While doing some Googling this afternoon -- killing time, waiting for the next shoe to drop at the office -- I stumbled on this interesting article/blog entry. The author is childfree by choice, but I found myself nodding at about 98% of what she had to say about how childless/free living is discounted by so many parents -- & trying not to giggle too loudly in several places. "The January of the retail season," hmmm? As a January baby myself, I totally understand that!
As usual, the comments are both amusing & infuriating.
*** *** ***
The Daily Beast
When Did "Married Without Children" Become Gauche?
by Rachel Shukert
November 15, 2008 7:40am
As a married woman with no plans to have children, I'm not the easiest person to market to.
My grandfather wants me to have a baby. Now. Yesterday. It would be nice to feel—as he put it the other day—that he had “a breeder” among his grandchildren. “Grandpa,” I finally said to him recently, “you are 87 years old. You live 1,500 miles away. If I got pregnant tomorrow, you would see this baby, what? Once? Twice? Then I would be stuck with an unwanted infant, and you would be dead.”
He acceded the point.
In a few short weeks, the holiday season will be upon us, and my husband and I, like millions of Americans, will be obliged to make conversation with hundreds of relatives, colleagues, and acquaintances who have nothing to say to us. When we got engaged three years ago, talk of caterers and florists and letterpress invitations occupied us at these gatherings. Then, after the wedding, when we debuted as married people, we talked about the things we had received, the things we still needed to buy, and the best places to buy them.
But this year, lacking any such consumer idyll to discuss, people will sheepishly ask us “what we’ve been up to.” I will half-heartedly mutter something about the book I am supposed to be writing, to confirm I am not a total waste of space. They might offer a few words about a case or an account they are handling, of which I will have little interest and even less comprehension. And then, inevitably, I will be asked the million-dollar question.
“So, any babies on the horizon? Is this the year?”
I have formed an immutable theory: In our society, a childless marriage is like the January of the retail season—Christmas is over, Valentine’s Day not yet arrived, and no one knows what the hell to sell you. A transitional period, best rushed through as quickly as possible.
I’ll see the pleading in their eyes, the tension of each upended nostril: “Please say you’re having a baby, and I’ll be able to relate to you. We’ll talk obstetricians, and if you’re having trouble, fertility specialists. I can recommend strollers, changing tables, potties, burp cloths. I can explain in detail the advantages of an all-natural water birth vs. a scheduled C-section/tummy tuck. We’ll have hours of things to talk about. Just say it. Say yes.”
Alas, I cannot, and we’ll have no choice but to go our separate ways.
Or think of it this way: your wedding is the prestige Oscar bait: a big-name, Britishly acted adaptation from a tony literary source, perhaps—eagerly anticipated and much buzzed about. The announcement of your pregnancy (or simply, the announcement that you are currently…you know…trying, which seems to inspire in others an equally irrational joy) is your big summer blockbuster: huge, giddy, something people are viscerally excited about. To wit: your wedding is Atonement, your baby is The Dark Knight, and your actual marriage, the fragile construct propping up the vast social/industrial complex we call “Adulthood,” is something the studio foists on an unsuspecting public in the dead and deadening month after Christmas, when we start to despair that we will ever again see the sun. Something starring Ashton Kutcher. Your marriage is What Happens in Vegas.
Think about it.
One finds an instructive example of this attitude the publishing industry. Women’s magazines teem with advice of what to say, what to wear, and which sexual acts to perform in order to con a man into making some sort of tangible commitment. Likewise, there are now an extraordinary number of publications and networking sites devoted to modern parenting, designed to guide even the most skeptical urbanite through the brave new world of diaper genies and environmental toxins with wit and panache. In contrast, I have found of late just one article geared toward married people without children: a little piece online advising me to hide the porn when my in-laws come over.
My in-laws live in South Africa, and my husband keeps the porn on the computer, where it belongs.
It wasn’t always like this. In America, everything we are we see in the movies, and classic Hollywood films are filled with glamorous childless couples. Hepburn and Tracy, Nick and Nora Charles, forever lobbing sophisticated quips back and forth, swilling martinis in elegant penthouse apartments, their art-deco lines not besmirched by crayon or small, smudged handprints. (DISCLAIMER: My life is absolutely nothing like this; however, I can’t shake the feeling that if I can just hold off my biological clock, one day it could be.) In the golden age of Hollywood, the children of stars were routinely hidden from public view, lest they make their parents seem old and unfuckable.
I’m not suggesting we go back to the heady days of Mommie Dearest. I’m just not sure I need to know how far Jessica Alba’s cervix was dilated before she checked into the hospital. Nor am I particularly moved by the array of toddlers trotted out before the cameras to justify a star’s existence, or the launch of her clothing line, or to illustrate the fact that she has attained the transcendent maturity that cares only for the troubles of the Children of the World, which a person like Married-and-Childless You, who selfishly worries about things like calories and making your highlights last, couldn’t possibly understand.
But most of all, I find hardest to take the pervasive sense that a marriage isn’t really consummated until the arrival of a blessed event—that everything from “I do” until the snipping of the umbilical cord is a prelude to real life. I got married because I thought it would enhance my life. And in a country where some judges hold up the inability to reproduce as a valid legal reason why some people should not be able to marry, I believe the singular nature of marriage—of two adults in good faith making such a promise to each other, whether that promise includes children or not—should be made especially clear.
Real life is not Life the board game, an orderly ticking of boxes till we fill up our plastic station wagons and become millionaires. As far as I am concerned, I am already living my real life. I was living it before I was married, and I’ll still be living it should my marriage ever end.
So is it too much to ask for a damn magazine?
