Has it really been three years since I started this blog?
Three years, 1,095 days, 462 posts. On average, that's about 154 posts per year, 13 posts a month, 3 posts per week or 1 post every 2.4 days. Not bad, really. ; ) (Can you tell I like stats?) I've enjoyed every moment of it -- not only getting my own thoughts out there, but getting to know so many of you & your stories. I'm particularly happy that the voices of the childless/free-not-by-choice segment of the blogging community seem to be growing louder. It's nice to know there is company on this road less travelled!
Thank you all for reading & commenting!
First post
Blogoversary #1 (2008)
Blogoversary #2 (2009)
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Living outside the norm
Earlier today, blogger Andrew Sullivan responded to a comment about his recent posts on gay issues with some reflections on what coming out has meant for him.
I read his words -- & while I don't want to distort his meaning, or start a new round of the Pain Olympics-- on a certain level, a lot of what he said could apply to those of us who are also living outside the norm, albeit in a different way -- struggling with loss, infertility & childlessness in a world where most people become parents, take it for granted that they will have the family they want when they want it, & and usually get what they want with little effort or angst (& certainly without having to shell out vast amounts of money just to have a shot at realizing their dreams).
Here's a few excerpts (comments in bold & brackets are mine). Does any of this strike a chord?:
I read his words -- & while I don't want to distort his meaning, or start a new round of the Pain Olympics-- on a certain level, a lot of what he said could apply to those of us who are also living outside the norm, albeit in a different way -- struggling with loss, infertility & childlessness in a world where most people become parents, take it for granted that they will have the family they want when they want it, & and usually get what they want with little effort or angst (& certainly without having to shell out vast amounts of money just to have a shot at realizing their dreams).
Here's a few excerpts (comments in bold & brackets are mine). Does any of this strike a chord?:
Being in a massive heterosexual (read: parental) majority where you don't really have to think very hard or deeply about your sexual nature (read: your fertility/ getting pregnant/being a parent), and where it is easy to drift along without examining core premises of your emotional life, can deny people an opportunity to reflect more profoundly about society and social norms or know themselves more completely......for me, at least, coming out (read: confronting my infertility/losing my child/resolving to live childless/free) logically demanded a much greater honesty about things in general, a much deeper awareness that established norms may not always be correct, and may even hide great cruelty or ignorance.
Read the whole post here.
Facebook and the great parental disconnect
In light of my recent post about Facebook, I would be remiss in not drawing your attention to this absolutely brilliant post Facebook-related post from Julie at A Little Pregnant.
Warning: may induce fits of giggles & extreme temptation to literally ROFLMAO. Not recommended for a cubicle environment. (I learned this the hard way.)
*** *** ***
Julie's post links to a story (front page in the print edition, apparently!) in the Washington Post about what happens when infertility collides with Facebook. There was more than the usual share of nasty comments about how we all really need to just "get a life" and "learn to be happy for other people." (!) And that got me thinking about a weird world we live in.
Our culture right now glorifies pregnancy, motherhood, babies & families (with two parents, one of each gender, & the minimum 2.2 children, of course)(preferably one of each kind). You can't walk into a newsstand or turn on the TV without seeing "baby bumps," pregnancy storylines, or at least one headline with the word "pregnant" or "baby" in it (often in screaming capital letters). Every other ad on TV features an adorable baby, someone announcing their pregnancy (think iPhone commercials), or kids & parents modelling some phase of idealized family life.
At every social gathering, the conversation of our family members, friends & coworkers revolves around everyone's kids. What they're doing. When they should be doing it. What they're eating. What the stuff in their diapers looks like, & whether that's normal. What they're doing in school. What they're doing after school. The cute things they're saying. Bringing up other subjects is futile. Inevitably, somehow, some way, the conversation will creep back to the subject of the children.
Yep, pregnancy & babies are soooooo wonderful! Everybody's doing it!! YOU should be doing it!
