In Vitro Fertility Goddess
In Vitro Fertility Goddess is "a fantastic book", "a page-turner", "a great read!"... All Reviews Here »
Having a baby is the new black. Or so various celebrities would have us believe.
It used to be something celebs did for attention when their careers were flagging, aka Victoria Beckham, but now they're doing it at the height of their careers and fitting it in amongst their busy filming and recording schedules. Madonna managed it successfully, juggling a world tour, album and a birth and since then we've had Gwen Stefani, Angelina Jolie, Cate Blanchett, Gwynneth Paltrow, Marcia Cross and various others popping them out so fast the gossip mags can barely keep up.
I find it fascinating that whilst these women lead such busy, and obviously therefore stressful lives they can even find time to conceive let alone give birth. Meantime big cities are full of women are also high achievers and lead incredibly busy lives and amongst these there are high rates of infertility. Forget about Sex and the City, it is Infertility and the City that seems to go hand in hand. Why else are there so many fertility clinics situated in cities, particularly the inner areas, with numbers increasing all of the time?
There is no doubt that stress and infertility are strongly linked, which would go some way to explaining the burgeoning demand for reproductive services. Women who live in cities tend to have career pressures and busy schedules that heighten stress levels and this can also be a precursor to conception difficulties. Then it becomes a vicious cycle with already-stressed women stressing because they're not falling pregnant quickly and wondering what's wrong with them. "If Marcia Cross can fall pregnant at 44 with twins between seasons of Desperate Housewives, why can't I?" they cry.
Now, none of this is to say that women in rural or non-metropolitan areas do not experience stress and fertility problems and these women have the added stresses and expenses of travelling to cities for treatment as well as more of a sense of isolation with their issues. Across the board and at all areas and levels of society women suffer from fertility problems, it's just that we never hear about them, that's all. Maybe we need to talk.
