Originally written for the 1996 March/April issue of Psychology Today Magazine, this article stills feels timely and relevant. I’ve had this page bookmarked for a while and have been digesting it in bits. Don’t be turned off by the first paragraph which states:

Contrary to popular belief, there is no infertility crisis sweeping the nation. We’ve just lost all conception of what it takes to conceive. Reproductive technology has made us impatient with nature. So for increasing numbers of couples the creation of a new human being has become a strangely dehumanizing process.

Because what follows is actually a quite thoughtful and thorough discussion of infertility, assisted reproduction and the role it is now playing in our lives. And, pages later, the article finally does admit that it is nearly impossible to determine whether or not infertility in men is rising or falling and,

Although infertility rates are not on the rise overall, Creighton University sociologist Shirley Scritchfield, Ph.D., points out that they are rising among some subgroups of the population: all young women between the ages of 20 and 24 and women of color.

A rise in sexually transmitted diseases, which can permanently harm reproductive organs, is seen as a primary reason.

The article explores why couples go through such lengths to reproduce and how the insertion of technology into the mix can both dehumanize the process and intensify the desire to add a new human to the family:

Couples undergoing intensive fertility treatments lose their wide-angle perspective on life. They may fall behind in their careers and cut themselves off from friends and family, all in the narcissistic pursuit of cloning their genes. Technology may provide us with the illusion that it’s helping us control our reproductive fate, but in reality, it just adds to the narcissism. “The higher tech the treatment, the more inwardly focused couples become,” says Doherty.

I’m not sure if I agree with those assumptions, but I don’t mind these conclusions:

“Most couples who seek fertility treatment are committed enough to their relationship that they will go through pain and suffering to have a child together,” says Pasch. And if they have the skills to address their problem, their relationships tend to become stronger—even if they never have a baby.”

I would love to hear your take on Psychology Today’s take on “technofertility.”

…after you add your entry to the latest Green Giveaway, which features the kind of high tech Fertility Scope.

Post from: Blisstree

Has “Technofertility” Taken Over?

In celebration of the event, I want to remind my readers that in addition to their online resources and forums, the National Infertility Association RESOLVE actually offers two different types of “real life” support groups – one led by mental health professionals and a more informal peer-support group often known as “coffee and conversation.”

RESOLVE understands that,

Making the decision to join a RESOLVE group can be difficult for some people. It may be the first time you have ever been in a group and you may wonder if you will become overly emotional in the group and too vulnerable to others. Remember that most people feel insecure about joining a group! But, keep in mind that a group, whether it be professionally led or peer led, will help you feel less isolated, empower you with knowledge and validate your emotional response to the life crisis of infertility. Also, a recent study found that attendees of RESOLVE support groups had higher pregnancy rates.

If you’re looking for some one-on-one advice, you can find a mental health professional who understands the psychological and emotional aspects of reproductive health through American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM)’s Mental Health Professional Group. Why go see a mental health professional? ASRM’s 2-page FAQ sheet talks about the why and what a MH professional might be able to help you do.

But if you’re still feeling a little shy, I invite you to find support as you work through your fertility issues online. Or, perhaps you just need to know that you are not the only person trying to navigate what should be a simple path towards parenthood: Cyclesista is a great place for that.

When we first started to explore assisted reproductive options, what was important to me was to know that we weren’t just spinning our wheels and that there were people out there who were now proud parents with a little help from some friends (and good reproductive endocrinologists). And I can’t thank Melissa enough for leading me to them. No matter which stage you are in on your journey, you can bet you will find someone to connect with on Stirrup Queen’s Completely Anal List of Blogs that Proves That She Missed Her Calling as a Personal Organizer.

So, what are you waiting for? Get Connected!

Post from: Blisstree

Get Connected for Mental Health Month

Why am I telling you this? Besides the fact that there seems to be a great lineup of speakers, it is FREE!

Yes, completely free. The conference runs from 8 am to 4:30 pm and your free admission includes breakfast and dinner.

