Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
October 15, 2010 | By: Liz | Filed under: Uncategorized
Joanna Weiss of the Boston Globe just wrote a wonderful article validating the experience of being infertile and the shame and awkwardness that women feel, even today in 2010. Acknowledging that there are many factors involved in infertility (not everyone is fighting that NOvary™ ), she also talks about how Hollywood and actresses over 40 who are not disclosing the assistance they “might” have received, or those (for example, JLo) who have openly slammed infertility despite suspected use of IVF services, aren’t helping matters.
I’d like to thank Ms. Weiss and the Boston Globe for publishing this article. I have a lot of thoughts – as you know – about the role that movies and actresses who experience infertility play in perpetuating the shame. I know as an attorney in this industry that many women who conceive using an egg donor may not have the ability to speak openly about it as a result of their egg donation agreement which requires them to maintain silence to preserve anonymity and confidentiality of the parties involved. There is also a strong argument to be made that this is a private matter involving family, and a child’s conception, both of which are sacred issues to be shared when and how that family deems appropriate.
But the law and common sense don’t necessarily apply the same standards to those who seek the limelight. I would like those public figures who are considering using egg donation – or those who are experiencing battles with infertility of all kinds, not just your dreaded biological clock and the NOvary™ – to reconsider their position. You can draft an egg donation agreement that permits you to acknowledge that you received assistance through IVF or even third-party assisted reproduction and you can do it while maintaining the privacy and confidentiality of your egg donation arrangement.
But there is more to this than whether someone can disclose we went through an egg donation. As Ms. Weiss points out the real question remains, why won’t anyone do it?
In 2010 why is it still a stigma to have problems conceiving? Federal Courts acknowledge that infertility is a disability. Infertility is a disease! While we are all in pain and do want to protect ourselves and our hearts from the sadness we are coping with, if we all came out of the closet, wouldn’t it be easier to get through it in the first place? You wouldn’t have to avoid eye contact with everyone else in your clinic’s waiting room (I hated that!!!), you could make friends (one of my BFF was made during IF treatment and I wouldn’t go back for a second if it would mean I would not have gotten a chance to meet this woman), you could have SUPPORT.
This is not a shameful thing. We all need to stand together and tell insurance companies to get with it (if a federal judge can figure this out than an insurance company can – I bet there would be a huge spike in enrollment in insurance companies that offered coverage, and I bet it would ultimately lower the cost of care and not cause it to rise as some have posited recently), and tell each other it’s okay.
Ms. Weiss suggests that when our kids are older and in school they will know about IVF and ICSI. I want her to know that in my little world, my kids’ friends already know about this and the moms do discuss it. Even those moms who didn’t have trouble conceiving are well educated, informed and supportive (for the most part). It is coming out of the closet, but it’s coming out after the fact, after the pain is over. That’s not right.
12 million of us are experience this journey. If you are experiencing infertility today, you’re in good company. Just read the latest tabloid journal about whatever 40+ actress just gave birth to twins, or whatever 45+ actress gave birth to a singleton. Chances are the 40+ actress had some help. And I am pretty sure that the 45+ actresses did have help.
Why keep it a secret? Who are we helping? We certainly are not helping our children who might one day be faced with this too. I remember my grandmother once telling me that no one discussed miscarriages because it was so shameful to have one, so you just went through it alone, crying in the bathroom and absorbing obnoxious, patriarchal comments from your doctor. She was envious that women today are so open about miscarriage. I’m not sure I agree with her that we are open about miscarriage or that we are honest enough about any of this. But she’s right we are making progress at least with respect to miscarriage and pregnancy loss. But it’s not enough. Ms. Weiss has written a wonderful article and I for one am very grateful for her openness.
You can read the article at: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/10/10/the_world_of_fertility/
Thank you Ms. Weiss!
August 19, 2010 | By: Liz | Filed under: Current Affairs,Egg Donation,Faith and Infertility,In the News,Infertility In The Movies etc.,Peace to Parenthood,Personal Musings,The Journey to Parenthood,Thinking Out Loud,Uncategorized,visualization
Everyone knows that I am fan of Jennifer’s. I actually probably wouldn’t be married to my DH if it wasn’t for some advice her mom gave me a long time ago. But seriously, Jennifer is an extraordinary woman in all respects, and from my perspective even more so for the way she is approaching her quest to be a mom.
At 41, most of know that Jennifer is likely to be facing some fertility issues (although with her health conscious lifestyle and yoga-bod maybe she’s found the way to turn back time, she sure looks it anyway!). While most of us would be doing a little freak-out dance now, and panicking about the ticking time bomb that are our ovaries, Ms. Aniston seems anything but panicked. In fact, she seems rather Zen about it all. And that is exactly my point and what inspires me.