Rachel Shukert is the author of Have You No Shame? And Other Regrettable Stories, and is currently at work on her second book, The Grand Tour. She lives in New York City
Friday, November 28, 2008
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Article: "The saddest of Madonna portraits"
From Macleans magazine (Canada's newsweekly), Nov. 10, 2008 issue (the last paragraph, to me, says it all):
The saddest of Madonna portraits
Grief over losing a baby is accompanied by a panic: how to remember what he looked like?
NICHOLAS KÖHLER October 29, 2008 NICHOLAS KÖHLER-->
In the late 1800s, Edward Bok, the reform-minded editor of Ladies' Home Journal, launched a crusade against, of all things, the parlour — that pretentious little room, as he saw it, reserved by the Victorians for formal Sunday teas and displaying their dead. Better, he thought, to banish the old-time hats and coats and the corpses in favour of a space for routine family life — call it, he suggested, the living room. The wordplay caught on, part of a trend driven by lengthening life expectancies that made death itself an unmentionable. "In the 19th century, sex was the taboo," says Stanley Burns, an eye surgeon and medical historian. "In the 20th century, it was death." Nowhere, oddly enough, was the shift more pronounced than in family photographs.
A hundred years ago, capturing images of dead relatives was de rigueur. Dad's eyes were glued shut, his mouth closed, his limbs posed in such a manner as to suggest a quick catnap; in one famous example, the deceased sits with a newspaper clasped in his hands as though just nodding off. Widows wore lockets with the dead faces of their husbands, mothers the images of their dead infants — sometimes with open eyes painted in and rose tincture on their cheeks. Yet changing attitudes soon saw post-mortem photography go the way of the parlour.
Now, research suggesting that families benefit from photographs of deceased offspring has brought the practice back. "There's that pivotal moment, especially after a stillbirth, where mum all of a sudden won't remember what her baby looked like — and there's panic," says Mary MacCormick, head of the Canadian Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths. Memories of the traumatic days surrounding a difficult birth can also exaggerate a baby's flaws, haunting parents for years. Hospital staff have battled these anxieties by giving families bereavement kits containing locks of hair, hand- or footprints, and Polaroids. Recently, though, so-called infant bereavement photography has become the domain of professionals.
One charity, Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, has connected families with photographers since 2005. It started in Denver, Colo., shortly after co-founder Cheryl Haggard, then 37, learned her infant son Maddux wouldn't survive his first week, and decided to hire the same photographer whose shots of newborns graced the walls of her maternity ward. Sandy Puc' (pronounced putsch), a specialist in child portraiture, didn't know what to expect when she arrived to meet Cheryl and her husband, Mike; she soon learned they wanted images of Maddux alive on life support, then "more intimate" shots, as Cheryl puts it — "those skin on skin Madonna portraits" — after disconnecting him. "I did his hands and feet and his little ears, his nose — I photographed every single part that I could so they would have all of it," says Puc', who then left the room. Forty-five minutes later, she was invited back. "It was so unearthly," Puc' recalls. "Here is this beautiful mom, bare skin, bare chest, with this tiny little sleeping angel in her arms." Maddux was dead.
Within weeks, Puc' and Haggard had founded Now I Lay Me Down, relying on just a few photographers. They now have more than 5,000 in over 25 countries, including Canada. The free sessions — valued at between $1,000 and $1,800 — are available for offspring aged 25 weeks of gestation and up and have been provided for babies dead as long as 10 days. Images are normally black and white to de-emphasize the discolourations associated with stillborns, say, and computer software is used to soften some detail.
Chicago-based Todd Hochberg has shot deceased infants for over 10 years but uses a documentary style that puts his subjects within a hospital context alongside parents, extended family and health care professionals. "It's a record of their time together with their baby," he says. "To validate that they are parents — that this life does matter." Guenther Krueger, a Ph.D. candidate studying bereavement at Simon Fraser University, says such images help families cope. Though grief was once thought similar to physical healing — "you have a terrible time but you get over it" — Krueger says that's not what happens: "Parents incorporate this child into their lives." Burns, who has archived thousands of antique medical photographs and has written books on post-mortem photography, is more blunt: "We are as important as the number of photographs taken of us — to have no pictures at all in this culture is not to have existed."
The saddest of Madonna portraits
Grief over losing a baby is accompanied by a panic: how to remember what he looked like?
NICHOLAS KÖHLER October 29, 2008 NICHOLAS KÖHLER-->
In the late 1800s, Edward Bok, the reform-minded editor of Ladies' Home Journal, launched a crusade against, of all things, the parlour — that pretentious little room, as he saw it, reserved by the Victorians for formal Sunday teas and displaying their dead. Better, he thought, to banish the old-time hats and coats and the corpses in favour of a space for routine family life — call it, he suggested, the living room. The wordplay caught on, part of a trend driven by lengthening life expectancies that made death itself an unmentionable. "In the 19th century, sex was the taboo," says Stanley Burns, an eye surgeon and medical historian. "In the 20th century, it was death." Nowhere, oddly enough, was the shift more pronounced than in family photographs.
A hundred years ago, capturing images of dead relatives was de rigueur. Dad's eyes were glued shut, his mouth closed, his limbs posed in such a manner as to suggest a quick catnap; in one famous example, the deceased sits with a newspaper clasped in his hands as though just nodding off. Widows wore lockets with the dead faces of their husbands, mothers the images of their dead infants — sometimes with open eyes painted in and rose tincture on their cheeks. Yet changing attitudes soon saw post-mortem photography go the way of the parlour.
Now, research suggesting that families benefit from photographs of deceased offspring has brought the practice back. "There's that pivotal moment, especially after a stillbirth, where mum all of a sudden won't remember what her baby looked like — and there's panic," says Mary MacCormick, head of the Canadian Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths. Memories of the traumatic days surrounding a difficult birth can also exaggerate a baby's flaws, haunting parents for years. Hospital staff have battled these anxieties by giving families bereavement kits containing locks of hair, hand- or footprints, and Polaroids. Recently, though, so-called infant bereavement photography has become the domain of professionals.
