IT’S SPRING WHEN I REALIZE that I may never have children, and around that time the thirteen-year cicadas return, burrowing out of neat, round holes in the ground to shed their larval shells, sprout wings, and fly to the treetops, filling the air with the sound of their singular purpose: reproduction. In the woods where I live, an area mostly protected from habitat destruction, the males’ mating song, a vibrating, whooshing, endless hum, a sound at once faraway and up-close, makes me feel like I am living inside a seashell.

Near the river, where the song is louder, their discarded larval shells—translucent amber bodies, weightless and eerie—crunch underfoot on my daily walks. Across the river, in a nest constructed near the top of a tall, spindly pine, bald eagles take turns caring for two new eaglets. Baby turtles, baby snakes, and ducklings appear on the water. Under my parents’ porch, three feral cats give birth in quick succession. And on the news, a miracle pregnancy: Jamani, an eleven-year-old female gorilla at the North Carolina Zoo, is expecting, the first gorilla pregnancy there in twenty-two years. ...

But after three years of trying, it’s hard to give up. I know that it would be better for the planet if I did (if infinitesimally so), better for me, in some ways, as a writer. Certainly giving up makes financial sense. Years ago, when I saw such decisions as black or white, ight or wrong, I would have felt it was selfish and wasteful to spend thousands of dollars on unnecessary medical procedures. Better, the twenty-two-year-old me would have argued, to donate the money to an orphanage or a children’s hospital. Better to adopt.

The thirty-four-year-old me has careful but limited savings, knows how difficult adoption is, and desperately wants her body to work the way it is supposed to.



A LARGE PART OF THE PRESSURE and frustration of infertility is the idea that fertility is normal, natural, and healthy, while infertility is rare, unnatural, and means something is wrong with you. It’s not usually a problem you anticipate; from the time we are very young, we are warned and promised that pregnancy will one day happen. At my support group, someone always says how surprised she is to be there. ...

Nonhuman animals wait without impatience, without a deadline, and I think that is the secret to their composure. Reproductively mature for more than half her life, Acacia waits without knowing she is waiting. The newly hatched cicadas will wait underground for another thirteen years. The submissive marmoset who declines sex, or whose ovaries fail to produce mature follicles, waits and waits—maybe forever.

Though infertile women are aware of the passing of months and years—marked by charts, appointments, prescriptions, and pregnancy tests—we have something animals lack, which is the conscious possibility of a new purpose, a sense of self not tied to reproduction. I think it comes on us eventually, as Woolf suggests, but perhaps knowing that it comes, and understanding infertility as a natural, perhaps even useful phenomenon, can provide us with a measure of peace. Marmoset communities would not survive without their reproductively suppressed, caretaking females. Had Virginia Woolf been a mother, she may not have given us Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, A Room of One’s Own, The Waves.

Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, culture, heteronormativity, infertility, women

VOTE

Many women do not fully appreciate the consequences of delaying motherhood, and expect that assisted reproductive technologies can reverse their aged ovarian function, Yale researchers reported in a study published in a recent issue of Fertility and Sterility.

“There is an alarming misconception about fertility among women,” said Dr. Pasquale Patrizio, professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Yale School of Medicine and director of the Yale Fertility Center. “We also found a lack of knowledge about steps women can take early in their reproductive years to preserve the possibility of conception later in life.”

The report stemmed from the observations Patrizio and colleagues made that more women are coming to the fertility clinic at age 43 or older expecting that pregnancy can be instantly achieved, and they’re disappointed to learn that it can’t be done easily. “We are really seeing more and more patients ‘upset’ after failing in having their own biological child after age 43 so we had to report on this,” said Patrizio. “Their typical reaction is, ‘what do you mean you cannot help me? I am healthy, I exercise, and I cannot have my own baby?’”

These women delay pregnancies in their most fertile years for a variety of reasons, such as focusing on careers, lack of financial stability, or not having a partner. They are vaguely aware that fertility decreases with age, but it is only when they experience age-related infertility firsthand that they begin to understand the reality of their situation, note the researchers.

Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, culture, infertility, motherhood, women

VOTE

As an informal guide to having children after fertility problems, Precious Babies has much to recommend it. There is, however, an omission which, as a donor conceived (DC) person, I found particularly troublesome – the book is entirely devoid of DC voices.

Quotes from parents and 'experts' are scattered throughout but the words of DC people are nowhere to be found. This lack of representation is even reflected in the title, with its emphasis squarely on babies.