How many kids do you have? Really? Why not? When are you going to get pregnant too? (Better hurry up, you know, you're not getting any younger!!) Come on, my kid needs a playmate/cousin! I need a niece/nephew/grandchild/godchild/friend's kid to spoil. Don't you WANT kids? Don't you WANT to be like everyone else?
(Ummm, well, yeah. Not everyone does, of course, but most of us do. But some of us find that is a little easier said than done.)
What's that? You're having problems getting pregnant?
Well, hey, cheer up, you know, it's not such a big deal. Kids really aren't that great anyway. (??!!) Infertility is not the end of the world. Things could be worse. There are children starving in Africa, you know. (Of course, you wouldn't understand what it's like to watch a child in pain, since you're not a mom...)
Maybe you're just not praying hard enough. Or relaxing enough -- maybe you should take a vacation. Or maybe you just weren't meant to be a parent. (By the way, did you hear that my sister is pregnant again? It was an accident! She says her husband just has to LOOK at her & she gets knocked up! Maybe you should ask him how it's done, hahahahaha...)
Or maybe -- you should just adopt! Biology isn't everything, you know. There are so many kids out there who need good homes! You want kids? -- take mine, please, hahahaha....
Suck it up! Get over yourself!
The people who say these things, of course, are almost always either parents themselves(usually the biological sort), or have no intention of ever becoming parents.)
Please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks there is a HUGE disconnect here somewhere???
Either pregnancy & having kids really is as wonderful as everyone says it is -- in which case, you would think people would be more sympathetic to those of us who find it more difficult if not downright impossible to achieve something that comes so easily to the vast majority, and (as most of them will tell you -- in glowing, gushing terms) lends so much meaning to their lives.
Or (as I have heard some childfree-by-choice folk suggest) it's really NOT that great -- & all this talk about baby bumps & orgasmic births is really just propaganda -- an evil delusional plot cooked up by (a) corporations, who realize cute babies are good for business, & want to sell us more stuff, &/or (b) religious types who take their "go forth & multiply" instructions quite seriously. And when parents realize the truth, they go along with the sham because misery loves company, & heaven forbid we don't suffer dirty diapers & 3 a.m. feedings & teething pains (& later, stuff like teenage house parties, as per my previous post...!) along with the rest of them. In other words, their loud protests about how we the childless & infertile are infringing on their parental joy is simply a mask for a serious case of the green-eyed monster.
Or maybe people are just so unknowing & uncomfortable with anything that falls outside their own limited frame of reference, that challenges their vision of the norm -- that even smacks of something unpleasant intruding on the periphery of their rose-tinted glasses -- that they automatically shy away from it and fall back on platitudes to mask their discomfort.
Or maybe some people really are just idiots. (Another distinct possibility.)
What do you think?
*** *** ***
After writing this, I found a brilliant response to Julie's post this morning from Msfitzita. Go read it now.
Warning: may induce fits of giggles & extreme temptation to literally ROFLMAO. Not recommended for a cubicle environment. (I learned this the hard way.)
*** *** ***
Julie's post links to a story (front page in the print edition, apparently!) in the Washington Post about what happens when infertility collides with Facebook. There was more than the usual share of nasty comments about how we all really need to just "get a life" and "learn to be happy for other people." (!) And that got me thinking about a weird world we live in.
Our culture right now glorifies pregnancy, motherhood, babies & families (with two parents, one of each gender, & the minimum 2.2 children, of course)(preferably one of each kind). You can't walk into a newsstand or turn on the TV without seeing "baby bumps," pregnancy storylines, or at least one headline with the word "pregnant" or "baby" in it (often in screaming capital letters). Every other ad on TV features an adorable baby, someone announcing their pregnancy (think iPhone commercials), or kids & parents modelling some phase of idealized family life.
At every social gathering, the conversation of our family members, friends & coworkers revolves around everyone's kids. What they're doing. When they should be doing it. What they're eating. What the stuff in their diapers looks like, & whether that's normal. What they're doing in school. What they're doing after school. The cute things they're saying. Bringing up other subjects is futile. Inevitably, somehow, some way, the conversation will creep back to the subject of the children.