One charity, Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, has connected families with photographers since 2005. It started in Denver, Colo., shortly after co-founder Cheryl Haggard, then 37, learned her infant son Maddux wouldn't survive his first week, and decided to hire the same photographer whose shots of newborns graced the walls of her maternity ward. Sandy Puc' (pronounced putsch), a specialist in child portraiture, didn't know what to expect when she arrived to meet Cheryl and her husband, Mike; she soon learned they wanted images of Maddux alive on life support, then "more intimate" shots, as Cheryl puts it — "those skin on skin Madonna portraits" — after disconnecting him. "I did his hands and feet and his little ears, his nose — I photographed every single part that I could so they would have all of it," says Puc', who then left the room. Forty-five minutes later, she was invited back. "It was so unearthly," Puc' recalls. "Here is this beautiful mom, bare skin, bare chest, with this tiny little sleeping angel in her arms." Maddux was dead.
Within weeks, Puc' and Haggard had founded Now I Lay Me Down, relying on just a few photographers. They now have more than 5,000 in over 25 countries, including Canada. The free sessions — valued at between $1,000 and $1,800 — are available for offspring aged 25 weeks of gestation and up and have been provided for babies dead as long as 10 days. Images are normally black and white to de-emphasize the discolourations associated with stillborns, say, and computer software is used to soften some detail.
Chicago-based Todd Hochberg has shot deceased infants for over 10 years but uses a documentary style that puts his subjects within a hospital context alongside parents, extended family and health care professionals. "It's a record of their time together with their baby," he says. "To validate that they are parents — that this life does matter." Guenther Krueger, a Ph.D. candidate studying bereavement at Simon Fraser University, says such images help families cope. Though grief was once thought similar to physical healing — "you have a terrible time but you get over it" — Krueger says that's not what happens: "Parents incorporate this child into their lives." Burns, who has archived thousands of antique medical photographs and has written books on post-mortem photography, is more blunt: "We are as important as the number of photographs taken of us — to have no pictures at all in this culture is not to have existed."
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Odds & ends...
- Pregnancy loss support group meeting last week: two bereaved moms in their late 20s/early 30s talking to each other about trying again. "It's been THREE MONTHS & I'm NOT pregnant and it's driving me nuts!! With all my other kids, I got pregnant the first time we tried! It's SO depressing!!" Bit my tongue VERY hard & tried to remember I am there to support them, not strangle them. ; ) I understand the driving desire many babyloss moms have to get pregnant again (because I had it myself)... but it's just not that easy for some of us -- & they have heard my story & those of others who have attended the group...
- Train ride home last night: guy standing in the aisle next to my seat (the train was very crowded) getting quizzed/lectured about his wife's pregnancy by perky young know-it-all mom for the entire 25-minute ride (plus time in the station before departure). My teeth grinding at being subjected to this (loud conversations of any kind on the train are annoying, but pregnancy & baby-related ones doubly so) actually turned to feeling sorry for the guy as the woman regaled him with horror stories about drs, general pregnancy aches & pains, Group B strep tests, birth plans ("is she going to have an epidural? If not, you're in for some blood-curdling screams...").
- Farewell party for (divorced, childless, 30-something) office colleague this afternoon: adores her niece but is adamant that she doesn't want any of her own. Was told by the party organizer in front of the entire department that they were boing to put a picture of a baby on the card envelope & pretend it was a baby shower. Which degenerated into a conversation about how wonderful babies are. At which point (having already eaten my cake) I quietly stood up & went back to my cubicle.
- In the mail this week: donation appeal from the hospital where Katie was delivered & where I still visit Dr. Ob-gyn for annual checksups -- but addressed to dh, who recently had some tests run there. "Dear Mr. Road Less Travelled," it begins. "It's a sad truth that women in countries all over the world, including Canada, face complications during pregnancy that can affect their health and the survival of their baby. We're experiencing rising rates for stillbirth, dangerously high blood pressure during pregnancy (called pre-eclampsia) and the birth of smaller, very vulnerable babies."
Really?? Pray, tell me all about it...!!
The letter is from a dr in the high-risk unit -- the same dr who was making the rounds the morning after Katie's stillbirth, who expressed his condolences -- and his interest in my placenta (let's call him "Dr. Placenta."). It goes on to describe one patient who came to him in 2004, 24 weeks into her pregnancy with a very small baby who did not survive. But thanks to placental function testing early in her next pregnancy at the hospital's Placenta Clinic -- the only one of its kind in Canada, which is approaching its 10th anniversary (!!) -- she has had not just one but two healthy babies.
"Our research, which recently revealed that a simple blood test combined with a non-invasive ultrasound can identify a woman's risk of pregnancy-threatening placental problems, is making a difference to families across Canada," it says. "There is so much more we could do, but we need your help."
Well. You can imagine my feelings upon reading this letter. Including:
- Amazement -- that a letter addressed to dh would hit so very, very close to home for our family. If it hadn't been addressed to him, & him alone, I would swear that we were being targeted. What are the odds? (Of course, what were the odds that I would have a stillborn baby??)
- Anger & regret -- that this clinic wasn't around 10 years ago when I really could have used it. And that I wasn't referred to Dr. Placenta during my pregnancy, even though they could tell from my ultrasound that there was something on my placenta, & that my baby had IUGR.
- Relief -- even though it's too late for me, I am glad that other mothers are being spared the agony that I went through.
- "It's about time" -- that some real research is being done on this issue. I am very grateful for the programs & protocols in place at the hospital that provided such good care & beautiful keepsakes for us after our daughter was stillborn... there is a real need for more funding for programs that support bereaved parents after their losses. But there is also a very real need for more funding to find out WHY pregnancy loss happens, & hopefully prevent it, so that fewer parents have to go through this special brand of hell.
