Infertility Survivors Finally Heard
As I wrote in this new essay published on Medium, it was perhaps only a matter of time before the lives of Louise Joy Brown, now 37-years old and residing in Bristol, England, and mine finally intersected.Jessica Hepburn, noted UK author and blogger, was the one who brought us together in a blog post titled…
When a former member of the ethics committee for the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) calls for fertility industry regulation we should sit up and pay attention. Earlier this month George Annas, a Boston University School of Public Health professor and chair of health law, wrote a blistering opinion piece, It’s Time to Regulate…
Life would be a whole lot more comfortable and easier to navigate if it unfolded neatly or predictably. Alas, that’s not the case for most of us. Mix in a contentious, complex topic (e.g. the inability to reproduce) and watch the discomfort rise. It’s understandable. Beyond the biological unpleasantness, there is upheaval to our sense…
Warning to those in a raw or vulnerable state: take caution listening to the interviews and discussions linked below. As I come up on my seven-year anniversary of The New York Times piece, Facing Life Without Children When it Isn’t by Choice (June 10, 2008), I can’t help but be reflective. If you went…
Come again? Did I read that wrong? Hasn’t aging always been synonymous with losing fertility? Menopause, anyone? Seems odd to call out normal aging as though it’s a disease or a condition that needs to be treated with procedures. In fact, the bigger question is why are women waiting until the age of menopause to…
This past weeks’ events and recent reading, as if added to blender, poured forth some new insights. In the days and weeks leading up to a busy set of family festivities (June birthdays and both a niece and nephew’s high school graduations), I received several warning emails from GoDaddy informing me that my Coming2Terms blog…
It’s no secret that I was unable to get pregnant during my prime child-bearing years. What I possess today (and didn’t have when I was 29 and just embarking on what became a prolonged medical mystery tour) is a healthy skepticism mixed with a dose of pragmatism. My inability to succeed with Mother Nature, and…
Editor’s Note: Updates (10/26) included below from BBC Health. It’s been more than a month since the op-ed prompted by failed infertility treatments, “Selling the Fertility Fantasy,” ran in The New York Times. Infertility stories that don’t end in a baby don’t grab headlines. But this one did. It reverberated across the infertility blogosphere to the…
Now that the shock, stigma and the ensuing hairball of emotions that infertility exploded on me has dissipated, I’m happy to report that with each year (nearly nine) post-treatment, life has become better than good. And, furthermore, my reproductive organs are thrilled, positively delighted, to be out of the limelight. It’s also a relief not to be wracked…