Yep, pregnancy & babies are soooooo wonderful! Everybody's doing it!! YOU should be doing it!
How many kids do you have? Really? Why not? When are you going to get pregnant too? (Better hurry up, you know, you're not getting any younger!!) Come on, my kid needs a playmate/cousin! I need a niece/nephew/grandchild/godchild/friend's kid to spoil. Don't you WANT kids? Don't you WANT to be like everyone else?
(Ummm, well, yeah. Not everyone does, of course, but most of us do. But some of us find that is a little easier said than done.)
What's that? You're having problems getting pregnant?
Well, hey, cheer up, you know, it's not such a big deal. Kids really aren't that great anyway. (??!!) Infertility is not the end of the world. Things could be worse. There are children starving in Africa, you know. (Of course, you wouldn't understand what it's like to watch a child in pain, since you're not a mom...)
Maybe you're just not praying hard enough. Or relaxing enough -- maybe you should take a vacation. Or maybe you just weren't meant to be a parent. (By the way, did you hear that my sister is pregnant again? It was an accident! She says her husband just has to LOOK at her & she gets knocked up! Maybe you should ask him how it's done, hahahahaha...)
Or maybe -- you should just adopt! Biology isn't everything, you know. There are so many kids out there who need good homes! You want kids? -- take mine, please, hahahaha....
Suck it up! Get over yourself!
The people who say these things, of course, are almost always either parents themselves(usually the biological sort), or have no intention of ever becoming parents.)
Please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks there is a HUGE disconnect here somewhere???
Either pregnancy & having kids really is as wonderful as everyone says it is -- in which case, you would think people would be more sympathetic to those of us who find it more difficult if not downright impossible to achieve something that comes so easily to the vast majority, and (as most of them will tell you -- in glowing, gushing terms) lends so much meaning to their lives.
Or (as I have heard some childfree-by-choice folk suggest) it's really NOT that great -- & all this talk about baby bumps & orgasmic births is really just propaganda -- an evil delusional plot cooked up by (a) corporations, who realize cute babies are good for business, & want to sell us more stuff, &/or (b) religious types who take their "go forth & multiply" instructions quite seriously. And when parents realize the truth, they go along with the sham because misery loves company, & heaven forbid we don't suffer dirty diapers & 3 a.m. feedings & teething pains (& later, stuff like teenage house parties, as per my previous post...!) along with the rest of them. In other words, their loud protests about how we the childless & infertile are infringing on their parental joy is simply a mask for a serious case of the green-eyed monster.
Or maybe people are just so unknowing & uncomfortable with anything that falls outside their own limited frame of reference, that challenges their vision of the norm -- that even smacks of something unpleasant intruding on the periphery of their rose-tinted glasses -- that they automatically shy away from it and fall back on platitudes to mask their discomfort.
Or maybe some people really are just idiots. (Another distinct possibility.)
What do you think?
*** *** ***
After writing this, I found a brilliant response to Julie's post this morning from Msfitzita. Go read it now.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Babies grow up to be TEENAGERS...
There are certain times when I'm actually glad I don't have kids -- especially when I read articles like this. Yikes!!!
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Keith Richards, bereaved father
I picked up the new issue of Rolling Stone to read on the commute home tonight. The cover story: an excerpt from Keith Richards' upcoming memoir, Life.
(As I mentioned in a previous music-related post) While I've loved the Beatles since my preschool days, it took me awhile to appreciate the Stones. Their music had a much harder edge, of course (especially to the ears of someone whose tastes ran to the Partridge Family, the Osmonds & the Bay City Rollers, lol). Their drug use during my teenage years (and Keith's in particular) was notorious... and then there was that business of the heroin bust in Toronto, where the prime minister's hippie wife, Margaret Trudeau, partied with the band at the Harbour Castle hotel.
