Archive for the ‘Check This Out’ Category
October 18, 2011 | By: Liz | Filed under: anonymous sperm donation,Check This Out,Current Affairs,In the News,Infertility on Television,known sperm donation,Personal Musings,Sam Sex Parenting and Reproductive Law,Thinking Out Loud,Third-Party Assisted Reproduction
There have been a ton of interesting articles in magazines recently about third party assisted reproduction. One particular article caught my attention and both intrigued and kind of grossed me out.
The article was in the October 10th/17th edition of Newsweek, “You got your sperm where?” The discussion in the article focused on how people are finding sperm donors (SD for short) through the internet (the “virtual” donor). The article described one donor-recipient match and donation that was initiated through web contact and fulfilled via a donation made in a Starbucks bathroom in NYC. Major yuck factor to that one. Seriously, have you been in a Starbucks bathroom recently? The line outside the bathroom will give you an indication of how actively they are used (hopefully not all for sperm donation purposes), and thus how potentially grimy they are. I have a pretty high threshold for gross bathrooms and overall I think Starbucks does a good job keeping its bathrooms clean. However, with the high traffic many of these bathrooms experience, you have to assume that they are crawling with germs. And if you are trying to have a baby, at least to me, public bathrooms and sperm donation don’t make a great combination. But to each his or her own, I suppose.
The thing that really got me, aside from the fact that this was taking place in Starbucks, was the lack of thought people were giving to what they are doing. It’s one thing to go on a blind date with someone you met on an internet dating site. To conceive a child from an online site — one that is not run by a sperm bank — seems a wee bit more frightening than agreeing to meet your average Tom, Dick or Harry for dinner or drinks.
One of the reasons people seem to be turning to online sources is to avoid the anonymity of sperm banks. There is a sperm donor registry that is designed to help families created through anonymous donation, match the SD’s with the children conceived from the donations and to help children/adults conceived through sperm donation find their biological father. The appeal of finding a random guy from whom you will receive donated sperm, and with whom you can establish some kind of non-anonymous but also non-parent-child relationship, is appealing to many people. I get that. No problem there. Except, I don’t know, maybe some legal issues surrounding that lack of parent-child relationship. . . .
Known sperm donation agreements are some of the trickiest agreements a reproductive lawyer can draft. I am always extremely careful when I draft them. Why you ask? Because, even though the goal of the agreement may be to avoid having the SD be liable for child support or retain any parental rights to the child conceived through the donation . . . courts overturn them with surprising frequency. All it takes are a couple of birthday cards signed “love Dad” and a court may well determine that, notwithstanding my carefully drafted known sperm donation agreement, the SD does indeed have parental rights, is liable for child support, and the child may even be able to inherit through “donor dad’s” estate. Did any of us intend for that to happen when we sat down at the table to discuss what they wanted the agreement to accomplish? No. My clients usually want to have a friend donate sperm so that they can have a child (alone or with a partner), and have the comfort of knowing who the person is that is donating his genetic material. All those “what-if” and “what is he like” questions can be answered later by the existence of a specific known SD.
If the SD and the recipient mom don’t want to have a parental relationship — for example two women in a relationship who intend to parent a child together but don’t want to use an anonymous sperm donor, and would like a close friend of theirs to donate his sperm (think along the lines of a well-known singer and her partner and another very well known male singer) — the sperm donation agreement becomes a critical component for recognition of the intended family unit. The sperm donation agreement establishes what everyone intends to happen, and what everyone intends to be their respective rights and responsibilities in the future. These intentions are set forth in writing prior to the conception of a child. Most of the case law in the US that involves third-party assisted reproduction (including known sperm donation) looks to the parties’ intent at the time the child is conceived. Provided that everyone sticks to the terms of the agreement, usually a good sperm donation agreement will be upheld if ever there are arguments, disagreements, or when and if someone suddenly wants something that was NOT intended when the agreement was drafted. The thing is that just a few real-life events can cause that sperm donation agreement, and the parties’ intention, to come into question. A court could decide that while the parties may have written down and signed an agreement that said one thing, their actions reveal a contrary intent. Actions frequently speak louder than words when it comes to known sperm donation arrangements.
So let’s get back to the people who donated and received the sperm at Starbucks. Do you think they took the time to consult a reproductive lawyer? Did they consider what the consequences would be 10 years down the road if suddenly one person decided they wanted a different type of relationship or needed child support? It didn’t sound like it from the article in Newsweek. While their intent may have considered the prospective best interests of the child — having a person that the child could one day meet or speak to and thus avoid identity issues that plague many children conceived via anonymous sperm donation (thus giving rise to the donor registry I mentioned) — the reality of what they were doing and the lack of awareness of the long term ramifications are mind boggling.
