February, please! First, I’m not gonna lie. January 2022 tested me in a big way. Some might have viewed Omicron as nothing more than an inconvenient speed bump. That wasn’t how I saw it. While fully vaccinated and boosted, the very idea of a *more* transmissible variant prompted dread. Why? I’ve had more than enough…
Tag: trauma
A Conversation on Infertility Misconceptions
On the heels of her recent BBC interview (Drawing the Line: When IVF Doesn’t Work) health advocate and blogger Lesley Pyne offered to have an in-depth chat about my latest writing project, Finally Heard. Grab a cup of coffee or tea (or libation of your choice) and join Lesley and me as we launch into…
Infertility Community’s Black Sheep: Women Who Don’t Achieve Motherhood
Some ‘no-holds barred’ conversations stick with you — like the one Loribeth and I engaged in on surviving infertility and the search for peace in a mommy mad world. (Listen to the podcast here). Not achieving motherhood is a taboo topic in the infertility community, which is why we were unlikely guests on the tongue-in-cheek named…
When Did Normal Aging Become an Infertility Condition?
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…
Customers or Patients? What Happens When Doctors See Markets Not People
This week marks a year since Miriam Zoll and I authored The New York Times op-ed “Selling the Fantasy of Fertility.” The piece, which has since been nominated for a 2014 EMMA Exceptional Merit in Media Award by the National Women’s Political Caucus, had a wide reach and generated lots of discussion about the unregulated “fertility” industry….
Looking Out for Our Sisters In a World of False Fertility Claims
While my gray roots benefited from a rich brunette color drenching in a new hair salon recently a younger stylist handed me a glass of champagne. She was not my usual go-to hair expert so there was the usual get-to-know-you chitchat. (Yes, I decided to splurge a bit this time around since it was the…
When Unexplained is the Modifier Assigned To Your Infertility
I’m more convinced than ever that women born between 1960 and 1970 came of age at a particularly weird time fertility-wise. Think about it. In 1960 the birth control pill was made commercially available for the first time, and by the time we were wrapping our heads around how babies were made (or not if…
Casting off Chains of Infertility: Fertility Diary, The Life of Pi and Search for Peace
Each of us who confronts infertility has no idea where it will take us. We launch into turbulent seas unaware of when or if we will encounter calm water or be delivered into a safe harbor. Certain contributing reproductive conditions are more easily treated than others and some individuals have more disposal income than others…
Generation I.V.F. Shares Lessons Learned
We don’t get to choose when we’re born or the era in which we live, but we can decide what lessons we leave behind for others. Author and fellow former fertility treatment patient Miriam Zoll lays out some truths associated with what it means to be a part of Generation I.V.F. in a piece posted…
The Infertility Stories No One Advertises
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…