First, the woman KNOWS she is going to be a mom. One way or another the woman has total and complete faith that she will become a mom. Rather than spiraling into depression (as I did and many of us do), Jennifer has seemed to have found a way to let go and TRUST. This is, I think, the gateway to success.
I really truly believe that it is when you completely accept and embrace the concept that you will be a mother, no matter what and no matter how (IUI, IVF, IVF donor egg, gestational surrogacy, adoption, whatever is your path), that fertility treatments have the highest success rates. Study after study shows that the mind-body connection cannot and should not be ignored. Women who are able to be in the place that Jennifer Aniston seems to be in, are the women who are more likely to succeed with fertility treatments. It’s fact not fiction. I know — as does JA — that she’s got an edge on success that I wish more of my friends and clients had: The inner-knowingness of the inevitability of their impending state of motherhood.
Another thing that I think sets her apart from many of us (and I include myself in this group when I was in the first 4 or 5 years of treatment), is that by all media accounts, she seems fairly open to many different paths to parenthood. I am not privy to her conversations with her BFF’s but I am guessing that there isn’t much she isn’t considering about how she’s going to become a mom. That too puts her on the fast track to “mommydom”. Not all of us can be as enlightened and confident as she is, and I am not saying that she doesn’t have her moments of . . . doubt . . . but I really think that the confidence and openness that Jennifer Aniston is talking about whenever she is interviewed about becoming a mom is something that tells me it ain’t gonna be long before she’s announcing the arrival or the impending arrival of a little baby Aniston.
And for what its worth, I think she’s a fantastic role model for every woman, single or married, over the age of 35 who’s trying to become a mom.
ASSUME IT IS GOING TO HAPPEN, AND IT WILL.
p.s. and when you can’t totally assume it will happen, fake it, fake it until you make-it . . . because that’s another sure fire way to get your mommy-Zen fire burning.
Tags: actresses, adoption, biological clock, Egg Donation, hollywood, hope, infertility, Inspiration, intent, movies, Peace to Parenthood, visualization
June 23, 2010 | By: Liz | Filed under: Check This Out,Treatment,Uncategorized
Today’s topic is one that I have been meaning to address for some time, but my colleague Mike Berkley did so very well in the following article on sperm DNA fragmentation and miscarriage that I thought I would just post the link to his article. I can tell you that this stuff is really controversial, but also documented at higher rates of fragmentation to play a significant role in pregnancy loss.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Miscarriage-Caused-by-Sperm&id=4520103
Tags: miscarriage
May 18, 2010 | By: Liz | Filed under: adoption,In the News,Uncategorized
For those of you who are following this horrific story, here is a link to a newspaper article a colleague shared with me:
http://www.t-g.com/story/1634398.html
Tags: adoption
October 2, 2009 | By: Liz | Filed under: Uncategorized
Last night, after days of trying to unravel what appeared to be a case of identity fraud (one of the things that I think must truly be horrific to live through, putting your life back together after someone has stolen your credit-UGH) I discovered that a person at Citi Cards had made my pay-by-phone payment twice. This was not a small payment. I was paying the card balance off in full. This was a day of celebration. This was a day when my husband and I were to begin life anew. We were finally digging out from years of debt related to our infertility, adoptions, unemployment, and me putting every penny my business earned back into my business. Finally we were going to be on better financial ground and the world was rosy. Along with the payment to Citi Cards were payments to other cards and a lot of very nice people who had extended us credit or been very lenient with billing policies to my family. I have been very grateful to those people and they are the ones who had inspired me to give away free contracts to clients who can’t afford legal services, to discount all of my services etc. This was a good day. It was September 24th. Lots and lots of checks were written, lots and lots of bills were paid.
Unebownst to me, however, a woman at Citi Cards processed my payment twice. Now really, when you’re paying that much money to a credit card company there should be mechanisms in place to prevent errors (hey, honey, maybe you should pitch this as a business process idea to your current employer?). A way to make sure that the payment is made once and only once. But, sad for me there is no such mechanism in place currently at Citi Cards and she processed it twice, and that was on top of the payment I had made six days earlier so that my bill wouldn’t be late. For personal reasons I don’t feel comfortable sharing with you how much money was deducted from our bank account but suffice it to say that it covered all of those other checks and was an amount more than alot of people (including me) make in a year. I had a lovely credit on this Citi Card but I didn’t need it. And ironically, this was a card I had been arguing with DH over closing. The interest rate on the card is astronomical (as are all credit card interest rates these days), enough really to make it impossible to use the card without paying it off in full every month. I didn’t want to close the card because I read in one of Suze Orman’s (sp?) books that you shouldn’t close cards, especially cards that you’ve had for years and years (this one dates back to 1990) because it could negatively impact your credit score. So, instead, DH and I agreed that we would put the card away and leave the line open.