According to the article, one man who is donating sperm through online forums, is asking the recipient to scream “make me pregnant!” or something like it during intercourse. Let’s agree to not discuss the fact that they weren’t using medical professionals or a home insemination kit. The statement the recipient is being asked to state in and of itself could be interpreted as an expression of their mutual agreement and intent to parent a child, TOGETHER. Did the recipient of this sperm intend for this man to be the FATHER of her child? I don’t believe she did. Or did she? Did the SD?
And hey, are we doing background medical checks of any kind? Does anyone know if the people donating or receiving the sperm are healthy or otherwise able to parent a child? What if the SD has an infectious disease? What if the recipient is an ax-murderer? Odds are they aren’t anything other than people with good and honorable intentions. But if the law comes down to intent, don’t we owe it to the child to express that intent?
The internet is a wonderful place and it is a frightening place. We all have heard horror stories stemming from internet match-making. Let’s not add conception of a human being to those horror stories. For anyone considering this type of sperm donation, and apparently there are plenty of people doing it, or even those seeking to enter into a known sperm donation with the assistance of medical professionals, do me a favor: Find a reproductive lawyer or a family lawyer and talk about how you want to protect your family!
Maybe I am over-thinking this. Maybe it’s not different than someone who goes to a bar knowing she is ovulating, with the intent to hook-up with some guy and hope she gets pregnant. At least the people going to Starbucks theoretically know each other’s real names and have some information about each other, and both know that a child is being conceived. Good intentions and lack of (legal) judgment aren’t a crime. Then again, apparently Law & Order made an episode about this subject (maybe not involving a Starbucks sperm donor) and I would love to watch it. I wonder what issues the writers of Law & Order found to address?
And really, I am just totally dumbfounded by this, someone donated his sperm in a Starbucks bathroom? Wow. What’s next? A mile-high club for sperm donors?
May 26, 2011 | By: Liz | Filed under: adoption,In the News,Infertility In The Movies etc.,Infertility on Television,IVF,Peace to Parenthood,Personal Musings,The Journey to Parenthood,The Two Week Wait Care Package,Thinking Out Loud,Third-Party Assisted Reproduction,visualization
I have periodically blogged about how Hollywood portrays infertility, but I have never really focused on how Hollywood or television portrays parenthood. There are tons of great movies and t.v. shows about parenting, but there isn’t a ton that really addresses the transition people go through when they become parents: The Leap from Infertility to Parenthood. Granted there are fantastic movies like Juno that really capture aspects of adoption, but until now I haven’t really seen a movie or t.v. show that helped me understand (even as Monday Morning QB) what the transition — the Leap — is like. I am always “warning” my clients to be prepared for life with baby, but I previously have not had anything I could tell them to watch which accurately represented or characterized the Leap.
Well that has all changed. Last weekend I was watching a movie with my DH (Dear Husband). He had rented the film and I had agreed to watch it (despite an initial lack of interest) because the main character was played by Katherine Heigl, who is as we know, an adoptive mom. Not only do I love her films in general but I always am willing to watch a movie where the actor is in real life a parent through ART (assisted reproductive technologies) or adoption. And I am especially interested if the film involves parenting or the formation of a family. Putting aside a desire to escape my life and enjoy the movie, I always wonder whether the actor’s personal experiences with infertility, ART or adoption will influence his or her choices as an actor.
To be honest, when DH proposed watching this film I had no idea what it was about. I was inclined to pass as I had a vague recollection that the film had not been a tremendous success at the box office. But when I heard that Katherine Heigl (who ranks #2 behind J.A. as one of my favorite female actresses) was one of the lead actors, I caved. And what a good decision that turned out to be!
The movie in question is “Life as We Know It” starring KH and Josh Duhamel (JD). You can check out a trailer at http://lifeasweknowitmovie.warnerbros.com/dvd/
In this movie KH and JD play the close friends of a couple who pass away, and who name KH/JD as their baby’s legal guardians. Romantic comedy aside, the movie is a fantastic and very realistic portrayal of the Leap, and how the relationship between the parents can change. As I was watching this movie, both my DH and I were struck by how much the movie reminded us of what it was like to suddenly go from being wanna-be parents to BOOM being parents.