I think that I am going to make a donation. And if & when I do, I think I am going to write a letter to go along with it, saying some of the same things I've said here.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
More on the Quebec election campaign
(as I posted earlier this week)
QUEBEC CAMPAIGN: REVENGE OF THE CRADLE REDUX
Kissing babies isn't enough
Sure, it's politics, Ingrid Peritz explains, but Jean Charest's sudden support for IVF also rights a wrong
INGRID PERITZ
November 22, 2008
MONTREAL -- Annie Martel enjoys family perks that would be the envy of mothers anywhere. When she became a foster parent two years ago, she took advantage of Quebec's generous parental leave. And when her girl started daycare, Quebec subsidies ensured that the service would cost her just $7 a day.
Now that Ms. Martel has adopted the child and dreams of giving birth to a sibling for her, Quebec once again is poised to deliver.
With a provincial election campaign in full throttle, Liberal Leader Jean Charest has pledged to introduce a benefit that would be unique in Canada: full coverage of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments.
"To have the government pay is an enormous step - maybe we will still be able to have a biological child of our own," says Ms. Martel, a 41-year-old Montreal Web designer who estimates that she and her husband have spent $35,000 on fertility treatments. "This gives us a lot of hope."
The promise brings a measure of comfort to women like Ms. Martel. And it may be a winner on the campaign trail.
No politician has ever gone wrong by promising pro-baby policies in Quebec, where increasing the province's low birth rate has been a near-obsession since it plunged from one of the world's highest to one of its lowest.
Even so, as recently as June, Philippe Couillard, then Mr. Charest's health minister, opposed extending medical coverage to IVF, putting the Liberals at odds with both the Parti Québécois and Action démocratique du Québec, whose leader, Mario Dumont, had championed the cause.
Now, while campaigning for a third term as premier, Mr. Charest seems to have seen the light. This week, he announced that under a Liberal government, Quebec's health-insurance plan would cover two IVF treatments and the existing 50-per-cent tax credit would still apply if further attempts are required.
"A couple that wants children must get all the help possible," he declared.
Total cost of the promise: $35-million a year. Estimated boost to the population: 1,500 babies.
The pledge helps to secure Quebec's status as the most baby-conscious and aggressively pro-family province in the land. The provincial government has been coaxing the stork into Quebeckers' homes ever since it brought in baby bonuses in 1988. Since then, Quebec has trail-blazed with universal daycare and unparalleled parental leave.
The incentives are credited with helping to produce a modest baby boom, although the fertility rate of 1.6 babies per woman is still below replacement levels. Quebec has long tied a robust population to its collective survival in an English-speaking continent, a concern that once led the Catholic Church to advocate the "revenge of the cradle." But the secularism of the 1960s Quiet Revolution brought a steep drop in the birth rate that policy-makers have struggled to reverse since.
Today, the province's family-friendly ethos trickles down to small towns such as St-Lin-Laurentides, which has been encouraging residents to have large broods for 20 years.
To this day, the community of 15,000 north of Montreal gives new parents T-shirts and bibs emblazoned with the municipal crest, along with a $500 bonus for a third child. Mayor André Auger admits the money won't go far, but he wants to get the message across.
"I'm a good Québécois, I'm a nationalist," Mr. Auger says, "and I say a people that respects itself has to reproduce."
Still, with Mr. Charest's latest pledge, Quebec is shifting the focus from new parents to would-be parents.
HIGH-PROFILE STRUGGLE
Infertile couples have battled for years to have costly IVF treatments covered. They found a mighty advocate in TV personality Julie Snyder, wife of media magnate Pierre-Karl Péladeau, chief executive officer of Quebecor Inc.
Ms. Snyder's crusade on behalf of infertile couples led to a high-profile confrontation with Dr. Couillard during parliamentary hearings in June.
At a time when Quebec was struggling with a low birth rate, she asked, why was the province paying for "life-prevention" procedures such as abortions and vasectomies but not something "that creates life?"
Ms. Snyder recently gave birth to her second child. Meanwhile, Dr. Couillard has retired from politics.
Quebec offers a tax credit for IVF, but couples still find themselves taking out loans to pay upward of $10,000 for each series of treatment. For some, the cost puts the dream of parenthood out of reach.
"Do I borrow the money to try it once? Do I have to borrow again for a second try? Then I'll really be in the hole," says Mélanie Pétrin, a Montreal school-board employee whose husband, Benoit Adams, studies while working part-time.
She has been trying to conceive for nearly two years and feels frustrated that other women can afford fertility treatments that she cannot.
"It's true, I'm not sick, I'm not coughing or stuck in bed, but my state of health isn't normal," says Ms. Pétrin, who turns 29 today.
"You feel you could be a good mother, you could give your time and invest in a child. But you're unable to do it. At least if I can try, I will say that I've tried everything."
If the Liberals win the election - they are leading in the polls - and stick to the promise, Quebec will be the only province to cover IVF fully. Ontario pays only for women who have complete blockages in both Fallopian tubes.
As it stands, Canada lags behind most developed countries. Nations such as Australia, France, Israel, Norway and Germany all offer various kinds of coverage, as do some health-maintenance organizations (HMOs) in the United States.
"Canada is a huge anomaly. It's an embarrassment," says Jeff Nisker, a medical ethicist at the University of Western Ontario who has written about the issue. "I applaud Quebec. It's about time someone had the courage to do this."
According to Dr. Nisker, also a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, Canada sees IVF as "something for the rich, like cosmetic surgery. Elsewhere in the world, it's seen as a serious problem and it deprives women of being mothers.
"Canadian women are discriminated against more than any other women in the world."
He says that granting coverage is not only fair, it also makes sound medical sense. Women who can't afford IVF may turn to high-powered fertility drugs that result in multiple births, which often require costly neonatal care.