The following information is from www.fertiledreams.org:

If you are trying to start a family, but have questions, reproductive health and adoption experts will be available to answer questions on the latest advances in as well as adoption.

Fertility and adoption experts include:

Alice Domar, PhD, Director, Mind/Body Services, Boston IVF, Assistant Professor, Ob/GYN and Reproductive Biology, Harvard Medical School – Dr. Domar will speak about the connection between stress and infertility.

Marc Hughes, PhD, MD, Director, Genesis Genetics Institute, Detroit – Dr. Hughes will discuss advances in IVF.

David L. Keefe, MD – Professor/Chairman, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of South Florida, Tampa. Dr. Keefe will discuss recurrent pregnancy loss causes and treatments.

Ricardo Loret de Mola, MD , Reproductive Endocrinologist & Infertility Specialist, Assistant Professor of Reproductive Biology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland – Dr. Loret de Mola will discuss fertility in women over 35.

Sejal Patel, MD, Reproductive Endocrinologist & Infertility Specialist, Center for Reproductive Medicine, Orlando – Dr. Patel will speak on Advances in Reproductive Surgery.

Laurel Stadtmauer, MD/PhD, Reproductive Endocrinologist & Infertility Specialist, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk – Dr. Stadtmauer will speak on third party reproduction (egg donation, embryo adoption and surrogacy) as well as polycystic ovarian syndrome.

Stephen Shaban , MD, Male Reproductive Urologist, North Carolina Urological Associates, Chapel Hill – Dr. Shaban will discuss male reproductive issues and various treatment options.

Charlotte H. Danciu, Attorney, Delray Beach, Florida – Ms. Danciu, practices family and reproductive law, will discuss adoption, gestational and traditional surrogacy, and embryo donation.

Lori Fraas, licensed clinical social worker and president of Adoption Support Services of Florida, Orlando – Ms. Fraas will discuss paths to successful adoption and affordable adoption.

Nicole Witt, MBA, The Adoption Consultancy, Brandon, Florida – Ms. Witt will discuss paths to adoption

Space is limited, so they recommend that you register online at www.fertiledreams.org or by calling 407-672-1106.

Fertile Dreams, Inc is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization whose mission is to empower those touched by fertility issues through prevention, education, and advocacy. It is committed to redefining public perceptions of infertility by facilitating dialogue, dispelling myths, and championing for fertility rights, thereby eradicating the stigma that exists today.

I would love to know if any of my readers were planning to attend. Please let me know!

Post from: Blisstree

4th Annual Paths to Parenthood Conference

The book focuses on the author’s feelings about being adopted, finding her birth mother, or rather, her birth mother finding her, and trying to find the similarities, if any, between “who I arrived as and who I’ve become.” As I read the first 36 pages, I kept waiting to find a passage that didn’t resonate, that didn’t feel like I could have written it. The story then twists and takes a path that neither Homes nor I had expected and reaffirmed for me that the person asking the questions is never really in control of the answers she might receive.

Before I share my answers with you, here’s Melissa from Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters to explain how this all works:

This book club is entirely online and open to anyone (male or female) in the infertility/pregnancy loss/assisted conception/adoption/parenting-after-infertility world (as well as any other related category I inadvertently left off the list). It is called a book tour because everyone reads the same book and then poses a question to the group. Participants choose a few questions to answer and then post their response on their blog. Readers can jump from blog to blog, commenting along the way.

Sound like fun? Go here for details on next month’s book. Want to read more? Check out these bloggers to see how they reacted to the book:

The Annex (Josh)
The Road Less Travelled (Loribeth)
Everyday Stranger (Helen)
Weebles Wobblog (Lori)
Candy’s Land (Candy)
Sell Crazy Someplace Else (Jendeis)

My reactions are below:

Notwithstanding what happens in the book, most adoptions from the 1950s’ and 60s’ are closed, with birth records sealed except upon a courts’ finding “good cause” to open them. In light of Homes’s experiences, does this seem to be the appropriate method for handling adoption records?