I think the movie really resonated for me because I am an adoptive parent who had very little notice of our pending adoption and I had never really focused on what it would be like to be a parent (let’s face it I spent the entire time wanting a baby and never realistically envisioned what it would be like to have the baby and be a mom). Once the movie really gets past the characters’ acceptance that they are now parents, there are some very insightful moments about the reality of being a parent and how different that reality is from your expectations. Whether or not you take a baby care class as part of your adoption plan, I highly recommend this film because I think that it really shows you — and in a humorous, light-hearted manner — what you are in for when someone hands you that baby! From changing that first poopy diaper, to installing baby gates and midnight runs to the pediatrician, I think that Life as We Know It is a great primer for prospective parents through adoption or assisted reproductive technologies like gestational surrogacy.
Most people who have gone through infertility tend to have blinders on about the reality of parenting. Whether you only have 24 hours notice or ten months to prepare for your baby’s arrival, this film has some very poignant moments about what the transition feels like and what surprising issues parenting can present us with. Best of all it’s fun to watch. It is a surprisingly good romantic comedy, Josh Duhamel is total eye candy (and I won’t hold it against my DH that he thinks Katherine is eye candy too), and it’s sweet, has a happy ending and all that stuff. So if you are on your way to parenthood after experiencing medical or social infertility, I think this movie is a Must See.
And not to totally discredit my intelligence, my DS (Dear Son) has turned me on to SpongeBob SqaurePants. I had the unexpected pleasure this week (while cleaning up a child’s puke) of watching an episode of SpongeBob involving a baby scallop and SpongeBob’s experiences as a new parent. This episode of SpongeBob presents a similarly hysterical and informative perspective of what the Leap is like to being a full time SAHM. I can’t remember the title of the episode off the top of my head (I will check the DVR and post the name of the episode if I can find it), but suffice it to say that I could relate to SpongeBob’s adjustment to caring for a baby all day and all night while Patrick (his best friend) goes off to work every day as they simulate and satirize what its like to be new parents.
I totally and completely remember that in the beginning of my “maternity leave” I had a rough time. By Wednesday night when DH walked through the door, I was an exhausted mess. Thursday night, when DH returned from work and walked-in the door, I handed over DS and went upstairs to have a good exhausted-woman-cry-in-the-shower. By Friday night, I was prepared for the hand-off at the door, and upon hand-off I bolted out of the house to have coffee at Starbucks (decaf of course b/c I was breastfeeding).
So what am I getting at? ”Life as we know it” as parents is very different from life as we know it while waiting for the Stork. I don’t really care whether or not you are taking baby care classes or infant CPR (although I think both are excellent ideas) because the reality of life as a new parent is vastly different than anything we can ever learn in school. As infertile prospective parents we tend to be so focused on our goal of becoming parents that we lose sight of what we are in for when we are parents. It is a transition the likes of which you just can’t understand until you are living it and why I call it the Leap. Life As we Know It and even (surprisingly) Master SpongeBob, have nailed it on the head and I highly recommend watching them (when I find out the title of that SpongeBob episode, I will post it and maybe you can find it somewhere and watch it). Both are totally and completely worth watching.
p.s. please note that I am not complaining about being a parent. I love every minute of this crazy, full-catastrophe life I am living! I want more kids and my attitude now is much more about enjoying and being mindful of the joy in this experience. I am just saying that these movies can help prepare you for the full-catastrophe aspect of parenting.
p.p.s. If you have any other movies that you think are good to watch as prospective parents, post them here. Maybe we can start a list of “Movies to Watch During the Wait”!!
February 10, 2011 | By: Liz | Filed under: Age and Infertility,Check This Out,Current Affairs,I'm Just Another Angry Infertile Woman,In the News,Thinking Out Loud
There is an article in a recent issue of Self magazine that addresses fertility and fertility preservation from a What You Need to Know at What Age perspective. It really pissed me off. The statistics were wrong, and the entire article seemed to ignore the fact that infertility is a serious illness affecting millions of Americans. Among the many things that irritated me was a statistic that made it sound like its really easy to get pregnant after 40. The only thing that they got right in my opinion was to point out that your risk of miscarriage increases to 50% per pregnancy over the age of 40. Anyway, RESOLVE was a bit irritated by the article too, as were many other industry professionals. I don’t know if you saw it and what you thought but if you had a reaction similar to mine, you might want to Take The Pledge. I am tired of people not knowing what their risks are and not being educated so that if they choose to wait to parent until later in life they at least know that the NOvary™ may be waiting!