But I started to like the band more in my high school years. I know most critics think their best stuff came from the 1960s -- but their three late 70s/early 80s albums, Some Girls, Tattoo You & Emotional Rescue, were an important part of the soundtrack of my life at that time.
These days, I think of the band, and Keith in particular, with affection. (One of my favourite episodes of The Simpsons is the one where the family sends Homer to the Rolling Stones Rock & Roll Fantasy Camp. At the end, Homer wants to know why they can't stay longer. Mick says, "The lawn isn't going to mow itself," & Keith adds, "And I have to put up the storm windows. Winter's coming!" At the very end, you see Mick mowing the lawn while next door, Keith is on a ladder, hammering in the storm windows, cigarette dangling from his mouth, of course, lol.) There's something likeable about the guy. He's so completely honest about himself. There are absolutely no pretentions about Keith Richards. He is what he is and he makes no excuses for himself.
Anyway, I was already looking forward to reading his memoir, which is due in bookstores next week. (You KNOW this guy has some stories to tell...!!) I knew he had two daughters with his wife, supermodel Patti Hansen, as well as an older son & daughter with Anita Pallenberg. But then, reading the Rolling Stone article that prefaced the book excerpts, I was stunned to read that Keith had another son with Anita -- named Tara (after his friend, Tara Browne -- heir to the Guiness fortune -- who died in a car crash & was the inspiration for the Beatles' song "Day in the Life") -- who died in 1976. Subsequent Googling tells me that baby Tara died when he was about 10 weeks old of SIDS, while Keith was on tour.
(As I mentioned in a previous music-related post) While I've loved the Beatles since my preschool days, it took me awhile to appreciate the Stones. Their music had a much harder edge, of course (especially to the ears of someone whose tastes ran to the Partridge Family, the Osmonds & the Bay City Rollers, lol). Their drug use during my teenage years (and Keith's in particular) was notorious... and then there was that business of the heroin bust in Toronto, where the prime minister's hippie wife, Margaret Trudeau, partied with the band at the Harbour Castle hotel.
But I started to like the band more in my high school years. I know most critics think their best stuff came from the 1960s -- but their three late 70s/early 80s albums, Some Girls, Tattoo You & Emotional Rescue, were an important part of the soundtrack of my life at that time.
These days, I think of the band, and Keith in particular, with affection. (One of my favourite episodes of The Simpsons is the one where the family sends Homer to the Rolling Stones Rock & Roll Fantasy Camp. At the end, Homer wants to know why they can't stay longer. Mick says, "The lawn isn't going to mow itself," & Keith adds, "And I have to put up the storm windows. Winter's coming!" At the very end, you see Mick mowing the lawn while next door, Keith is on a ladder, hammering in the storm windows, cigarette dangling from his mouth, of course, lol.) There's something likeable about the guy. He's so completely honest about himself. There are absolutely no pretentions about Keith Richards. He is what he is and he makes no excuses for himself.
Anyway, I was already looking forward to reading his memoir, which is due in bookstores next week. (You KNOW this guy has some stories to tell...!!) I knew he had two daughters with his wife, supermodel Patti Hansen, as well as an older son & daughter with Anita Pallenberg. But then, reading the Rolling Stone article that prefaced the book excerpts, I was stunned to read that Keith had another son with Anita -- named Tara (after his friend, Tara Browne -- heir to the Guiness fortune -- who died in a car crash & was the inspiration for the Beatles' song "Day in the Life") -- who died in 1976. Subsequent Googling tells me that baby Tara died when he was about 10 weeks old of SIDS, while Keith was on tour.
“Leaving a newborn infant is something I can’t forgive myself for,” says Richards in Life.
“The first time we talked about that," Fox [James Fox, the co-author of the book] says, "Keith couldn’t get out more than five words. Then we realised we had to go back to it. He told me that he thought about it every week.”