I was adopted in 1974 through Catholic Social Services and my records are closed. My birth certificate names my adopted parents, who have always been open about the fact that I was adopted, but like Homes’ parents, seem to have forgotten the details that feel so critical to me. What is left is a whitewashed story, so similar to the one Homes’ grew up with, which talks about anticipation and longing and ends with a brand new baby being hand delivered to the expectant family who has always known she would be theirs.

My knowledge of my origins comes from bits and pieces gathered from my adopted parents’ vague recollections and papers and scraps found stuffed in my baby book (I’m guessing salvaged from other places when my parents’ basement flooded and put there for safekeeping, not for finding). Some of the papers are legal, others handwritten, reading like a recipe on how to keep me happy and free from rashes (apparently I was allergic to several things). These scraps and receipts feel like they’ve fallen out of Pandora’s Box and into my lap and are staring up at me, waiting for my next move. We’ll discuss that in a later response.

Where I Came From has always felt like a bit of a mystery to me, a puzzle which I could either try to logically piece together, or better yet, use to create, like Homes, “the myth of my beginning.” Homes writes, “In my dreams my birth mother is a goddess,” and this mirrors my own created reality. I know my birth mother was very young (16), musically inclined, nearsighted, obviously Catholic. I was told my father was a little older (18), also musically inclined and of Polish descent. I was told that he wanted nothing to do with my birth mother once he found out she was pregnant, that he essentially abandoned us both, leaving her alone to figure out how best to proceed.

The story I heard was that she “loved me so much that she knew she could never give me everything that I deserved. She realized that to give me the life I should have that she would have to give me to someone else.” You know us Catholics love martyrs. Can you see how this woman quickly grew to princess status in my mind?

A closed adoption gave me the freedom to create a Perfect Mother in my head and hold it there. This image gave me peace and comfort, especially in those times where I felt disconnected. It didn’t matter where I was, because where I came from was someplace special, and where I would go, I knew, would make my birth mother proud.

It is hard for me to discuss open adoption, because I know so little about it. It is so far removed from my understanding of adoption, which is cloaked in secrecy and anonymity. My closest brush with it comes from high school, where another student was pregnant and quite open about the fact that she would be giving her child up for adoption. I remember her talking about selecting the parents (did my birth mother choose my parents?). I remember the student creating a scrapbook about herself for the new parents to share with her child. This absolutely blew me away. Did such a document exist for me???? I remember being incredibly envious of this not-yet-adopted, hell not-yet-born little baby.

But then I stop and think about it from a wanna-be mom point of view. I know that my adopted mom always considered me her daughter and she my mother and was incredibly defensive of any other interpretation. “Do I feed you? Do I take care of you? Do I put up with your sh*t? Well, I guess I’m your mother aren’t I?” I cannot imagine her mental well-being holding up very well with a birth mother stopping by to say hi every few months. I think she would have been seen as an interloper, worse, an intruder, into this version of a family that had been created. And how would I have held up?

And what about now? If we were to consider adoption, what kind of relationship would we want with a birth mother? Amicable? Anonymous? What would be best for the children? For the family?

I honestly don’t know, but I am eager to hear how others answer this question.

In the book, A.M. Homes writes about being adopted into a family that had recently lost a nine year old son. She says “I always felt that my role in the family was to heal things, to make everything all right – to replace a dead boy.” Grieving mothers of this generation and others, were often told to “forget about their lost child, have another one right away, move on” What, if any, of this is helpful advice and why/why not? Is this attitude something that might give a subsequent child the burden of feeling that they would not have been wanted had their sibling lived – particularly in the case of adoption, where the child was specifically chosen and might not have been otherwise?

I never felt like I was replacing anyone in particular, but I did feel the burden of being something/someone that was the result of years and years of anticipation. While my parents never discussed their previous attempts at having children, they made it very clear that they waited and waited and waited for the “perfect little girl” to arrive. No pressure, right?

I am not sure though that this pressure is specific to adoptees (although, had you asked me years ago, I would have told you it was). I keep reading now that those of us using assisted reproductive techniques (ART) will be guilty of placing unreasonable expectations on our children conceived through these methods because they will embody the hopes and dreams of all previous attempts. I’m not sure I agree with that either. What child doesn’t embody hopes and dreams of their parents? Actual, adopted, assisted? Does it matter?