Mr. Charest's promise - and his reference to infertility as a "medical condition" - was seen as a significant step toward victory for the couples and doctors who have been seeking public financing.
"This promise is profoundly symbolic," says obstetrician and gynecologist Pierre Miron, director of the fertility clinic at Montreal's Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital. "It may not increase the birth rate that much, but it gives a social signal that the state supports births even more.
"We are the Gaulois, resisting," he adds, comparing Quebeckers to the ancient Gauls who stood up to the Romans. "With this, we're coming up with an incentive for infertile couples."
Dr. Miron, who has been helping couples conceive since the 1980s, predicts that whoever wins the vote on Dec. 8 will now find it difficult to back down from the IVF promise.
After all, it's a true motherhood issue.
Ingrid Peritz is a reporter in The Globe and Mail's Montreal bureau.
***
Child-friendly
$1,207
The after-tax annual cost per child of daycare for a Quebec family with two children and an income of $75,000 a year
$6,974
The figure for Saskatchewan, with the next cheapest child care.
$7,145
The Canadian average, excluding Quebec.
Source: Le Québec, un paradis pour les familles? by Luc Godbout and Suzie St-Cerny (Laval University Press, 2008).
QUEBEC CAMPAIGN: REVENGE OF THE CRADLE REDUX
Kissing babies isn't enough
Sure, it's politics, Ingrid Peritz explains, but Jean Charest's sudden support for IVF also rights a wrong
INGRID PERITZ
November 22, 2008
MONTREAL -- Annie Martel enjoys family perks that would be the envy of mothers anywhere. When she became a foster parent two years ago, she took advantage of Quebec's generous parental leave. And when her girl started daycare, Quebec subsidies ensured that the service would cost her just $7 a day.
Now that Ms. Martel has adopted the child and dreams of giving birth to a sibling for her, Quebec once again is poised to deliver.
With a provincial election campaign in full throttle, Liberal Leader Jean Charest has pledged to introduce a benefit that would be unique in Canada: full coverage of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments.
"To have the government pay is an enormous step - maybe we will still be able to have a biological child of our own," says Ms. Martel, a 41-year-old Montreal Web designer who estimates that she and her husband have spent $35,000 on fertility treatments. "This gives us a lot of hope."
The promise brings a measure of comfort to women like Ms. Martel. And it may be a winner on the campaign trail.
No politician has ever gone wrong by promising pro-baby policies in Quebec, where increasing the province's low birth rate has been a near-obsession since it plunged from one of the world's highest to one of its lowest.
Even so, as recently as June, Philippe Couillard, then Mr. Charest's health minister, opposed extending medical coverage to IVF, putting the Liberals at odds with both the Parti Québécois and Action démocratique du Québec, whose leader, Mario Dumont, had championed the cause.
Now, while campaigning for a third term as premier, Mr. Charest seems to have seen the light. This week, he announced that under a Liberal government, Quebec's health-insurance plan would cover two IVF treatments and the existing 50-per-cent tax credit would still apply if further attempts are required.
"A couple that wants children must get all the help possible," he declared.
Total cost of the promise: $35-million a year. Estimated boost to the population: 1,500 babies.
The pledge helps to secure Quebec's status as the most baby-conscious and aggressively pro-family province in the land. The provincial government has been coaxing the stork into Quebeckers' homes ever since it brought in baby bonuses in 1988. Since then, Quebec has trail-blazed with universal daycare and unparalleled parental leave.
The incentives are credited with helping to produce a modest baby boom, although the fertility rate of 1.6 babies per woman is still below replacement levels. Quebec has long tied a robust population to its collective survival in an English-speaking continent, a concern that once led the Catholic Church to advocate the "revenge of the cradle." But the secularism of the 1960s Quiet Revolution brought a steep drop in the birth rate that policy-makers have struggled to reverse since.
Today, the province's family-friendly ethos trickles down to small towns such as St-Lin-Laurentides, which has been encouraging residents to have large broods for 20 years.
To this day, the community of 15,000 north of Montreal gives new parents T-shirts and bibs emblazoned with the municipal crest, along with a $500 bonus for a third child. Mayor André Auger admits the money won't go far, but he wants to get the message across.
"I'm a good Québécois, I'm a nationalist," Mr. Auger says, "and I say a people that respects itself has to reproduce."
Still, with Mr. Charest's latest pledge, Quebec is shifting the focus from new parents to would-be parents.
HIGH-PROFILE STRUGGLE
Infertile couples have battled for years to have costly IVF treatments covered. They found a mighty advocate in TV personality Julie Snyder, wife of media magnate Pierre-Karl Péladeau, chief executive officer of Quebecor Inc.
Ms. Snyder's crusade on behalf of infertile couples led to a high-profile confrontation with Dr. Couillard during parliamentary hearings in June.
At a time when Quebec was struggling with a low birth rate, she asked, why was the province paying for "life-prevention" procedures such as abortions and vasectomies but not something "that creates life?"
Ms. Snyder recently gave birth to her second child. Meanwhile, Dr. Couillard has retired from politics.
Quebec offers a tax credit for IVF, but couples still find themselves taking out loans to pay upward of $10,000 for each series of treatment. For some, the cost puts the dream of parenthood out of reach.
"Do I borrow the money to try it once? Do I have to borrow again for a second try? Then I'll really be in the hole," says Mélanie Pétrin, a Montreal school-board employee whose husband, Benoit Adams, studies while working part-time.
She has been trying to conceive for nearly two years and feels frustrated that other women can afford fertility treatments that she cannot.
"It's true, I'm not sick, I'm not coughing or stuck in bed, but my state of health isn't normal," says Ms. Pétrin, who turns 29 today.
"You feel you could be a good mother, you could give your time and invest in a child. But you're unable to do it. At least if I can try, I will say that I've tried everything."