Who knew? Keith Richards is "one of us." I will definitely be adding this to the top of my reading list.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Facebook friends, & raising awareness
Last Friday, October 15th, was Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day. I'm glad that such a day exists, for obvious reasons -- but I have to admit, I really didn't give the day too much thought. I'm not really sure why. I guess it's because it's an awareness day. I most definitely agree that awareness needs to be raised generally about pregnancy loss, & just how many families it affects. But nobody is more aware of pregnancy & infant loss than me, or any other parent who has lost a baby. I don't need reminding that it's an issue. I think about my daughter every single day. Every day, I am keenly aware of how different my life would have been, had she survived. Every day, I am reminded that I am not a mother, at least in the eyes of this pregnancy-&-baby-crazed world we live in.
So I really didn't think much about the significance of Oct. 15th this year. I didn't have a post planned, forgot to light my candle.
However, the night before, I did post one of those status blurbs that was going around on Facebook. One of my friends from our support group had posted it, with her daughter's name, & I just copied it over & inserted Katie's name.
ETA: This is the status update I posted:
Ummmm.... in this case, anyway, I'd say, probably not. ; )
Still, you have to admit, over the past 30-40 years, greater awareness of breast cancer has raised millions of dollars & advanced research on a scale that those of us who have been through pregnancy/infant loss &/or infertility can only dream of. Breasts have long been a taboo subject in polite company -- hence the silence around breast cancer which only recently has started to be broken.
And what's a subject that's even more taboo to bring up in polite company than breasts? Dead babies, anyone?
As Mrs. Spit recently wrote so eloquently:
(With all due respect to families affected by SIDS) I'm reminded of another article I read some time ago that pointed out that SIDS affects far fewer families than stillbirth -- and yet the awareness of SIDS, the preventative "back to sleep" campaign, & the research dollars it has generated, vastly outweighs awarenss of stillbirth.
I'm not saying that awareness & research into SIDS is not important. It is. I just want to point out that SIDS babies have the advantage because they were born and lived, if only for a few days or weeks. It's not as easy to pretend that a baby never existed, doesn't "count," when you've been to see them, held them in your arms, maybe even fed & burped them or changed their diaper.
I want that same kind of awareness for babies lost during pregnancy. The babies most people never get to see or hold, sometimes not even their own moms & dads.
I want kick counts (one of the very few tools at a woman's disposal to monitor her baby's wellness) to become the new "back to sleep." None of my doctors talked with me about kick counts; I was vaguely aware of them from reading, but most of the books I read didn't recommend starting them until the third trimester. I never got that far, & Katie was so small, I never felt a whole lot of movement from her anyway. But I know of a few loss moms who, in their subsequent pregnancies, did kick counts, realized the baby's movements were slowing, and got to the hospital just in time.
I want to know why it takes two, three, sometimes four or more miscarriages before doctors do more than just pat moms on the shoulder and tell them to try again.
I want to know why some jurisdictions don't even keep statistics on stillbirths, or do autopsies as a matter of course.
While I have mixed feelings about the effectiveness of pink ribbons & Facebook posts, I've come to the conclusion that they're better than nothing, at least in these early days. It's a start. Raise the awareness and the dollars for research and support will follow, eventually. A Facebook status update may be a small thing, but I'm glad I did it. I'm glad that I took one small step this past week to remind a few people that, even today, some babies still die. Mine did too. (Remember?)
*** *** ***
"See??" dh said to me, reading the reposts and comments my Facebook post received. "Isn't it healthier to let people know these things instead of keeping them cooped up inside?"
Well... I have mixed feelings.
Frankly, it took me a long time to decide to sign up for Facebook. I already spend enough time online as it is ; ) & I was (& still am) concerned about the potential for privacy breaches. And I don't just mean the very real potential for Facebook to sell my personal information (& that of my friends) to one of its clients.
Until just recently, I was able to keep my "real life" and online existences fairly separate. These days, though, I have my relatives, dh's relatives, high school & university friends, real-life & online loss friends, online scrapbooking friends and others on my FB friends list. I don't think I've had a group representing so many aspects of my life all together in one place since my wedding, lol. And there's been a few times in the months since I've joined that my real life and online existence have converged, or brushed uncomfortably close together. It's a small world, & in some ways, the Internet generally and Facebook in particular have made it even smaller.