Babies cannot speak. They rely on their parents to make decisions for them. However, early infancy is only a fraction of our lives. Babies will grow to become adults with their own independent thoughts and feelings about the method of their conception. ...

The section of Precious Babies that concerns DC people – the chapter on donor families – is irrepressibly upbeat. Donor families are, we are told, closer than most other families. There are DC adults who are angry and find the method of their conception difficult to accept, but that is because they found out about their origins, often by accident, later in life. The author is clearly keen to present a positive picture of life after donor conception but her argument is disingenuous – the academic literature actually suggests a far more complex reality. ...

For an alternative take on Precious Babies: Pregnancy, Birth and Parenting after Infertility from a counsellor's point of view, read Jenny Dunlop's review.

Labels: culture, donor conception, infertility, IVF

VOTE

AS A 41-year-old woman who has been trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant for more than a year, I have a simple thing to say to the medical profession - wanting to have children is about more than biology. ...

Frightening women into having children at a more biologically appropriate age regardless of their circumstances can lead to situations that can damage as much as the physical risks associated with late-age pregnancy.

Speaking for myself, I had planned to start trying for children at 33 with my husband, but decided against it as the marriage was in trouble and I felt it was unfair to bring a child into that situation.

My husband and I subsequently divorced and at 35 going on 36, I found myself alone and facing the prospect of remaining single and without children.

I met my current partner at age 37 going on 38. He is a wonderful man who is a huge support as we attempt to go down the path of parenthood, but alas, so far, nothing.

I would like to ask those doctors tut-tutting as we older women try to have children what they would have had us do?

Should we have children with an inappropriate person in a so-so relationship just because they happen to be our partner at the right physical time? Do we have children on our own if we find ourselves 35 and single, with all the added financial and emotional pressure that would bring? And if we choose that, then how to do it? Expensive and intrusive IVF? Find some bloke in a pub, get him drunk and drag him home?

And where do men figure in this debate? While I know that the physical reality is not as acute for men, I have lost count of how many women have said to me that they cannot meet a man who wants to commit to children. Where are the people telling men that fatherhood is a great thing and they should do it early, rather than put the burden on women?

Labels: children, divorce, infertility, men, women

VOTE

Things actually said to real families with internationally adopted kids, collected on adoption forums:

Are they REALLY brother and sister?
I guess their mom/dad is Ory Ental, huh?
Did their mother die in that big war they had down there?
Are you SURE she’s [ethnicity]?
How could you love [adopted child] as much as [biological child]?
I adopted a dog once.
[Upon a post-adoption pregnancy] What are you going to do with the other one, keep him or send him back?
You get what you pay for.
Is he a real orphan?
What’s wrong? You can’t have one of your own?

Labels: adoption, boys, children, culture, girls, infertility, race

VOTE

...When it is complete you screw on the forest-green lid, write your name and your wife’s name on the label, put it all in a biohazard bag, and ring the buzzer. Along comes a woman, another nurse. She takes the bag and holds it up to the light. If you read the paperwork there is a request that you don’t make any jokes during this moment.

The worst thing that can happen in that room is “failure to produce.” They warn you about it. Men go in and hours later have not come out. They’re sobbing and their arms are sore. Their wives or partners are out in the waiting room, surly from hormone treatments. No one has sympathy for a man who can’t produce. They should have sympathy but they don’t. You do not want to be that guy. And so far I have not failed. Just in case, I have special videos on my phone.

The nurse will take the biohazard bag to a room filled with machines. They will run the sample through a centrifuge. I will join my wife, who is filled with chemicals that encourage ovulation, in a treatment room. A doctor will use a plastic syringe to inject my purified and enhanced semen into my wife. Then we will wait.

Three years of waiting. Everywhere around us there are waves of bouncing sons, bounties of daughters, stroller wheels creaking under the cheerful load. Facebook updates, email messages, and Christmas cards arrive with pictures of tots, their faces smeared with avocado or cake frosting. Babies on rugs, babies in hats. Invitations to baby showers with cursive script and cartoon storks. Over a beer an expectant father—another expectant father—gives me the news, tells me that his wife will soon have her second or third. Am I happy for him? What else can I be? Once again I put out my hand, close my eyes, and wish them joy.