Imagine the scene now. A call from the American Bar Association alerted me to the fact that my business credit card was being declined when I was trying to pay for a conference I am speaking at next week. I am booking air travel for four upcoming business trips, and we’ve paid off people who have put our trust in us. I called my business banker who was unable to figure out what was going on. I started making calls to Citi Cards asking what was going on. It took them two days to tell me that a wire transfer to my business card had been rejected. Long story short, two days later, last night after a very LONG day at work, I went online to this particular Citi Card and discovered that it showed I had made this enormous payment. here is the following chain of events: Pause. refresh page. refresh page again. Get Twizzlers, Oreos, Diet Coke. refresh page again. Go online with all other credit cards we had paid on 9/24. Every single one is showing rejected payments or multiple attempts at submitting the payment. Check bank balances in our checking accounts. All were negative balances. Call banks for status check. Eat twizzlers, Oreos, Gulp Diet Coke, and take two Xanax. OMG. I knew this could be resolved. I knew this would be resolved. But seriously. OMG.
I called the Citi Card 800 number on the back of the card that had the multiple payments processed. I asked to speak to a supervisor. I speak with a lovely young woman named “C” who seemed very calm about this (she must have taken more Xanax than I had). I am thinking about potential causes of action I have against Citibank but I too stay calm (years of training as a litigator. The US Atty I worked for doesn’t call me Mighty Mouse without reason!). C seems to think that everything will be okay and they will put the money back into my account and credit me all the late charges and overdraft fees, penalties etc. I have incurred with other lenders and people. I ask how quickly the money will be returned to my account and she tells me 2-4 business days. And that my friends is when I lost it. There were not enough Twizzlers, Oreos, Diet Coke, or Xanax in the Universe to calm me down in that moment. I was not angry. I don’t know what I was.
I asked to speak with a supervisor. I still get 2-4 days. I ask to speak to another supervisor. And another. Finally, I get a very capable, professional, sympathetic vice president on the phone who immediately realizes that her bank made a gigantic mistake for which they could be facing some serious issues. We shall call her Angel (somewhat of an overstatement but it will do. Angel was human enough to tell me exactly what a big F-up this was and that the young woman who had processed the transaction had to be terminated because she was a “threat to the bank.” She told me a lot of other things too but somewhere during this call with Angel — who even gave me her internal Citibank identification number, her personal fax number, a direct dial phone number, spelled her first and last name, and the name of her boss (who is the head of card services — I started to cry. And cry. And cry. This didn’t seem to phase her one bit (I guess a lot of people must be crying on the phone with Angel these days) but more importantly, she heard every reason I was crying and she realized, one human being to another, what this transaction error had done to my life. I will see if the money is truly back in our account TODAY as she promised, but this one person restored my faith in Citibank (at least for a little while) and I am sure in a few days I will have everything corrected and the result we had intended to create on 9/24 will be our reality. And maybe I will even feel good again. Right now I am just horrified with the number of phone calls I have to make today and the number of phone calls I imagine Angel will be receiving from people who need her confirmation that this really happened and I am not making up an excuse like the dog ate my bank card.
I slept fitfully, and awoke to the usual morning chaos of getting little people off to school. My coffee was too strong, my back was killing me, and I realized that something in me had shifted last night. Why had it taken so much effort to correct this problem? Why had getting help from Angel made such a difference for me? Why had I lost it like that?
I looked around my house and realized what a disaster it is. There is clutter everywhere, our furniture doesn’t match, we can never find anything when we are looking for it. The only place in my life that is organized is my office and my knitting. I love both of those things so I pay attention to them. My business coach has helped me tremendously and my office is starting to run smoothly despite the fact that my right arm, Danielle, has taken a leave of absence. But my personal life needs a makeover. I am sad that I have neglected that which meant so much to me a few years ago. The balance has totally shifted and I realize perhaps it has shifted in the wrong direction. I have spent the last 5 years helping other people to the detriment of my family and my home. I know there is a way to find better balance. I know that I don’t have to live with cast off furniture from other people that clash. I can love my home as much as I love my office.
My children don’t lack for attention or love, of that I am sure. But in the process of becoming the Stork Lawyer, I lost ME. My marriage, my home, my financial life, they need a makeover. Do you think Oprah, Suze Orman and HGTV could help? Because as much as I want to restore the balance, I still have to help other people make their family. I am serious, I was watching HGTV a few years ago when I was nursing my daughter, HGTV has a ton of makeover shows right? Oprah may be a stretch but Suze Orman, doesn’t she have clients?? I need help to do this. This is more than I can do alone.
I want my life back. And I want that money back in our bank account today!!!!!!!
p.s. this was not proofed or edited due to time constraints. What was I saying about balance?