If one of my "real life" friends or relatives got really curious, they could no doubt follow some of my Facebook "likes" & friends back to my blog. I first got thinking about blogs when a couple of our support group clients started talking about their own blogs. They didn't say a lot on the subject, mostly just that they had them -- but when I got back home, I input a few key words & names on Google, and found all their blogs in less than five minutes flat. It gave me pause -- but obviously, it didn't stop me from eventually starting my own blog. ; )
But when I think about it, I doubt that people are really THAT interested in me, lol. And while I'm not about to rush out & hand out my blog address to all & sundry ; ) & I don't LIKE the idea that someone I know IRL might find this blog, I think I've come to realize that it wouldn't be the end of the world if they did either. I hope I never have to find out, though. ; )
If you're on Facebook, have you also found your worlds colliding in weird (or wonderful) ways?
So I really didn't think much about the significance of Oct. 15th this year. I didn't have a post planned, forgot to light my candle.
However, the night before, I did post one of those status blurbs that was going around on Facebook. One of my friends from our support group had posted it, with her daughter's name, & I just copied it over & inserted Katie's name.
ETA: This is the status update I posted:
Tomorrow on Oct 15th, we will remember all babies born sleeping, or the babies we have carried but never met, or those we have held but could not take home or the ones that came home but didn't stay. Make this your profile status if you or someone you know has suffered the loss of a baby. In memory of Kathleen Maria Lastname --
& all her friends in that big playground in the sky. : ) ♥♥♥
Facebook’s campaign that asks women to change their profile to add innuendos about where they stash their purses may lead to a quick chat about the quirky campaign, but does it get anyone closer to preventing or curing the disease?
Ummmm.... in this case, anyway, I'd say, probably not. ; )
Still, you have to admit, over the past 30-40 years, greater awareness of breast cancer has raised millions of dollars & advanced research on a scale that those of us who have been through pregnancy/infant loss &/or infertility can only dream of. Breasts have long been a taboo subject in polite company -- hence the silence around breast cancer which only recently has started to be broken.
And what's a subject that's even more taboo to bring up in polite company than breasts? Dead babies, anyone?
As Mrs. Spit recently wrote so eloquently:
I’m devestated that my son is dead. My heart is broken, even still. But I’m also angry.... I’m angry that babies are dying. I’m angry that my governments award niggardly funding to research, I’m angry that researchers and drug manufactures would rather cure toe nail fungus than deadly disorders of pregnancy....
Women and their babies are dying, all around us, they are dying while we live our lives. All around us are crushed and broken men and women, and no one has any answers for them. We live our lives while women and babies die, and I still don’t understand, how are we not rioting in the streets?
And that, that makes me mad as hell. I don’t want memory, I want action. I want women and their babies to stop dying.
(With all due respect to families affected by SIDS) I'm reminded of another article I read some time ago that pointed out that SIDS affects far fewer families than stillbirth -- and yet the awareness of SIDS, the preventative "back to sleep" campaign, & the research dollars it has generated, vastly outweighs awarenss of stillbirth.
I'm not saying that awareness & research into SIDS is not important. It is. I just want to point out that SIDS babies have the advantage because they were born and lived, if only for a few days or weeks. It's not as easy to pretend that a baby never existed, doesn't "count," when you've been to see them, held them in your arms, maybe even fed & burped them or changed their diaper.
I want that same kind of awareness for babies lost during pregnancy. The babies most people never get to see or hold, sometimes not even their own moms & dads.
I want kick counts (one of the very few tools at a woman's disposal to monitor her baby's wellness) to become the new "back to sleep." None of my doctors talked with me about kick counts; I was vaguely aware of them from reading, but most of the books I read didn't recommend starting them until the third trimester. I never got that far, & Katie was so small, I never felt a whole lot of movement from her anyway. But I know of a few loss moms who, in their subsequent pregnancies, did kick counts, realized the baby's movements were slowing, and got to the hospital just in time.
