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Posts Tagged ‘Peace to Parenthood’

When Infertility Professionals Get it Wrong.

September 18, 2012 | By:

You know it’s not that often that I see glaringly offensive comments or information from professionals in the infertility world.  Most of us know to be very careful with the language we use so that we don’t inadvertently hurt someone’s feelings.  Today I was surfing Facebook and someone to whom I was connected (I am no longer “friends” with her) posted a comment about egg donation, adoption, and infertility.  I thought at first she was referring to a blog and was hoping she was quoting someone else.  Alas, I was very wrong and the link she posted was to an egg donation agency based outside of the United States (thank goodness for that — didn’t want to be running into her at any upcoming conferences lest I let her have it to her face) and the post was pretty much designed to bring attention to her agency.  I am not a big believer in the old adage that any attention is good attention or that negative publicity is still publicity.  In this industry, offending people is the kiss of death and well let’s just say I’ve been kissed.

I really don’t like the word “barren”.  It’s an ancient reference to women who were unable to conceive and it dates back to a time period when women had no rights and would sometimes be replaced by another woman if she was unable to conceive a child.  The Sixteenth Century this is not and I would have hoped that in the Twenty-First Century we would be a little bit more aware of appropriate terminology.  I guess not because this FB poster (who shall remain nameless even upon kiss of death) seemed to think that all women who are having difficulty conceiving should be considered BARREN.

I don’t think so.  Having difficulty conceiving does not mean we are barren.  The word barren actually has many definitions (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/barren ) including “lacking inspiration” or “lacking charm”.  For the record, I don’t consider any of my infertile clients, and certainly not my own bod, to be lacking in charm.  Some of my clients are downright amazingly gorgeous women with incredible resumes and great personalities.  In this case they are hardly barren are they?  They also usually go on to become mothers which would seem to indicate that they are in fact capable of producing offspring (please note Miriam-Webster dictionary says nothing about those offspring needing to be biological children — at least its editors “get it”).  But the word was used nonetheless in this FB post.  The fact that the post tried to be “neutral” and present all sides of debates as they pertain to third-party assisted reproduction was totally lost on me by virtue of the selection of this word to describe me.  Because that is who she is describing, me.  The last time I checked I am still considered to be infertile.

The other problem was that this poster and her choice of words — and barren was by far the least offensive of them — revealed her own underlying belief that women who have difficulty conceiving, women like me who are infertile, are somehow lacking, less than other women, and are desperate.  While she notes that “an element of respect” should be offered to these women, in and of itself that remark too is offensive.  I am only entitled to “an element of respect”.  7 IVF Cycles, 9+ miscarriages (I stopped counting but there were more), three adoptions, and I am only entitled to “an element of respect”.  Seriously?

Additional comments were made about whether decisions to use an egg donor were interfering with the “divine plan” for that woman’s life; and that what transpired to finally bring this barren woman to the point of actually considering using another’s genetic material could only be understood by the woman herself.  Here I do agree with the post.  However, I would prefer that she had not characterized the decision to choose egg donation as an act of finality, desperation, or somehow jumping off of the cliff of normalcy.  Families are built in countless ways and all of them are normal.  

Egg donors also were attacked for their decision to share themselves with other people.  Let’s be clear that egg donation does not involve any kind of “sharing”.  Egg donation agreements are clear that when a woman donates her eggs she relinquishes all rights to the resulting embryos and/or children.  Egg donors do not share in the day-to-day life of the intended parents’ pregnancy, or their life as they raise their child.  And let’s place the emphasis where it belongs, on “their” child, not the egg donor’s child.  If this woman is counseling egg donors — and I fear she may be — then she is sending the wrong message to these selfless and generous women who donate their genetic material, their ova, to an infertile couple.  They ain’t sharing those eggs or themselves with anyone.

Let’s not even discuss the offensive descriptions attributed to adoption.  I will have a stroke.

I understand that this woman was trying to raise a debate, trying to draw attention to her business and what she does.  But the choice of words she used as a professional in this industry was astonishingly rude and clearly revealed her own underlying biases.  She is entitled to those biases.  But as a professional she had a responsibility to keep them private and not mislead egg donors or intended parents.  I also think it was a poor decision to use such inflammatory language if she was trying to promote her business.  In all likelihood she sent potential clients running in the opposite direction.

I hope that the other people who read this post are wearing running shoes; they need to run as fast as possible.  Most likely the very charming, inspirational women who read this post pulled their flats or sneaks out of their gym bag and took off their Jimmy Choo’s, and headed in the direction of a more sensitive egg donation/surrogacy agency, a therapist (I may need a session), shopping (in which case maybe they should leave on the Jimmy Choo’s), or a glass of wine and some Oreos.  

For all those who read that post and felt in any way diminished as a human being because of their infertility, let’s get one thing straight:  anyone who can get through this stuff is one tough, rockin’ mama.  Emphasis on the word “mama” because that is what you will one day be called.

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Why does Jennifer Aniston’s quest to be a mother inspire me so?

August 19, 2010 | By:

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.

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What do you want Mother’s Day to be like when you are a mom?

May 7, 2010 | By:

You are probably being inundated with blog posts right now, and articles about how to cope with Mother’s Day while you’re waiting to become a mother.  The last Mother’s Day I spent before I became a mother, I spent it at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Puerto Rico where Charlie took me for the weekend right before our next IVF cycle started.  I spent the weekend doing my Lupron injections and drinking Pina Coladas and beer by the pool (sorry Dr. Chung, I know you said no alcohol!! oops).  Charlie went hiking.  Neither of us was in much mood to deal with the holiday so we escaped.  I got pregnant with twins that IVF cycle and shortly after miscarrying the pregnancy decided to adopt.  What I didn’t know then that I know now is that there is a far more productive means of escaping.  Instead of drowning your sorrows or hiding, visualize how you want Mother’s Day to be when you are a mom.

Charlie keeps asking me what I want to do this Mother’s Day.  I don’t know.  Breakfast in bed brought on a tray by my little boy sounds too cliche.  And the kitchen will just be a disaster that I get to clean up.  Instead, I have been visualizing future mother’s days and trying to create a rich memory for this year.  I am trying to create the perfect Mother’s Day in my head.

I asked for a trip to the gardening store and extra hands in our garden so that I can plant things that grow.  I want to celebrate this year’s Mother’s Day by making the earth rich and fertile and creating life that I can look at outside the kitchen window when I am doing dishes later this summer and be reminded of Mother’s Day.  I am trying to decide what flowers and plants I want to put in.

Mother’s Day has different meanings to all of us.  It is an especially painful holiday when your womb and arms are empty, when your power to reproduce or be a mother is in someone else’s hands.  But you do have power to visualize what it will be like when you are a mother and in so doing, by creating every detail down to the smells and textures, to the exhaustion you will feel at the thought of cleaning up the mother’s day mess in the kitchen, you help speed your way to its manifestation.  Create your future mother’s day and write it down.  Live it in your head.  Don’t for a second doubt it will be real.  The flowers this year are only a start for me.  I need to visualize more Mother’s days, with more babies.  Where will I be then, what flowers will I be planting?

And you know what, as I am writing this, I remember that my first Mother’s Day as a mother, I planted a rose bush in the garden of the house we were renting.  I had made a promise to myself before my very first IVF cycle that I would thank the earth and plant something to remember that time in my life.  I totally forgot about that.  WOW.   Maybe this is my way of celebrating.  But clearly, that promise has been realized.  Yours will be too.  And mine will be again.

So, what does your perfect Mother’s day look like?

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