Odds & ends

• A reminder that this Sunday is International Bereaved Mothers Day. (It's always the Sunday before that "other" day in May!) I never really do anything to mark the occasion, but it's nice to think that there's an "official" day just for us. :)  (I wrote a little more about Bereaved Mothers Day and how it began here, last year.) 
• There's an promotional ad for a TV show on CTV here in Canada (and possible other markets elsewhere?) called "Sullivan's Crossing." (Filmed in Nova Scotia, with a Canadian cast.)  The ad has been  running CONSTANTLY -- and it's driving me nuts, primarily because it includes a shot of a young woman with a voiceover chirping, "I'm gonna be a MOM!"  Just the reminder I don't need! especially with You-Know-What Day fast approaching.... :p  
• Lisa Kissane (who created Instagram's Nomo Book Club, now run by Rosalyn Scott), has started a Substack about her experiences as a childless step-grandmother. Check it out at "The Childless (Step) Nanna)." 
• From Sue Fagalde Lick at Childless by Marriage:  "Four simple words that can end a conversation."  (Been there, done that, got the T-shirt...) 
• From Ali Hall on Medium:  "Adult-Only Spaces Are Not an Attack on Children." Sample quote:  "It may seem paradoxical, but we can like children and not always want to be around them." 
• I also appreciated the inclusion of this passage:  "Sometimes, those propping up the bar in adult-only pubs desperately want children and are seeking a safe space to drown their sorrows after yet another failed IVF cycle, and in their grief, they can’t bear to be around children because it hurts too much." 
• Pronatalism alert from the Washington Post:  "Blake Masters disparages his House opponent for not having kids."  (Gift link.) Masters is (just guess...!!) an Arizona Republican running for the U.S. House of Representatives.  I am SO tired of politicians who use their families (versus their opponents' lack of children, for whatever reason) as political fodder! 
• The Washington Post recently took a look "Inside the opaque world of IVF, where errors are rarely made public."  (Gift link.)  
• Sample quote:  “The vast, vast supermajority of mistakes in fertility clinics, the public doesn’t even know about,” said Adam B. Wolf, a prominent attorney for fertility plaintiffs...
• Another passage:  

All of Monica Coakley’s 18 eggs were in cryopreservation Tank 4 at Pacific Fertility Center when it crumpled like an empty soda can, devastating nearly 500 people’s hopes of having children. She was 42, did not have a partner and was not ready to get pregnant, but freezing her reproductive material had given her assurance that she had time.

And suddenly that was gone. She tried to have more eggs retrieved, but the procedure did not work. She said she accepted settlements from the San Francisco clinic and Chart Inc., the tank manufacturer, and is prohibited from disclosing the terms.

“It makes me sick, still,” Coakley, now 47, said in an interview. “I look at this money now that’s in my account and it doesn’t make me feel any better. I wake up most mornings and still go, ‘I can’t believe I don’t have kids.’”

• I was amused/bemused to note, near the end, this sentence:  "They had the best two implanted, or “transferred” to Laura, in the parlance of fertility care... "  Close, but no cigar, right?  (lol)  The (mis)use of "implant' versus "transfer" (which is the correct terminology in this instance) has long been a pet peeve here in the ALI blogworld...!  
• From Today: "IVF ruined my life. What I learned from years of failed fertility treatments." Excerpt:  

IVF is an incredible gift. The science behind it is astonishing — and yet, it’s not enough. Three years, five egg retrievals, 10 embryo transfers, 19 embryos, $165,000 and over 80 pounds of weight gained — and I have nothing to show for it. It’s not the doctor’s fault, nor is it my fault. Objectively, I can recognize that. But as I look back on who I used to be three years ago, the confident, happy, hopeful young woman who dreamed of raising a family of her own, I can’t help but think that despite its magnificence, IVF ruined my life.

I am a broken shell of the person I used to be. I have nightmares; I have inescapable bouts of depression. I can’t look at an ultrasound image without choking back tears.

I will never be the same again. IVF did that to me. Hope did that to me. I wish there was more transparency around IVF — I wish there was more honesty about what it’s really like. Would I have gone forward with it if I had known how it would destroy me? In truth, I can’t answer that question. I don’t know.

• Vox recently published an article, "The failed promise of egg freezing," an eye-opening look at  the realities and limitations of the procedure, based on more than a decade's worth of statistics and research, since egg freezing became more widely available in 2012. 
• "For many years, the effectiveness of the procedure was a bit of a black box: Not enough people had tried to use their frozen eggs for scientists to pull together reliable data. Now, however, a picture is emerging," the article says. 
• Childlessness gets a passing message not just once but twice, including a quote from Katy Seppi of Childless Collective:  

Some of that feeling [that this will work, despite no guarantees] may stem from a kind of relentless optimism in American culture — or, perhaps, a Protestant work ethic — around the idea of having biological children, the message that if people simply try hard enough and long enough, they will eventually be rewarded with a child. This messaging has led some women to open up in recent years about their unsuccessful infertility treatments, to destigmatize their experiences. “For those of us who close our infertility chapters without a baby, we’re often met with unsolicited advice, reinforcing the narrative that we obviously gave up too early,” one woman, Katy Seppi, told CNN. 

And:   

Greater support for single parents and other family forms beyond the heterosexual two-parent household could also take the pressure off of women to bank eggs in hopes of meeting a male partner. So, too, could a greater social acceptance of the value of a child-free life, especially since more and more people are choosing not to have children. While many people who freeze eggs have a deep and personal desire for children, it’s also the case that women, especially, experience enormous social and even political pressure to reproduce — and reducing that pressure could free some people to pursue other shapes for their lives.