I want to know why it takes two, three, sometimes four or more miscarriages before doctors do more than just pat moms on the shoulder and tell them to try again.
I want to know why some jurisdictions don't even keep statistics on stillbirths, or do autopsies as a matter of course.
While I have mixed feelings about the effectiveness of pink ribbons & Facebook posts, I've come to the conclusion that they're better than nothing, at least in these early days. It's a start. Raise the awareness and the dollars for research and support will follow, eventually. A Facebook status update may be a small thing, but I'm glad I did it. I'm glad that I took one small step this past week to remind a few people that, even today, some babies still die. Mine did too. (Remember?)
*** *** ***
"See??" dh said to me, reading the reposts and comments my Facebook post received. "Isn't it healthier to let people know these things instead of keeping them cooped up inside?"
Well... I have mixed feelings.
Frankly, it took me a long time to decide to sign up for Facebook. I already spend enough time online as it is ; ) & I was (& still am) concerned about the potential for privacy breaches. And I don't just mean the very real potential for Facebook to sell my personal information (& that of my friends) to one of its clients.
Until just recently, I was able to keep my "real life" and online existences fairly separate. These days, though, I have my relatives, dh's relatives, high school & university friends, real-life & online loss friends, online scrapbooking friends and others on my FB friends list. I don't think I've had a group representing so many aspects of my life all together in one place since my wedding, lol. And there's been a few times in the months since I've joined that my real life and online existence have converged, or brushed uncomfortably close together. It's a small world, & in some ways, the Internet generally and Facebook in particular have made it even smaller.
If one of my "real life" friends or relatives got really curious, they could no doubt follow some of my Facebook "likes" & friends back to my blog. I first got thinking about blogs when a couple of our support group clients started talking about their own blogs. They didn't say a lot on the subject, mostly just that they had them -- but when I got back home, I input a few key words & names on Google, and found all their blogs in less than five minutes flat. It gave me pause -- but obviously, it didn't stop me from eventually starting my own blog. ; )
But when I think about it, I doubt that people are really THAT interested in me, lol. And while I'm not about to rush out & hand out my blog address to all & sundry ; ) & I don't LIKE the idea that someone I know IRL might find this blog, I think I've come to realize that it wouldn't be the end of the world if they did either. I hope I never have to find out, though. ; )
If you're on Facebook, have you also found your worlds colliding in weird (or wonderful) ways?
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Great expectations?
I found a great article in the National Post this week about people's inflated expectations of what infertility treatments can do. I'm really not sure how many women go around cavalierly thinking, "Oh, I have plenty of time, because there's always IVF..." -- but I do agree that women are really not as aware as they should be about how quickly their fertility declines. And I most certainly agree that there are a LOT of misconceptions related to infertility & infertility treatment.
It's not just the fact that women who may need treatment have these false expectations that bothers me -- the general public has this perception too. Ergo, if I'm living childless, I really must not have wanted children very much -- because there's always IVF (if not adoption), right?? Very little is said about the fact that these treatments often don't work (& that the odds decrease dramatically as you age), let alone the financial, physical, mental & emotional stresses that accompany them.
I read another article somewhere recently about 30- & 40-something women attending a seminar on egg freezing, which is now being offered by a local clinic... the part that stuck in my mind was that when the clinic staffer leading the session said the cutoff age for the program was 36, there was a collective gasp in the room.
Loved the points about family drs (much as I love mine, he could stand to read this article, based on the advice I got from him...) & employers, too.
*** *** ***
It's not just the fact that women who may need treatment have these false expectations that bothers me -- the general public has this perception too. Ergo, if I'm living childless, I really must not have wanted children very much -- because there's always IVF (if not adoption), right?? Very little is said about the fact that these treatments often don't work (& that the odds decrease dramatically as you age), let alone the financial, physical, mental & emotional stresses that accompany them.