Every day at least once our cat Desdemona, a pretty green-eyed cat, carries a pair of clean socks in her mouth as if the pair of socks was a kitten. Then she drops them to the floor and yowls in anguish, as if she is dying. She looks at me and yowls some more. I go to her and stroke her ears and say, “I know, sweetie.” Sometimes we come home and find three or four pairs, three or four sock babies, scattered around the house.

Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, culture, infertility, IVF

VOTE

Health authorities in southern Sweden are launching a public awareness campaign to encourage couples to have children sooner to combat the trend of women having their first child at an increasingly older age.

“If you start trying earlier, you increase your chances of becoming a parent,” said Aleksander Giwcerman, professor of andrology, at the Fertility Centre, Malmö University Hospital, to local paper Sydsvenskan.

According to statistics, 15 percent of all western couples are experiencing fertility problems, but Giwcerman said that the number is probably higher than that.

And according to him, the woman’s age is a crucial factor. ...

The institutions behind the campaign also want to send a message to politicians that they need to make it more attractive for Swedes to have kids earlier on in life. ...

"We have spent a lot of time informing the public on how not to get pregnant, and now it seems that most young people today think that once the time feels right it will just work itself out," Giwcerman told SR.

Labels: children, Denmark, heterosexual couples, infertility, Sweden, women

VOTE

That mature lady sitting on the playground bench beaming at her toddler may have some gray hair, but don’t call her “grandma.” She may well be a member of America’s fastest-growing fertility group: mothers 40 and older.

And if she is one of these “midlife moms,” she would appreciate a little more respect.

No observer, for instance, can know what Kelli Suchy and her husband went through to become parents.

“It wasn’t a choice on my part” to marry at 39, endure six in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures, lose two pregnancies, and then finally adopt at age 45, said Mrs. Suchy, founder of parentingbyadoption.com.

Angel La Liberte, who entered “babyland” when she was 41 and again at age 44, created FlowerPowerMom.com to “tell the truth about motherhood after 40.”

This Mother's Day, Mrs. La Liberte and others are launching an online campaign to build support for older mothers and jettison phrases such as “advanced maternal age” and “geriatric pregnancy.” ...

These women are not selfish or absent-minded. “No woman forgets to have a baby,” Ms. La Liberte said.

Instead, she said, women born in the 1960s, like herself, became part of an American social experiment that told them to pursue education and careers first.

“When I was in my 20s,” everyone thought “the idea of getting married and settling down right away was basically foolish,” said Mrs. La Liberte, who married in her late 30s.

There was a new social script for us, and “I think we are the ‘test generation’ for that,” she said.

Female fertility, alas, has not always cooperated, and no one knows this more than midlife moms.

“I met my husband at age 39 and married at 40,” and immediately began trying to have a baby, said Sharon Simons, founder of momatlast.com. ...

But hundreds of thousands of women have late-in-life childbirths that do not make the tabloids. In 2009, more than 105,000 babies were born to women ages 40 to 44, and almost 8,000 more were born to women ages 45 to 54. More than half of these children were first- or second-borns.

Labels: adoption, aging, culture, demographics, donor conception, economics, infertility, IVF, Marriage, motherhood

VOTE

Family Minister Kristina Schröder said on Monday she would try to make life easier for German couples who cannot have children naturally, with stronger financial backing for IVF treatment and easier adoptions. ...

The Family Ministry estimates that nearly one in 10 couples aged between 25 and 59 were involuntarily childless and reliant on medical help.

Schröder said there needed to be more financial help for treatments such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and more opportunities for adoption.

“I find it intolerable if the hope for children is dashed because of money,” she said. “I get many letters from couples who tell me how they painstakingly scrape together the money, then despair when it doesn’t work, and start saving again – all that with the pressure of the biological clock ticking.”

In any case, Germany urgently need to help such couples because of its sinking birth rate and looming demographic challenges, she said.

Labels: adoption, Germany, infertility, IVF

VOTE

Labels: aging, culture, infertility, Marriage

VOTE

...Rare it isn’t: not when one in five pregnancies ends at the abortion clinic. So it was a victory for realism, at least, when MTV decided to supplement its hit reality shows “16 and Pregnant” and “Teen Mom” with last week’s special, “No Easy Decision,” which followed Markai Durham, a teen mother who got pregnant a second time and chose abortion.

