Infertility Survivors Finally Heard
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…
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,…
Fertility clinics have operated with impunity for 40 years. New reporting, though, raises issues about their business motives and commitment to patient well-being. If you’d asked me 12 years ago, will the headline “Fertility Clinics Under Fire” ever run on the cover of an international women’s magazine, my answer would likely have been: What, Why?…
IVF is 40 this month. Type ‘IVF is 40’ into your news search engine of choice. You’ll find headlines that reflect a one-dimensional narrative. Missing from the narratives are couples who’ve had to cope with the aftermath of 20 million failed IVF cycles. You also won’t read about the health toll on young women involved…
One story will forever mark a turning point for me. It ran June 10, 2008 so that date now has special significance. It’s the day I crossed over from a blogger writing under a pseudonym to my reveal on The New York Times homepage (yeah, I know, it still blows my mind, too). In the…
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…
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…
Nine years ago tonight the blog Coming2Terms arrived on the scene. It started with a hesitant point and click … PUBLISH. The blogosphere in 2007 was still relatively new and more than a bit wild and disordered. It seemed the perfect place to explore taboo topics. Discussion about infertility and failed fertility treatment was, indeed, not…
In a powerful new essay, Questioning the Cult of Repro Tech, health advocate and author Miriam Zoll reveals little publicized details behind today’s now seemingly ubiquitous fertility procedure: in vitro fertilization (IVF). Her research and writing make for a compelling read. Zoll raises important questions about bioethics and the way fertility medicine is marketed and…