If the Liberals win the election - they are leading in the polls - and stick to the promise, Quebec will be the only province to cover IVF fully. Ontario pays only for women who have complete blockages in both Fallopian tubes.
As it stands, Canada lags behind most developed countries. Nations such as Australia, France, Israel, Norway and Germany all offer various kinds of coverage, as do some health-maintenance organizations (HMOs) in the United States.
"Canada is a huge anomaly. It's an embarrassment," says Jeff Nisker, a medical ethicist at the University of Western Ontario who has written about the issue. "I applaud Quebec. It's about time someone had the courage to do this."
According to Dr. Nisker, also a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, Canada sees IVF as "something for the rich, like cosmetic surgery. Elsewhere in the world, it's seen as a serious problem and it deprives women of being mothers.
"Canadian women are discriminated against more than any other women in the world."
He says that granting coverage is not only fair, it also makes sound medical sense. Women who can't afford IVF may turn to high-powered fertility drugs that result in multiple births, which often require costly neonatal care.
Mr. Charest's promise - and his reference to infertility as a "medical condition" - was seen as a significant step toward victory for the couples and doctors who have been seeking public financing.
"This promise is profoundly symbolic," says obstetrician and gynecologist Pierre Miron, director of the fertility clinic at Montreal's Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital. "It may not increase the birth rate that much, but it gives a social signal that the state supports births even more.
"We are the Gaulois, resisting," he adds, comparing Quebeckers to the ancient Gauls who stood up to the Romans. "With this, we're coming up with an incentive for infertile couples."
Dr. Miron, who has been helping couples conceive since the 1980s, predicts that whoever wins the vote on Dec. 8 will now find it difficult to back down from the IVF promise.
After all, it's a true motherhood issue.
Ingrid Peritz is a reporter in The Globe and Mail's Montreal bureau.
***
Child-friendly
$1,207
The after-tax annual cost per child of daycare for a Quebec family with two children and an income of $75,000 a year
$6,974
The figure for Saskatchewan, with the next cheapest child care.
$7,145
The Canadian average, excluding Quebec.
Source: Le Québec, un paradis pour les familles? by Luc Godbout and Suzie St-Cerny (Laval University Press, 2008).
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Show & Tell: 'Tis the season...
Christmas has always been a special time for my family. But it's also been the busiest time of year for us at work, which has added a lot of stress to the holiday preparations. After our daughter was stillborn in August 1998 -- followed by the death of my grandfather later that fall -- I found myself re-evaluating just what was absolutely essential to my definition of Christmas, & what could go by the wayside -- in other words, where I most wanted to spend my limited energy.I had no energy for Christmas baking -- most of the stuff I made was stuff my mother made & I could eat at her house anyway -- and no matter how much I gave away, I always seemed to have a ton left in my freezer to nibble on -- so I don't think I have baked since then. Likewise, I've had very little use for holiday parties -- particularly since the Worst. Christmas. Party. Ever. in 1998. So I don't care whether I attend any of those now.
But we have always put up a Christmas tree -- which, over the years, has become a Katie tree. And I have always sent out Christmas cards & a Christmas letter. When I lived at home with my parents, I always did my mother's cards (I can count the number of years she's sent out cards herself since I left home on the fingers of one hand, lol). Having moved around a lot, & having a large extended family, my card list is more than 100 names long.
When Katie was stillborn, I used our annual Christmas letter to tell everyone about it (although most of them had already heard through other channels). Every year since then, I've managed to work in a reference to her, albeit usually in connection with the volunteer work we do for our pregnancy loss support group.
The cards themselves are also usually a tribute to Katie, although not everyone would realize that. Most years, I've managed to find cards with a Classic Pooh theme (Katie's nursery was to have had Classic Pooh decor). Other years, when I haven't been able to find Classic Pooh, I've used angels.
I usually know "the card" when I see it, and even if I continue to look, I will usually return to the one I initially felt in my gut was the right one. That was the case with this year's card (below). No Classic Pooh was to be had, but I knew in my heart that this card -- a little girl, looking at Santa inside of a snowglobe -- was the right one for this year. The inside message reads: "Tis the season of magic. Merry Christmas." It's by Papyrus and I bought mine at Chapters/Indigo here in Canada.
Now, to set aside a few evenings to get them done...!
For more Show & Tell, visit here.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
First the kids, now the grandkids...
I spent Saturday at a "crop" at an area scrapbook store with about 12 other women. As I've written before, it seems like an odd hobby for a childless woman (dominated as it is by mommies) -- but I still enjoy it, although the mommy talk does tend to get stifling now & then (depending on who I am sitting with). The majority of the women at this particular crop were actually older, more like my own mother's age, & I was having a good time.
It does seem like there's always at least one "ouch" moment at every crop, though, & this one was no exception. At one point, everyone started talking about their grandchildren & how great it was to be a grandparent. Someone brought up the old bumper sticker slogan, "If I knew grandchildren were this much fun, I'd have had them first," & even one of the younger women (whose kids are probably still in grade school!) said that oh, she just couldn't wait to be a grandparent someday!
Just a reminder (that I didn't need) that infertility is the gift that keeps on giving. :(
It does seem like there's always at least one "ouch" moment at every crop, though, & this one was no exception. At one point, everyone started talking about their grandchildren & how great it was to be a grandparent. Someone brought up the old bumper sticker slogan, "If I knew grandchildren were this much fun, I'd have had them first," & even one of the younger women (whose kids are probably still in grade school!) said that oh, she just couldn't wait to be a grandparent someday!
Just a reminder (that I didn't need) that infertility is the gift that keeps on giving. :(
If you live in Quebec...
...things may be changing. (Of course, it's only an election promise at this point... but...)
*** *** ***
Charest pledges to fund in-vitro fertilization
Opposition parties pan move as election ploy
Nov 18, 2008 04:30 AM
Andrew Chung Quebec Bureau Chief
MONTREAL–After his government long insisted that infertility wasn't an illness and refused to pay for in-vitro fertilization treatment, Premier Jean Charest did an about-face yesterday.
