Your Money Back But Not Your Sanity
Updated at the Bottom
What doctors seem to forget is that there is a physical cost, a financial cost, AND an emotional cost to infertility. A neuroscientist has developed a new method that he claims can get people pregnant within 24 weeks or he’ll give you your money back. No IVF required.
And that’s swell. IVF has a big physical cost, so conceiving without it is obviously better for the body. If there is a money back guarantee, there is no harm, no foul when it comes to the financial cost. But what about the emotional cost?
What about being put through the wringer because someone has filled you with hope only to dash it? What about finding out that you fall in that much smaller category of people who don’t have success with his method? And beyond that, for the most part, it sounds like the equivalent to taking a sugar pill to cure cancer. Walks in the woods and going to sleep by 11 pm isn’t going to help a person who has zero sperm or no fallopian tubes. Last I checked, exercising won’t cure my clotting disorder.
But regardless of the fact that his method sounds like it only applies to those who are subfertile vs. infertile, I do want to point out to hucksters and doctors alike that it’s not just the physical and the financial that come into play when it comes to treating infertility. We don’t just need mindful IVF policies and shared risk programs. We need the team to address the emotional side of infertility too.
Because there’s no sanity back guarantee.
Update:
And — for once — there is an infertility that you are going to want to read. Caveat — I haven’t finished it yet, but so far so good.
15 comments
I’m sorry, but that list makes me want to smack someone.
Obviously, I haven’t quite retrieved my sanity yet…
I’m only subfertile, and this list basically makes me want to kill someone. Ideally the charlatan in question.
I’m not even sure this list really applies to the subfertile. I would like to meet all these people who got pregnant simply by eating more antioxidants.
The first article made me laugh (ohhhhh, that’s what the problem was… eating breakfast at 6:30 a.m.!!!! shucks, if I’d only known I could have eliminated all of this heartache!) and the second article made me cry.
Reading the second article is like a knife to the gut. That said, is there a REASON journalists can’t get the “transfer/implant” verbiage correct? For crying out loud.
Wait…have regular intercourse?!?THIS IS BRAND NEW INFORMATION!
second article has been on my mind for days.
What a complete BS this neuroscientist is offering. It’s a shame it even gets press coverage. If it worked I should have had 10 kids by now! I read the second one when m (themaybebaby) posted it on FB a few days ago. Yes, pretty good, but a shame that they (again) didn’t use “transfer” instead of “implant”.
And I completely agree about the emotional costs. Here in France IVF is fully covered by insurance so no sleepless nights over huge bills, but that doesn’t mean that going that route is a piece of cake and decisions are easily taken.
Who cares about the emotional toll? How do we expect scientists to work on that? Just figure out how to get everyone pregnant.
Damn. DAMN!!!!! I knew I should have gotten in touch with nature…
Seriously???
Okay. Probably read way too quickly (the article in question, that is) but, going into nature aside, most of this is common sense stuff that increases health and, yes, “fertility.” (Not in all contexts, obviously. I used an egg donor. No amount of antioxidants were going to help me, either.) And the stats he cites, really, aren’t that impressive.
So while I agree wholeheartedly about the emotional toll of infertility–hell, I’m still dealing with it, two years post-ttc and with my family “complete”–and I also think any sort of money back guarantee is just ludicrous… I don’t know…IVF isn’t the magic bullet either. Certainly wasn’t for me (at least not with my own eggs!!!).
Okay, the Washington post article was pretty decent – but (and it probably goes without saying) stay clear of the comment section, it was full of a special kind of stupidity…I mean hell one of the first comments was literally “why don’t they just adopt?” /cringe.
24 weeks is 6 months more or less. So most women WILL get pregnant during that time. I think of all the people that I started out with on message boards when we started trying. Most were pregnant within 6 months, only a few of us weren’t. And pretty much all were after a year. So if a couple had been trying for 4-5 months, gotten frustrated with it not working, give their money to this dr, and get pregnant within 6 months, he’d be considered a success. When they might have anyway And this guy will have taken their money. What a sham!
I couldn’t bring myself to read the first article but thoroughly enjoyed reading the second. I do have to agree with K though, when are journalists going to get the language right (the word is TRANSFER not IMPLANT).
That said, the article got it right and was balanced (even though the couples they portrayed did have success which is not always the case). Shady Grove definitely got their free advertising.
I liked the clinic pictures that accompanied the article (do you know in 13 transfers I’d NEVER seen the inside of the room men go to to leave their sample)? I only had my imagination (and it wasn’t far from reality). I thought that all the pictures of the couples were a little gratuitous.
I’m just happy to see a national article on infertility that mostly gets it right.
Um, I don’t see at all how this “neuroscientist’s” “program” is remotely comparable to IVF. I could have come up with that nonsense But I see everyone is already rolling their eyes at it, so I’ll just join the crowd.
This is something people pay for? Ridiculous.