In The Mistress’ Daughter, AM Homes points to several facts that undermine her parents’ assertion that they had always wanted three children. She doubts whether or not she would have come into the picture had her older brother survived. But I don’t find these “what if” scenarios very useful, simply because they can spin off into so many different paths and directions, like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. What if my birth mother hadn’t given me away? What if a different set of parents would have chosen me? What if my parents chose me but chose a different little brother for me? What if my parents would have been successful at conceiving while waiting for me? What if….

One doesn’t “forget” about a lost child. One doesn’t “move on.” But this advice feels so familiar and so oft-stated, even now. But do we use these words with people who have just lost an aging parent? A spouse? When someone you have shared part of your life with, even for a brief moment, is no longer there, the pain can feel unbearable. I am not one who ever looks for advice, but I do look for ways to cope and continue with life. I don’t think “forgetting” is ever a useful piece of advice.

The story about Ellen’s boxes and the fact that the author was unable to go through them for several years struck a cord with me as I have my own boxes that are hiding in the house waiting for unpacking. Have you experienced something similar with a project, book, or other item that plagued you with emotions that prevented you from tackling it? What was the situation? How did it resolve– did you become zealous about something you discovered during the resolution (like the author’s quest for her genealogy) or did it just all fade away?

While I don’t hold the bounty of Ellen’s boxes, I do hold in my possession a handful of recently discovered facts and potential leads to my birth parents. While my adoption was closed, I am fairly certain there is enough here to lead me somewhat closer to the truth of my origins. There are court documents, lawyer’s stationary, no names (except for the one I was called in the orphanage), but I think there is enough.

When I first stumbled across these things, it felt like my fingers were on fire. I was ready to start making phone calls, send Michael off to courthouses to dig through public records, take excursions to the part of the state where I believe I was from, stake out Catholic churches and wait by the exits to see someone who looked like me. I met with my adopted brother to share what I had learned about him and to ask him what he would do with the information.

Nothing. He said. Absolutely nothing.

He had no desire to dig deeper. Find more. His rationale – what if he didn’t like what he found?

Like Pandora’s Box, like AM’s initial meetings with Ellen, you can never put the lid back on. You can never unlearn the new knowledge. And unlike your imagination, there are now other people and other lives involved. It’s no longer just about you.

So that conversation, this book and other recent events in my life have set the papers back on a shelf. I can’t decide where I will go from here. If anywhere.

Post from: Blisstree

The Mistress’s Daughter by AM Homes

I was also gratified to see the America Fertility Association (AFA)’s response to its members and to the show. Here it is in full:

As many of you know, The AFA makes every effort to assist the media when reports, stories and programs deal with infertility, reproductive difficulties, fertility preservation and protection. We were approached by the Tyra Banks Show senior producer who pitched one segment about women who pursue ART despite repeated let-downs and perhaps impossible odds. We sent a notice to you asking if you’d be interested in participating in that show. What we’ve subsequently learned is that the taping revealed another agenda entirely. We are furious. There is no excuse for that duplicitious solicitation. Below is the open letter we’ve sent to the Trya Banks senior producer.

Ms. Radecki,

The American Fertility Association is writing in response to the numerous calls, emails and blog links we’ve received about the Tyra Banks Show you’ve produced about “infertility.”

We gladly assisted you in your effort to recruit people who’ve stuck with Assisted Reproduction despite long-shot odds and the painful difficulties associated with compromised fertility for an installment of your show. Your detailed query asked for contact with women who could speak emotionally and articulately about their determination and their struggles (see below). It is your right to interview willing and informed participants as you see fit. Here we underscore informed. Your show is not a news show, but rather planned entertainment. Nowhere in that initial letter or in numerous subsequent conversations did you even hint that what you were intending was a set up for “spontaneous” interventions and the subsequent damaging conflagrations.