Charest promised that if his Liberal party were returned to power in the Dec. 8 election, in-vitro fertilization would become a publicly funded medical service under Quebec's health-insurance plan.
Quebec's two opposition parties panned the $35 million pledge as a copycat idea, too late in coming.
But for Charest, it's a plan that would place Quebec at the forefront in Canada of fully funded assisted reproduction, and boost the province's mini baby boom. The Liberals believe Quebec could see an additional 1,500 babies born each year through funded in-vitro fertilizations.
Under the new regime, the first two in-vitro treatments would be covered. After that, couples still needing treatment would be able to count on a 50 per cent tax credit, already in place.
Ontario funds three courses of in-vitro fertilization treatment, but only if the woman's fallopian tubes are blocked.
Other provinces offer "zero," according to Dr. Seang Lin Tan, medical director of the McGill Reproductive Centre in Montreal. Tan said if Charest's plan is implemented, Quebec will become the most generous province when it comes to such treatment.
A cycle of in-vitro treatment costs about $5,500 in Canada, plus up to $4,000 for drugs used in the process.
Canada has one of the lowest rates of in-vitro fertilization treatments in the developed world, partly because of cost, and the availability of treatment only in urban centres, Tan said.
Action démocratique du Québec Leader Mario Dumont said Charest lacked honour because for the last year he has panned the ADQ's idea to fund in-vitro fertilization.
The Parti Québécois asked why Charest would do this now, after so much time refusing the same.
"Having waited for an election campaign to respond to this legitimate demand from people suffering from infertility demonstrates the cynicism of Jean Charest," said Dr. Réjean Hébert, dean of the University of Sherbrooke's faculty of medicine and a PQ candidate.
*** *** ***
Another article, same subject. (But are they funding treatment, or tests?? The reporter needs to get his facts & terminology straight...):
Quebec may cover in-vitro treatments
Nov 17, 2008 05:58 PM
Nelson Wyatt THE CANADIAN PRESS
MONTREAL – Already rich with a history of policy-makers encouraging baby-makers, Quebec could become the first province to pay entirely for in-vitro fertilization treatment under an election promise made today by the governing Liberals.
Premier Jean Charest has joined a long line of Quebec political and religious leaders to play a role in family planning.
The Roman Catholic Church spent centuries imploring Quebecers to reproduce as their religious duty. Liberal premier Robert Bourassa introduced so-called baby bonuses in the 1970s. More recently the ADQ party has urged the government to pay for fertility treatments.
Now the ADQ says Charest has stolen its idea by promising parents two free fertility tests, courtesy of the Quebec government.
Opposition Leader Mario Dumont says he's happy to see help for people who have troubling conceiving a baby, but he castigated Charest for the sudden policy shift. He noted that the premier has spent a year torpedoing the suggestion.
"He's trying to be a progressive hero but for 12 months, he was trying to bury this," Dumont said in Joliette, north of Montreal. ``I hate personal attacks in an election campaign but I have to say that Jean Charest is shameless."
Charest announced the help as part of his health-care platform in the campaign for the Dec. 8 election, dovetailing it with his emphasis on the economy as the No. 1 issue for voters.
It's a tactic that plays to polls that have indicated the economy and health care are actually tied neck-and-neck in terms of priorities for Quebecers.
"When I say `the economy is first,' I also want to say `the economy and health, the economy and education' and `the economy for all Quebecers to live better'," Charest told a group of supporters.
Charest announced several financial incentives to keep nurses in the public sector and plans to boost the number of family doctors and encourage more medical students to choose family medicine as their specialty.
Quebec already offers a 50 per cent tax credit for families who need fertility treatments but Charest announced Monday that if his team is re-elected, the first two tests would be covered by the provincial health plan.
Parents who wish to keep trying in the event of failure would be covered by the tax credit for further treatments.
The Liberals estimated that 1,500 births annually would be generated by the plan, with costs estimated at about $35 million per year.
The plan is a reversal from a stand taken by Philippe Couillard when he was health minister last year. Couillard opposed covering the cost of treatments because he said infertility isn't an illness. Couillard isn't running in this election.
Beverly Hanck of the Infertility Awareness Association of Canada praised the Liberal plan and said it's a one-of-a-kind in Canada.
"It's wonderful," she said. "Quebec is the only province that is doing anything substantial for patients so they're really leading the parade in that."
Hanck, the executive director of the Montreal-based organization, said she has been working with other provinces on the issue, although money has always been a sticking point. Ontario and Alberta are also considering bringing in some kind of help.
Hanck praised the refundable Quebec tax credit, although she said she would like to see it raised even further.
"All of Canada has a total fertility rate of about 1.5 and you need 2.1 to be replacing your population," she said.
"I think politicians are very foolish not to be looking at this," said Hanck, although she praised the Quebec parties for their attentiveness to the issue.
Birth rate has long been an issue for Quebec, most famously in the pre-Quiet Revolution period when Quebecers were urged to have babies in a symbolic settling of scores for the conquest of 1760.
That so-called 'Revenge of the Cradles' had come to an end by the end of 1960s, as Quebec underwent an abrupt transformation from its religious, largely rural past where giant families were the norm.
Within a generation such traditions were replaced by a largely secular Quebec, increasingly urban, and with one of the lowest birth rates in the world.
But the latest trend has seen a small-scale baby boom, with an eight per cent jump in 2006, the biggest birth-rate hike since 1909. In 2005, there were 1,700 fertility treatments, costing between $10,000 and $20,000 per treatment.
Dumont didn't dwell on the fertility issue, however. His main focus on Monday was crime....
