After 3 Rounds of Egg-Freezing, Olivia Munn Hopes to Grow Her Family Amid Breast Cancer Battle
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Olivia Munn has been slowly opening up with fans about her health over the past few months. From sharing her shocking breast cancer diagnosis in March to getting real about postpartum mental health, the X-Men: Apocalypse star has been honest about the toll her treatments have taken and the importance of in-depth breast cancer screenings, all in the name of raising awareness. Now, the mom of one is opening up about another major health procedure: freezing her eggs, which she revealed she’s done three times.
In a new interview with Vogue, Munn explained that she had her eggs frozen at ages 33, 39, and most recently at 42, before beginning breast cancer treatment. “It’s interesting because my 33-year-old eggs were great. My 39-year-old eggs? None of them worked,” Munn said, explaining that “as you get older, one month can have great eggs, the other not so much. Clearly, the month we did at 39 was not a good month.”
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After she was diagnosed with breast cancer, “we decided to try one more round of egg retrievals and hoped it was a good month,” Munn continued. She and her partner, John Mulaney, had decided they weren’t quite done growing their family, but weren’t sure if her treatment would include chemotherapy or radiation, both of which can impact fertility.
Even going through an egg retrieval process was complicated with the kind of cancer Munn had: Luminal B, which feeds and grows from estrogen. During egg retrievals, patients are typically given high doses of hormones to help develop and “ripen” multiple eggs, per Mayo Clinic, an option that wasn’t available to Munn given her type of cancer. She took lower doses of hormones and doctors were able to retrieve seven eggs (only three less than her goal of 10), which led to two healthy embryos.
When Munn and Mulaney got the news, they “just started crying,” said Munn, who had told her partner that if they didn’t get any viable embryos, she wanted to go through another round of egg retrieval — even if that meant delaying her cancer treatment. “It was just so exciting because not only did we get it in one retrieval, but it also meant that I didn’t have to keep putting myself at risk,” she said.
Munn, now 43, also shared an additional procedure she went through in her cancer journey: a hysterectomy (aka removal of the uterus) and oophorectomy (removal of the ovaries). Previously, Munn had spoken about being on estrogen-suppressing drugs to better her chances of beating the cancer, but the side effects — including extreme fatigue — were so intense that Munn opted to have those estrogen-producing organs removed altogether. “It was the best decision for me because I needed to be present for my family,” Munn said, explaining that she felt she was missing too much of her son Malcolm’s childhood due to the medication.
Now, the actress is looking to the future and potentially using a surrogate — and she’s tackling it with that same clear-eyed honesty as the rest of her journey. “With a surrogate, you have to try to go find … somebody that you trust as much as yourself to live their life as a pregnant woman the same way that you would,” Munn said. “But a surrogate isn’t a scary prospect to me anymore because there’s nothing I can do. I don’t have the ability to carry a baby anymore, so if we want to build our family, this is our option.”
The whole experience — of having breast cancer, facing down multiple surgeries and treatments, and now thinking of expanding her family — has also given Munn perspective. “This journey has made me realize how grateful I am to have options for not only fighting cancer, but also having more children if we want, because I know a lot of people don’t have those options,” she said.
Before you go, read about these celebs who have shared their health issues to tackle stigma:
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