MTV being MTV, the special’s attitude was resolutely pro-choice. But it was a heartbreaking spectacle, whatever your perspective. Durham and her boyfriend are the kind of young people our culture sets adrift — working-class and undereducated, with weak support networks, few authority figures, and no script for sexual maturity beyond the easily neglected admonition to always use a condom. Their televised agony was a case study in how abortion can simultaneously seem like a moral wrong and the only possible solution — because it promised to keep them out of poverty, and to let them give their first daughter opportunities they never had.

The show was particularly wrenching, though, when juxtaposed with two recent dispatches from the world of midlife, upper-middle-class infertility. Last month there was Vanessa Grigoriadis’s provocative New York Magazine story “Waking Up From the Pill,” which suggested that a lifetime on chemical birth control has encouraged women “to forget about the biological realities of being female ... inadvertently, indirectly, infertility has become the Pill’s primary side effect.” Then on Sunday, The Times Magazine provided a more intimate look at the same issue, in which a midlife parent, the journalist Melanie Thernstrom, chronicled what it took to bring her children into the world: six failed in vitro cycles, an egg donor and two surrogate mothers, and an untold fortune in expenses.

In every era, there’s been a tragic contrast between the burden of unwanted pregnancies and the burden of infertility. But this gap used to be bridged by adoption far more frequently than it is today. Prior to 1973, 20 percent of births to white, unmarried women (and 9 percent of unwed births over all) led to an adoption. Today, just 1 percent of babies born to unwed mothers are adopted, and would-be adoptive parents face a waiting list that has lengthened beyond reason. ...

This is the paradox of America’s unborn. No life is so desperately sought after, so hungrily desired, so carefully nurtured. And yet no life is so legally unprotected, and so frequently destroyed.

Labels: abortion, adoption, Artificial Reproductive Technology, class, contraception, culture, donor conception, infertility, out-of-wedlock births, premarital sex, Ross Douthat

VOTE

"Be fruitful and multiply," God instructed Adam and Eve, and men and women have heeded those words ever since. But over the years, God's creatures have become sophisticated enough to rewrite the rules of being fruitful, and most of the new rules don't sit well with leaders of the Roman Catholic Church. ...

The bishops are sympathetic. When Rigali was archbishop of St. Louis, he celebrated a Mass for infertile couples, and the current St. Louis archbishop, Robert Carlson, did the same recently. But many Catholic couples suffering through the heartache of infertility think that the church contributes to their pain by erecting roadblocks to medically assisted pregnancy.

At the meeting in Baltimore, the bishops approved a document on reproductive medical advances, "Life-giving Love in an Age of Technology." The document says: "The church has compassion for couples suffering from infertility and wants to be of real help to them. At the same time, some 'reproductive technologies' are not morally legitimate ways to solve those problems."

Church teaching says technology used to facilitate or support marital conjugation and conception is fine, but any other technology is not. Church teaching allows tests and treatment for low sperm count or problems with ovulation. But artificial insemination, even using the husband's sperm, is prohibited.

"Children have a right to be conceived by the act that expresses and embodies their parents' self-giving love," the U.S. bishops say. "Morally responsible medicine can assist this act but should never substitute for it."

According to a 2002 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 7.4 percent of married women of childbearing age were infertile. About 1 percent had tried artificial insemination as a means of becoming pregnant; about four times as many had tried ovulation drugs. According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, 85 to 90 percent of infertility cases are treated with drug therapy or surgical procedures; less than 3 percent required assisted reproductive technologies.

Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, Catholic Church, culture, infertility, religion

VOTE

...When my cellphone rang a week later I was already crying, driving to the airport to attend my aunt’s funeral. My boyfriend had dumped me suddenly that morning via e-mail after I’d just flown 3,000 miles to visit him and his family. When my doctor said, “I have bad news,” I pulled over.

“You’re in premature ovarian failure,” she said. “It’s causing early onset menopause. I don’t know how to tell you this: You won’t be able to have children.”

“O.K.,” I said. I was waiting for the next part of the sentence, the medical way around the problem. I had low thyroid function; I took a pill. I suffered from depression; a few drugs made it bearable. In my experience, medical lemons were almost always followed by a prescription for lemonade. I felt strangely calm, detached, as though we were talking about characters on television.

She said, with believable regret, “I’m very sorry to have to tell you this.” ...

They pitied me, blamed themselves. They had always assumed there would be grandchildren, just as I had always assumed there would be children. They were suffering a loss as well. They were disappointed, however much they tried to disguise it. It felt like they were disappointed in me.

Labels: infertility

VOTE