*** *** ***
Charest pledges to fund in-vitro fertilization
Opposition parties pan move as election ploy
Nov 18, 2008 04:30 AM
Andrew Chung Quebec Bureau Chief
MONTREAL–After his government long insisted that infertility wasn't an illness and refused to pay for in-vitro fertilization treatment, Premier Jean Charest did an about-face yesterday.
Charest promised that if his Liberal party were returned to power in the Dec. 8 election, in-vitro fertilization would become a publicly funded medical service under Quebec's health-insurance plan.
Quebec's two opposition parties panned the $35 million pledge as a copycat idea, too late in coming.
But for Charest, it's a plan that would place Quebec at the forefront in Canada of fully funded assisted reproduction, and boost the province's mini baby boom. The Liberals believe Quebec could see an additional 1,500 babies born each year through funded in-vitro fertilizations.
Under the new regime, the first two in-vitro treatments would be covered. After that, couples still needing treatment would be able to count on a 50 per cent tax credit, already in place.
Ontario funds three courses of in-vitro fertilization treatment, but only if the woman's fallopian tubes are blocked.
Other provinces offer "zero," according to Dr. Seang Lin Tan, medical director of the McGill Reproductive Centre in Montreal. Tan said if Charest's plan is implemented, Quebec will become the most generous province when it comes to such treatment.
A cycle of in-vitro treatment costs about $5,500 in Canada, plus up to $4,000 for drugs used in the process.
Canada has one of the lowest rates of in-vitro fertilization treatments in the developed world, partly because of cost, and the availability of treatment only in urban centres, Tan said.
Action démocratique du Québec Leader Mario Dumont said Charest lacked honour because for the last year he has panned the ADQ's idea to fund in-vitro fertilization.
The Parti Québécois asked why Charest would do this now, after so much time refusing the same.
"Having waited for an election campaign to respond to this legitimate demand from people suffering from infertility demonstrates the cynicism of Jean Charest," said Dr. Réjean Hébert, dean of the University of Sherbrooke's faculty of medicine and a PQ candidate.
*** *** ***
Another article, same subject. (But are they funding treatment, or tests?? The reporter needs to get his facts & terminology straight...):
Quebec may cover in-vitro treatments
Nov 17, 2008 05:58 PM
Nelson Wyatt THE CANADIAN PRESS
MONTREAL – Already rich with a history of policy-makers encouraging baby-makers, Quebec could become the first province to pay entirely for in-vitro fertilization treatment under an election promise made today by the governing Liberals.
Premier Jean Charest has joined a long line of Quebec political and religious leaders to play a role in family planning.
The Roman Catholic Church spent centuries imploring Quebecers to reproduce as their religious duty. Liberal premier Robert Bourassa introduced so-called baby bonuses in the 1970s. More recently the ADQ party has urged the government to pay for fertility treatments.
Now the ADQ says Charest has stolen its idea by promising parents two free fertility tests, courtesy of the Quebec government.
Opposition Leader Mario Dumont says he's happy to see help for people who have troubling conceiving a baby, but he castigated Charest for the sudden policy shift. He noted that the premier has spent a year torpedoing the suggestion.
"He's trying to be a progressive hero but for 12 months, he was trying to bury this," Dumont said in Joliette, north of Montreal. ``I hate personal attacks in an election campaign but I have to say that Jean Charest is shameless."
Charest announced the help as part of his health-care platform in the campaign for the Dec. 8 election, dovetailing it with his emphasis on the economy as the No. 1 issue for voters.
It's a tactic that plays to polls that have indicated the economy and health care are actually tied neck-and-neck in terms of priorities for Quebecers.
"When I say `the economy is first,' I also want to say `the economy and health, the economy and education' and `the economy for all Quebecers to live better'," Charest told a group of supporters.
Charest announced several financial incentives to keep nurses in the public sector and plans to boost the number of family doctors and encourage more medical students to choose family medicine as their specialty.
Quebec already offers a 50 per cent tax credit for families who need fertility treatments but Charest announced Monday that if his team is re-elected, the first two tests would be covered by the provincial health plan.
Parents who wish to keep trying in the event of failure would be covered by the tax credit for further treatments.
The Liberals estimated that 1,500 births annually would be generated by the plan, with costs estimated at about $35 million per year.
The plan is a reversal from a stand taken by Philippe Couillard when he was health minister last year. Couillard opposed covering the cost of treatments because he said infertility isn't an illness. Couillard isn't running in this election.
Beverly Hanck of the Infertility Awareness Association of Canada praised the Liberal plan and said it's a one-of-a-kind in Canada.
"It's wonderful," she said. "Quebec is the only province that is doing anything substantial for patients so they're really leading the parade in that."
Hanck, the executive director of the Montreal-based organization, said she has been working with other provinces on the issue, although money has always been a sticking point. Ontario and Alberta are also considering bringing in some kind of help.
Hanck praised the refundable Quebec tax credit, although she said she would like to see it raised even further.
"All of Canada has a total fertility rate of about 1.5 and you need 2.1 to be replacing your population," she said.
"I think politicians are very foolish not to be looking at this," said Hanck, although she praised the Quebec parties for their attentiveness to the issue.
Birth rate has long been an issue for Quebec, most famously in the pre-Quiet Revolution period when Quebecers were urged to have babies in a symbolic settling of scores for the conquest of 1760.
That so-called 'Revenge of the Cradles' had come to an end by the end of 1960s, as Quebec underwent an abrupt transformation from its religious, largely rural past where giant families were the norm.
Within a generation such traditions were replaced by a largely secular Quebec, increasingly urban, and with one of the lowest birth rates in the world.
But the latest trend has seen a small-scale baby boom, with an eight per cent jump in 2006, the biggest birth-rate hike since 1909. In 2005, there were 1,700 fertility treatments, costing between $10,000 and $20,000 per treatment.
Dumont didn't dwell on the fertility issue, however. His main focus on Monday was crime....
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