Let’s be clear. If you’d honestly put forth your mission, stating that the Tyra Banks Show was interested in emotional confrontations, people willing to defend to family, friends and the world their particular quest for biogenetic children, we’d have put out your solicitation to our membership just the same. We believe in the intelligent decision-making capacities of the people The American Fertility Association serves. However, it now appears you were running a bait-and-switch operation designed to exploit well-meaning and, apparently, the most vulnerable among this group of patients simply to re-create a by-now tired and trite TV rite of public humiliation. That is simply reprehensible.

It is unfortunate that the prism through which The Tyra Banks Show chose to view the delicate and complex subjects of reproductive difficulties and associated medical treatments yielded very little about those topics. Instead, we are told, the focus was on manufactured conflict and hysteria. You could just as well have targeted any other poorly understood condition or disease and produced the same segment.

We regret that we have exposed our membership to such tactics. Despite urging that you treat reproductive difficulties with sensitivity and thoughtfulness — even if that yielded tough grilling and a feisty give-and-take, you chose to tread the same histrionic ground that’s pretty well trampled by now.
The Staff of The American Fertility Association

Word.

Post from: Blisstree

AFA Response to the Tyra Banks Show

At the time of writing, she was probably right. Fortunately, a lot has changed since Cindy (who is also the Celebrity Spokesperson for RESOLVE) decided to write her book. And I am hopeful that public perception will change even more as women like Cindy bravely share their struggles with infertility with the world. Having a Baby functions as a personal memoir, a self-help book, a resource and a primer for anyone just entering the (potentially scary, somewhat secret) world of ART (assistive reproductive techniques). In her introduction, Cindy explains:

This book is an effort to bring infertility out in the open where we can deal with it together.

And for that reason alone, the book can be seen as a success. Cindy shares her own experiences with trying to get pregnant, wondering why she wasn’t getting pregnant, the depression and angst that comes along with not being able to get pregnant and finally the determination and resolve to ask for help. Her first chapter “Our Story” will probably sound very familiar to many.

While I’m not crazy about her oft-repeated term “baby dreams” and the assertion that they will, somehow, come true, I appreciate the hopeful approach that Cindy is trying to take. On page 3 Cindy asserts, “If you want to have a family (and you are reasonably sane and solvent), you will.” But within those parentheses lie two very large caveats. Infertility will stretch the limits of both. Options are not limitless and you will have to come to terms with some very serious considerations before even pursuing some of those options. Thankfully, Cindy addresses these points throughout the book.

The book is peppered with helpful websites and resources, and gives good advice on what to expect in a typical infertility work up how to choose a Fertility Specialist. Cindy assures the reader, “A first visit to the fertility specialist can and should educate and empower you.” This is a sentiment she repeats often, and one that I appreciate. Cindy wrote Having a Baby with the assistance of her own fertility specialist, Dr. Snunit Ben-Ozer, so I felt pretty confident that her more technical advice was accurate, at least during the time of writing.

There is some information in the book that feels a little dated. For example, For one of Cindy’s first IVF attempts, six embryos were implanted at one time (and now, one would be hard pressed to find a clinic willing to implant more than three). This is no diss on Cindy. This is how rapidly that reproductive techniques are developing, honing, getting better. Which is why its all the more important that individuals know the options available to them.

As someone who underwent a series of failed IVF attempts before finally becoming pregnant through a technique called GIFT ( gamete intrafallopian transfer) and then a mother of twins using a surrogate, Cindy can speak with a voice of authority when she advises readers to know themselves and to think through possibilities and how they want to address them before those tough decisions are presented to them. I had to laugh (a little self-consciously) when she tells readers that it is easy to become a martyr throughout a process that involves lots of needles and pokes: “If that’s your nature, you’ll need to take extra care to tone it down.” Ok. Fine. I’ll try.

If you have been living with infertility for a number of years or if you have already undergone an IVF or other assistive technique, Having a Baby…When the Old-Fashioned Way Isn’t Working: Hope and Help for Everyone Facing Infertility may seem a little repetitive to you, or you may see it as an affirmation that you are not the only person that’s been there; done that. For those just starting to come to terms with not being able to get pregnant the old fashioned way, and beginning to explore their options, Cindy Margolis’s book may provide some reassuring words, down to earth explanations of what to expect and additional resources to point you in the right direction.

