Infertility Survivors Finally Heard
Bronchitis has left the room. Good riddance one month of debilitating exhaustion. Three weeks of high-dose prednisone (a shrew-making steroid if there ever was one) plus regular rescue inhaler. Ten days of antibiotics. Twice-daily plus corticosteroid inhaler and nasal spray. Deep, glorious breaths. Life is good. So great to be back to something resembling normal….
My inbox has overflowed recently with new requests for writing and guidance as well as comments about the painful lived reality of IVF and egg freezing. The academic and bioethics world is also paying more attention to IVF survivorship. Here are some of the latest deep dives into the lived IVF reality. IVF Marketing Scrutiny…
Loss lives on in ways large and small following an infertility diagnosis and failed IVF. This truth permeates the world of IVF survivors. That’s just one of many topics explored in a new Life Beyond Failed Fertility podcast with yours truly now available on iTunes and on Spotify, Podomatic, and Amazon. Loss Reflections When the podcast…
IVF industry messaging is a hot mess. That’s the conclusion I came to after seeing yet another study this week come from the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE). Yes, you read that headline correctly. Patients overestimate success in IVF. The implication is that we arrived at this conclusion independently. As my colleague…
Each October I make a point to follow the ASRM conference. For those who don’t know, ASRM is the largest IVF industry trade group in the United States. They gather each year to congratulate each other and promote new ways ways to grow their clinics and businesses. This year was no different. Fortunately, the editors…
Abuse is a strong word. A formal definition of abuse is to “treat (a person or an animal) with cruelty or violence, especially regularly or repeatedly.” Mistreatment is one synonym. Linking Abuse with IVF I will travel from the U.S. to London later this week. Once there I will collaborate with clinicians, bioethicists, social scientists,…
IVF is a Sausage Factory I was not Prepared For… So writes Professor James Arvanitakis in an essay for The Sydney Morning Herald. Oh how we hear you, James. We are immensely grateful for your honesty. In a few paragraphs you painted a clear picture of what it feels like to be on the receiving…
Performance review time, already, for the fertility industry? Yes, it’s mid-October so let’s check in on the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) confab. This year it’s billed as a Scientific Congress and EXPO. Per usual, there are a few eyebrow raisers. I followed #ASRM2016 on Twitter over coffee this morning. (A decision made easier…
Moira Weigel’s essay in The Guardian, The foul reign of the biological clock, casts new light on a little explored but powerful cultural phenomenon. It also revealed the fertility industry’s long history of capitalizing on fertility fears, with women paying the price. Let’s start with the facts. The term ‘biological clock,’ Weigel explains, was originally…
Most of us take non-profits and their causes at face value and assume the people leading the charge are straight arrows with nary a conflict of interest. This is not always the case. The most recent example of things not quite being what they seem came from the recent CBS News investigation into the Wounded…