Category: Fertility Industry

Out In the World

Infertility Honesty

One of most sidelining aspects of my recovery has been the almost absence of seeing and hearing my experiences talked about in the world.

While infertility is being discussed more openly these days, one is still hard pressed to encounter its mention in conjunction with no baby bookending one’s plight.

And childlessness still seems to be deemed a “choice” by the outside world under all circumstances, no matter how insurmountable.

So when I found out about the filming of Should We Kid or Not in Jody Day’s Gateway Women online community, and that they wanted to include the childless not by choice voice (Huh?? OK!!), I couldn’t say no. Read more →

My Full Story

Infertility Honesty

As the recent piece in Marie Claire ended up presenting a severely stunted form of my TTC story, Pamela from Silent Sorority opted to piggy back it with the full version on her important platform, reprotechtruths.org.

So hold onto your hats folks, you can read a much more robust account of my fertility industry journey HERE.  For years I wasn’t able to speak or write about it in its entirely all that coherently.  The amount there was to process seemed endless and unfathomable.  It’s only recently (about 4.5 years out of treatments) that a quasi rear view mirror of sorts has emerged through which to view and assimilate things.

People come to childlessness via many different paths.  I feel it’s important for the entire CNBC community to have a reasonable level of awareness regarding the perpetual trauma from which many of us are emerging or have emerged.

Reprotechtruths.org is dedicated to #unmaskingIVF and to helping “future generations understand the associated risks and costs”.  Thanks to Pamela for creating and curating this crucial site.

For those who have direct experiences with the fertility industry, your stories are important, especially in light of the current lack of patient tracking.  If you too are interested in sharing your story on reprotechtruths.org, click here.

Be back in a couple of weeks with some writing, finally, just for this blog:-)

 

 

 

In a National Women’s Magazine

Infertility Honesty

A piece researched and written by Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos over at Silent Sorority went live recently in this month’s online edition of Marie Claire magazine.  You can find the piece, The Wild World of IVF, Explained here.  You’ll also recognize the lede – I’m committed to lending my voice and story to more truthful and realistic portrayals of infertility and the CNBC experience.

There were plenty of other valuable personal accounts and hard-hitting research on the fertility industry that didn’t make it into the piece, as Pamela attests to in her most recent post.  It’s crucial that mainstream media grant readers access to in-depth, accurate reporting on the emotional fallout and mental health ramifications including PTSD that result from multiple failed (and sometimes not failed!) fertility treatments, as well as the current lack of palliative care.  Just to name a few.  The “How to have a baby” subtitle, one of which landed right next to the brief account of my plight, gave me and will give others a bit of a lurch.

That said, what did make it into this piece results in what I feel to be a very straight-forward, non sugar-coated overview of the IVF process, from which even I, quite the IVF veteran as are many of you, learned a few things.  Hats off to Pamela for her persistence and astute reporting.

Overall a strong step in the right direction of not glossing over the IVF experience.  All I ever caught wind of via the media in my years leading up to trying to start a family with children were people getting pregnant naturally in their late thirties and early forties, rare live births of high number multiples, or miracle baby “just keep trying” stories resulting from IVF.  What do you think? 

On another note, it has worked out that I’ve been collaborating with others and putting my work on broader platforms lately.  Not sure how it feels from your vantage point, my valued readers, but I rather miss the intimacy of pouring my heart out and writing just for your eyes (plus whoever you care to share it with) and this blog.  I’m looking forward to getting back to that soon.

 

Childless Voices Resound on IVF’s 40th Anniversary

Infertility Honesty

The experience of not being able to have children when you wanted them will always be life altering.  And it has the capacity to inflict a level of grief that is, among other things, transformative.

The experience of wanting children and not being able to have them does not always have to be so inhumane, however.

What do we do when evolution is so clearly needed?  When we are driven by the common thread of leaving this experience more truthful and less pulverizing than we found it?  One doesn’t need to have their own children to have a vested interest in improving things for the next generation, that’s for sure.

We start talking. Read more →

#Listen Up: The Difference In Doctors

Infertility Honesty

Insights on Infertility Medicine’s Failings

For National Infertility Awareness Week April, 2017

“Something is wrong. The holidays are over, yet my physical symptoms are still present”.

I was sitting, practically slumped over on my primary care physician’s table. I had originally thought the debilitating and sudden onset symptoms I was experiencing might have been spurred by holiday grief. I had just been riding a fairly good, transformational spell but had become open, in the past three years, to the fact that grief can do funny things.

“I feel just like I felt two weeks ago when I went to the ER” I informed him, my heart bouncing around in my chest as unprovoked waves of nausea and panic swept through me while the room spun.

Fortunately, he listened to me and took me seriously. He showed concern. And he acknowledged right away that his puzzlement over why a healthier than average almost 45 year old was in such a state of disarray warranted further investigation. Investigation he knew required the help of others, so he funneled me to the right specialists. On my way to a diagnosis I was, unaware of the relative medical paradise I was about to enter.

Read more →