Find out more at RESOLVE.org or watch this:
January 18, 2011 | By: Liz | Filed under: Check This Out,Current Affairs,Faith and Infertility,In the News,Infertility In The Movies etc.,Infertility on Television,IVF,Personal Musings,Recurrent Pregnancy Loss,Thinking Out Loud,Treatment
I’ve said it before and I cannot believe I am saying it again. Why is having a miscarriage something people pretend never happened? Or worse, why are people judged so harshly after having had a miscarriage for not embracing any subsequent pregnancy and being a little bit cautious and tentative about the whole thing?
Yesterday I read an article on some random website announcing that a celebrity had just announced she was pregnant. The article was extremely critical of the fact that she had waited until the 6th month to announce her pregnancy, and commented that it may have been due to the fact that she had suffered a prior miscarriage. It then went on to discuss all sorts of celebrity pregnancy issues. But it was about the third article I have seen recently commenting on a celebrity’s miscarriage. None of the articles were supportive, not even for the one celebrity that was openly going through fertility treatment and then lost a baby. Any miscarriage at any time in pregnancy is awful. As many of you know my final infertility diagnosis was unexplained pregnancy loss (which has since been explained). I had 5 IVF miscarriages (including a pregnancy that started as twins), and I don’t want to tell you how many more I have had on top of that because at some point you just have to stop counting and cope. I have blogged about at least one of them.
I have always been open about my miscarriages and my pregnancies. I am one of those “put it out there” kind of people. But a lot of people choose not to share early pregnancies. They instead choose to wait to make an announcement when they are sure that the pregnancy is viable or the fetus is otherwise healthy. Everyone does it their own way. And as this is a very personal subject, I was offended that this article “accused” this celebrity of failing to disclose her pregnancy earlier. MYOB!
Miscarriage is poorly understood on so many levels. I will blog about the medical aspects later, but for today let’s address the emotional component. I may have blogged about this before but someone recently commented to me that 20 years ago no one even talked about this. My grandmother’s generation suffered in complete silence, often not even sharing the loss of a pregnancy with their spouse!! The fact that we are beginning to talk openly about miscarriage is a huge leap forward.
Did you know that among the fertile population only 20% of all conceptions result in a live birth? That number decreases with age. With so many women choosing to build their families later in life, whether they conceive on their own or with some form of medical assistance, their chances of experiencing a pregnancy loss are much higher. Doctor’s often warn patients who are over 35 not to get excited about a pregnancy until they see a heartbeat on ultrasound because the risk of miscarriage is so high. NOvary™ or not, miscarriage is devastating.
If you ask me, all these women need support, information, and the ability to discuss their grief in whatever manner is most appropriate for them and to do so without criticism! But the fact remains that most people still won’t even admit they had a miscarriage. The entire first trimester of pregnancy is shrouded in secrecy and thus any resulting miscarriage is as well. It is not a personal failure to lose a baby. It is an overwhelming emotional experience whether you are six weeks or six months pregnant. I think people should be able to talk about miscarriage — I think people need to be better educated about pregnancy loss but as noted that is a subject for a different blog post — and not have it be considered something shameful or even worse, “no skin off your nose dear, you were only 7 weeks pregnant, get over it”.
Is it the fear of being shamed that causes us to hide our miscarriages as was true for my grandmother and her generation? Is it the need for privacy and the accompanying silence during the first trimester that causes the secrecy? Or is it the fear of the “just get over it” response that people don’t discuss this topic?
Well, I am going to discuss this topic. I think I have enough experience to have some insight into the emotional aspects of pregnancy loss and I’ve done a ton of research on the topic, both for The Infertility Survival Handbook, my own personal curiosity and now for the revised and updated version of my book.
My final comment of the day is this. Whether we choose to grieve in silence or in public, please don’t attack us for our choice in so doing; you need to understand that it is a tremendous blow to every woman (not to mention her partner) who experiences a pregnancy loss. If you know someone who has shared this information with you, BE SUPPORTIVE.
I was dropping my son off at school recently and there is church nearby where I had parked my car. Alongside the church is a beautiful garden and in that garden there was a headstone that caught my attention. It was a headstone with the picture of a baby in-utero and it was dedicated to all the unborn children in the world. The headstone had the name of a baby who died in utero at about 5 month’s gestation. It wasn’t some pro-life stunt; this was a real headstone for a real fetus who died leaving a family devastated.
If I can do it, I will try and post a picture of the headstone (without the family’s name). I would like to thank that family for putting that headstone there and for the church for allowing it, because I now have a place to go and lay flowers on my “bad” days. Because frankly, my girlfriends don’t get it. This headstone gives me an outlet, a place that recognizes what I and so many others have been through.
