Three Infertility and Loss Posts
Three posts popped up in my Reader or on a listserv this week that all felt worth mentioning separately from the Roundup.
The first was in The Atlantic and titled “All the Pregnancies I Couldn’t Talk About.” The author chronicles her nine pregnancies and one child. She writes,
We do not talk openly about miscarriage and fertility in America, and yet miscarriage is more common than the flu … For years, I never told anyone about my miscarriages, because as a professional American woman, I’d been indoctrinated to mute the implications of my gender. I should never hint at the idea that my body is capable of reproduction or that I might someday want to start a family.
It’s a moving article, but it will also make you want to get up and cheer. And stand behind her and shout “yes!” because… “I’m older and stronger now, and with some distance I can see that refusing to talk openly about miscarriage is utterly and inexcusably ridiculous. America lacks a requisite societal maturity in how we discuss pregnancy and professionalism.” She’s leading the revolution, and I’m throwing my support behind her.
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The New Yorker has an article about the Polish government seizing the frozen embryos of single women. The author states: “That summer, the laws covering fertility treatment in Poland were shifting. Informed by the Vatican’s absolute opposition to IVF, the socially conservative Law and Justice Party, known by its Polish acronym, PiS, had put forward legislation that would ban IVF and criminalize its provision.”
It’s a look at how anti-IVF sentiment can grow inside a country. It’s terrifying and informative; anyone concerned about reproductive rights (all of us, right?) should read it.
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Finally, a post that is not actually about infertility (or… maybe it is… the author doesn’t state what the injections are for) but about giving yourself (or someone else) an injection. If you’re scared of needles, it’s a great little trick. While I didn’t do it for pain reasons, I did always line up my needle with my skin before pulling back an inch and then plunging in. Makes the shot so much easier.
4 comments
There seem to be a lot of “miscarriage is common” articles. From my perspective these are not and would not have been helpful. When I had miscarriages I didn’t worry I was alone, and knowing it was common didn’t help. (And it’s not like this info was hidden. Google and message boards were around back then.) No, I was devastated bc it really looked like I would never have a child. Mc sucks on its own but when you’re 40, been trying for years, etc…so I am finding this current run of articles almost annoying. “Oh if only women knew it was common, it wouldn’t be so bad.” Well infertility is common too but that doesn’t make you feel any better when you are seriously facing never having a child.
So…I have mc article fatigue. Maybe these might help a 30 year old who for some reason is ignorant about mc yet still has years to try, but that’s about it.
That sounds like a great tip.
Interesting cluster of posts that came across your radar.
I think it would be great if people could feel comfortable openly saying if they had a miscarriage and be given time off work to recover (physically and emotionally). And also for people to give them support. Instead it still seems like this almost shameful thing that happens behind closed doors. So I am glad that people are talking about miscarriage and infertility more now
Fascinating collection of articles. I think some of the miscarriage stigma is becoming a little less just with the plethora of articles – I never had the guilt some people have (I knew there was literally nothing I could have done to prevent/change mine) and I knew it was super common so none of these articles over the years really…had new info for me. However, I did openly tell my work both times that I’d suffered a miscarriage and took time off (mostly because I had to physically recover from a D&C and then do some testing for an ectopic). I don’t know if I’d have felt at all comfortable doing that without the attention that’s been paid to the commonness of miscarriages in the last few years.
The article on Poland and IVF is absolutely chilling. Ever since the 2016 election in the US, I’ve been watching the laws very closely (the current veep is my former governor – boo – and I have, alas, had the opportunity to see up close the kinds of laws he and his cohorts would like to enact). It’s one of the reasons I am VERY glad to have my final euploid embryo transferred and the aneuploid one discarded at this point, because it’s been a genuine worry to me for the last several years that some sort of weird law would get traction and mess things up.