in our community are educated on this issue, most of the unintended discrimination and harsh judgment goes away because they now know better and will communicate with a great deal of insight.

So to continue our purpose as a platform for having these uncomfortable discussions in our community, I have here with me Mandi Anyangwe - to tell us about her experience with egg freezing or egg cryopreservation.

Meet our Guest:

Mandi Anyangwe is originally from Cameroon and lives in New York City where she works as a Technical Engagement Manager for AWS. She ensures fast time to value for clients and maintains a great customer experience across multiple industries. Outside of work, you can find her traveling, at a sports game, or having a good time with her loved ones.

Mandi shares her story about freezing her eggs, something that is seldom done in our African community. We hope her story is as inspirational as it is to us.

Contact Mandi: IG/Snapchat/Facebook - @Mandi April

Things You Will Learn in This Episode:

[00:01 – 03:00] Introduction

• Introducing our guest - Mandi Anyangwe

[03:00 – 18:00] Understanding Egg Freezing & Mandi's Thought Process

• Why Mandi decided to freeze her eggs
• The stereotypical attitude and discrimination people face
• Why we need to embrace change
• Making the necessary research before making the decision

[18:00 – 30:00] The Egg Freezing Process

• The health structure behind freezing your eggs
• Mandi narrates the whole process with clarity
• The surgery and Mandi's experience
• Is Mandi paying egg rent?

[30:00 – 45:00] Challenges Mandi Experienced

• Mandi talks about her fear during injections
• Facing difficulties during the preparation period
• The pressure Mandi faced during the process

[45:00 – 54:10] Final Discussions

• Encouragement from Mandi
• Final words from Mandi
• Final words from Anyoh

Tweetable Quotes:

"I just want folks to take off that mindset of "it's a taboo." It's not common, you know, my aunt will say this, people will say this and think I'm crazy. Please just don't worry about it because the more we start doing things for ourselves and the future and not for others, life will be much simpler, it'll be much easier, right?" - Mandi Anyangwe

"I never wanted to put myself in that position where I have to settle or pressure myself to be with somebody I don't want to be because I feel like am passing out on my biological clock. I want to be with someone because I want to at the right time." - Mandi Anyangwe

"There's some weird conspiracy and stereotype about people having kids through egg freezing. Some say mentally unstable kids or whatever but that is totally false! I read a lot of articles about that, to be honest with you and a lot of people debunked all those theories to be totally false." - Mandi Anyangwe

"I just want people to embrace change because the world is changing with huge technological advances and innovation. There are going to be new processes, and new opportunities coming out for different people so let's just be open-minded to seeing things the way it is, as opposed to what we're accustomed to or what people made us think" - Mandi Anyangwe

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You can connect with Anyoh on Facebook (@anyohf), Instagram (@anyohfombad), and Twitter (@anyohfombad).