And for those of you who have experienced a pregnancy loss you have my empathy and a giant cyber hug. To that celebrity who just announced her pregnancy at 6 months, you have my congratulations. To that cyber author, I can’t post what I think about you, but I do hope that you never have to endure what so many of us have been through.
January 14, 2011 | By: Liz | Filed under: Announcements,Check This Out,Current Affairs,Egg Donation,I'm Just Another Angry Infertile Woman,In the News,Infertility In The Movies etc.,IVF,Personal Musings,Thinking Out Loud,Third-Party Assisted Reproduction
I know I haven’t been blogging very much and I know I keep promising that I will. Honestly, I have been trying to determine what type of “voice” I want my blog to have. Do I want to be a voice of comfort, reassurance and peace of mind, do I want to discuss topics that are highly relevant and even personal to me with respect to infertility as I am an infertility warrior, or do I want to speak as an expert in my field and educate people. I suppose I could find a way to do all three and I haven’t yet found the right “pitch” (just continuing the voice metaphor here folks) to launch some knew blogs. And I think I found it.
I try and stay out of highly controversial discussions in my industry and to avoid taking sides unless I feel passionately about the issue. Sometimes blogging backfires (ala Sarah Palin’s recent “hit list” and the resulting death of 15 people). But I have come across another of those issues that MUST be discussed, so I am hereby entering into the foray and it’s along the lines of my “what was Brooke Shields thinking” blogs.
Let’s get real for a moment and turn to a movie reel about egg donation.
I today learned that the “documentary” Eggsploitation was announced to have been nominated as best documentary. When I read this on FaceBook this morning I almost vomitted. For those of you who haven’t seen it . . . and please don’t see it if you are considering either becoming an egg donor or using an egg donor to build a family . . . it is highly inaccurate and inflammatory. Please understand that I am trying to be nice.
The movie is an attempt by right wing, pro-life. Christian conservatives to reveal the “real world of egg donation”. And Honey, it doesn’t. It serves one purpose only, to promote an anti-IVF anti-egg donation agenda. And in my mind it isn’t a documentary unless you are basing your documentary on something with a substantial amount of truth or accuracy. A documentary by one definition is the “creative treatment of actuality”. I will agree to the creative part with respect to this film, but not the actuality part (with one caveat, I will agree that egg donation exists as a means to build a family). Another definition says that a documentary presents the facts with little or no additions. Isn’t it a failure to present the facts if you only present one side, or one statistically insignificant, rare and otherwise atypical aspect of something, i.e. ONE fact when there are many facts to be discussed?
This film is based on untruths, inaccuracies, mythical stories, and an agenda. It veils itself as a documentary in order to lend some false sense of “truth” to the movie’s topic, the exploitation of egg donors and recipient families all to the benefit of the massive money generating industry of reproductive medicine.
The reproductive industry has responded many times in opposition to the film, as have many of my colleagues (for example, here is another blog on the topic http://weblog.prospectivefamilies.com/2011/01/13/what-more-is-there-to-say-about-eggsploitation/ ). I think it’s pretty much a universal sentiment in my world, both professional and personal, that this movie has nothing to do with reality and is serving to mislead the general public about a viable and very successful means of family building, egg donation.
I really think it has gotten to the point that the movie is now exploiting itself for its own financial benefit. They are now twisting all the negative media attention into an argument that if they weren’t so “right” about the industry that there wouldn’t be so many defensive and anti-Eggsploitation blogs/articles/reviews. It’s kind of like the old saying “you know you’ve done something right if they’re shooting at you!” And they are using that to drive more people into movie theaters.
Well I don’t think they’ve done anything right, I am disgusted by the MOVIE, and I am disgusted that anyone would think it was worthy of the title “best” in anything. I haven’t spoken out before because I didn’t want to further publicize this movie and thus encourage people to watch it — even if it is to see how wrong it is.
And for the love of all that is sacred about the word FAMILY, I respectfully request that the movie industry get a grip and get real. Don’t endorse this movie. Many a Hollywood family has been created through the gift of egg donation. Do you really want to slap your egg donor in the face like that? By promoting, endorsing, and casting something that she did to help you have a baby and a family, in such a negative, illicit and patronizing light?
I’m not saying the world of reproductive medicine is perfect. I have some bones to pick with things that happen in the world in which work. And I will cut the producers of this movie and Hollywood some slack and say that if you are going to focus on the very creative aspects of the use of truth to create a dialog (albeit the wrong dialog) then okay maybe this is a documentary. But it’s a documentary that I refuse to endorse on any level.
Someone can, and should, do a better job at looking at the gifts that third party assisted reproduction are giving to infertile families.
Blech Blech Blech.