Post from: Blisstree

Book Review: Having a Baby…When the Old Fashioned Way Isn’t Working

I’m not complaining.

I found this article from the Associated Baptist Press, which I found to be fairly written and sincere in its exploration of ethical issues surrounding ART:

“No clear ethical line exists when it comes to fertility treatments,” said Jonathan Tran, a Baylor University ethics professor. “Rather than ethics not being able to keep up with technology, it’s more the case that technology creates its own ethics.”

The article goes on to explore the ethics of embryo adoption – the donation of unused embryos created during the IVF process to another infertile couple.

In a Boston Globe column, Susan Crockin, a reproduction and adoption lawyer, said that forcing “adoption frameworks” onto frozen embryos elevates one religious doctrine — conservative Christianity — over others.

“Changing the vocabulary to blur the distinction between four- to eight-cell embryos and born children — by naively or intentionally using terms like ‘embryo adoption,’ ‘pre-born children’ or ‘microscopic Americans’ and those who create them ‘parents’ — is not only legally wrong, but…bad public policy,” she wrote.

As a former Catholic and a present infertile, I am constantly annoyed by the “It’s god’s will” comments that clutter news articles that focus on infertility. Yet I am fascinated by this discussion and the ethical, political and as Ms. Crocklin notes, public policy questions that it raises.

While Ms. Elliott does a nice job of presenting facts and balancing her article with points and counterpoints, a recent lecture by Dr. Leon Kass at the Manhattan Institute sounds pretty nihilistic in his assurances that we are already headed towards hell in a hand basket because of…

“The Pill. In vitro fertilization. Surrogate wombs. Cloning. Genetic engineering. Organ swapping. Mechanical spare parts. Performance–enhancing drugs. Computer implants into brains. Ritalin for the young, Viagra for the old, Prozac for everyone. Virtually unnoticed, the train to Huxley’s dehumanized Brave New World has already left the station,” Kass said.

Damn, Dr. Kass, you’re kind of throwing everything but the kitchen sink into your analysis there, aren’t you? At least that is how www.lifesite.net presents it. I plan on reading the full text of doc’s October 2007 lecture because I want to know more about the “soul-less scientism” that he feels is pervading our modern world.

I don’t think wanting a child is soul-less. In fact, it’s quite the contrary.

Post from: Blisstree

Is Wanting a Child “Soul-less Scientism”?

Usually, they mean a lot of shots. Some big, some small. Some in yer thigh. Others in your belly. Nice long ones in your butt….

I don’t mean to scare anyone off. Quite the contrary. I think the more the mystery around assisted reproductive technology (ART) is unshrouded, the easier it will be for the general public to see infertility as a medical condition, as worthy of health care coverage as any other ailment.

Let me introduce you to the IVF Shoot ‘Em Up, an amazing blog filled with instructional videos created by and for ART patients giving themselves injections related to their individual fertility protocols. Who would want to watch these? Well, I have yet to meet a couple who weren’t totally scared sh*tless at the idea of giving or receiving daily shots for several weeks, and quite possibly having to try it several times should the first attempt(s) fail. These videos are affirming, strengthening, inspiring. Each of them say, “If I can do it*, so can you! Don’t be scared!”

*Of course, don’t do anything until you read Shoot ‘Em Ups very important disclaimer which basically says, hey, we’re a blog, not your doctor. Talk to him/her before starting your meds or if you have any questions.

Post from: Blisstree

Poke, Poke, Poke – Watch the IVF Shoot ‘Em Up

Luckily (or unluckily), there are women out there that have been there, done that and been kind enough to share their PIO tips with us. Sube at Waiting for a Crumbcake and Nearly Dawn have done their research and taken their jabs (literally) and provided some great advice. Thank you!

Post from: Blisstree

PIO, Oh my oh!