In Vitro Fertility Goddess

The IVF Stigma

. 

Parents and parties, I find, are like oil and water, in that they don't mix. The good thing is, that usually parents themselves have realized this by about 9pm when, not speaking to each other because one drank too many cocktails, they leave in a flustered rush so they don't have to pay the babysitter overtime.

However in the short time they've been at the party there will have been few guests if any who have been spared the gory details of Montenegro's breech birth or Jezebella's toileting mishaps.

Which is why it's always a good idea to arrive late at parties. Otherwise you run the risk of being subjected to the words placenta, perineum, and runny poo before you've enjoyed a second sip of wine. And after that there's no chance you'll enjoy it.

If you're really unlucky you may even hear that Montenegro was conceived on ‘our first try', which short of ‘what a fertility god and goddess you must be' has no response that you can think of saying. Meantime you are busy fighting the involuntary image offered of Montenegro's conception.

So, with all of this free-flowing intimate and personal information, available on tap at any gathering of parents, and I must say, particularly female parents, why is it that you will never ever hear somebody say, ‘Jackson was an IVF baby?'

Having worked with groups of mothers over a fourteen year period and having had all types of personal bordering on pornographic descriptions of sex, births and other unwelcome information involuntarily foisted upon me by people who didn't even know my name, the fact that IVF is ‘personal' doesn't cut it.

I suspect the reason is that, despite more than one percent of births in developed countries being a result of IVF and one in six couples seeking some type of assisted reproduction, nobody wants to admit they have or had a problem. Which leads me to believe that there is still a stigma associated with having a baby in this way, or indeed being fertility challenged.

Why? What is wrong with seeking help to have a baby? People will readily tell you they're having treatment for a heart condition so why not a reproductive condition?

I have had women give me feedback that they are reluctant to go on my site In Vitro Fertility Goddess on computers at work or in view of the public due to the nature of the site.

I can understand this on one level but on another I fight it. If we are too embarrassed or ashamed to talk about having IVF, what message does this send to our children who are the result of IVF? That there is something about themselves that is wrong because we don't talk about it?

I think back to the days when it was a shameful thing for a woman to have a child out of wedlock, how it wasn't talked about and covered up and the result was that the child felt the brunt of it, as if he/she was somehow tarnished for having been born in this way.

Now when I go to parties I seek out other parents and before the conversation gets to bed wetting or episiotomy stitches I slip in that I had trouble having a child and feel blessed to have had my daughter through IVF.

This has the effect of sending a few rushing off to find the hors'd'oeuvres platter/toilet, never to return, but most will want to chat about it and some, I find, have relatives or friends going through it or contemplating it. Often these relatives and friends aren't talking about it so they are happy to learn more.

And these days almost invariably I hear someone say in a relieved voice, ‘Oh Tristan is an IVF baby and we have a couple of embryos on ice. Hopefully one day he'll have a sister.'

Then we talk a little more about embryos, how painful the egg extraction was etc. Time flies until someone realizes it's nine o'clock. Time to get back to the babysitter and let everyone else have fun.

Jodi Panayotov