I read another article somewhere recently about 30- & 40-something women attending a seminar on egg freezing, which is now being offered by a local clinic... the part that stuck in my mind was that when the clinic staffer leading the session said the cutoff age for the program was 36, there was a collective gasp in the room.
Loved the points about family drs (much as I love mine, he could stand to read this article, based on the advice I got from him...) & employers, too.
*** *** ***
Women delay childbirth due to false fertility expectations
Tom Blackwell, National Post · Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2010
Women are delaying childbirth until later and later in life partly because they have an exaggerated belief that fertility treatments will help them get pregnant well into middle age, suggests new Canadian research.
Media accounts of older celebrity mothers and even advice from ill-informed family doctors is fuelling unrealistic expectations about in vitro fertilization (IVF) and other reproductive technology, said Judith Daniluk, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia.
Women who responded to a recent survey by Prof. Daniluk suggested they expected to delay childbirth until much later than even they considered ideal, and that they believed fertility treatments were far more effective later in life than is really the case.
In fact, the efficacy of treatments for infertile women declines precipitously after the age of about 34, with the technology-aided birth rate hitting barely 1% for those age 46.
“There is an assumption that if women are in good shape, if they’re physicially fit, they can turn to IVF,” said Prof. Daniluk, who counsels fertility patients. “Most people don’t know that, No. 1, IVF is expensive ... and, No. 2, it can’t fully compensate for age-related fertility decline.”
She said more education is needed to drive home the limits of the technology.
She also said that labour policies should be changed to make it easier for women to get pregnant in their peak child-bearing years, without sacrificing careers.
Other experts agreed on Tuesday that misconceptions about reproductive science are helping fuel the steady increase in the age at which Canadian women have children. Close to 49% of women who gave birth in 2005 were over age 30, almost 2½ times the rate in 1974, according to Statistics Canada.
Often, perceptions about fertility medicine seem to arise from the pages of supermarket tabloids, said Dr. Roger Pierson, a Saskatoon physician and spokesman for the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society.
Fertility clinics constantly encounter women who have read about an actress in her late 40s or 50s who just got pregnant, and wonder, “can you do it for me?” he said.
A 49-year-old patient asked during an appointment recently if she could have eggs frozen for when “she might want to use them.”
“Women are, I think, bombarded with misinformation,” Dr. Pierson said. “What we hear is medicine and science can solve anything, and that simply isn’t true.... It’s sad. These are desperate people who have made incorrect decisions”
Prof. Daniluk said she has seen a dramatic change in the make-up of fertility-clinic patients since the mid-1990s, when most were heterosexual couples who needed treatment because of male fertility problems. Now a third are single women, many of whom have waited too long to get pregnant.
In a presentation to the society’s recent conference in Vancouver, Prof. Daniluk offered up preliminary results of an online, self-administered survey that received more than 1,000 responses between April and June this year.
About 86% thought the ideal age for having their first child was between 20 and 30, but 44% expected to wait until the were between 31 and 35, and 28% until they were over 36.
Most said they would undergo in vitro fertilzation and close to 30% said they would use a surrogate mother if necessary to have a baby.
Knowledge of the reality of delayed pregnancy, and the value of fertility treatments was lacking, however. Most indicated, inaccurately, that overall fitness was a better indicator of fertility than age, while almost half either did not know or refuted the fact that a woman’s eggs are as old as she is.
About 63% said they thought reproductive technology could help most women get pregnant before the onset of menopause, which occurs at an average age of 51.
Prof. Daniluk said it appears to her that family doctors, struggling to keep up with rapid advances in numerous fields of medicine, can also be misinformed about the efficacy of fertility treatment. Patients who delayed child-bearing sometimes say their physician assured them “Don’t worry, you have time,” she said.
Many people do not realize “there is not a technological fix” for age-related infertility, echoed Abby Lippman, an epidemiologist at McGill University and former head of the Canadian Women’s Health Network.
She also called for employers to change their attitudes so women who want children can progress at a different pace than others.
National Post
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