In Vitro Fertility Goddess
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According to my naturopath who was intrumental in helping me achieve a successful pregnancy, you can take drugs (of the IVF variety) while on herbs, but according to my doctor you can not take herbs while on the drugs. Who is right and who is wrong? Both and neither.
What it comes down to is that when you've put an exorbitant amount of money (equivalent to the down payment on a BMW) in the pocket of a doctor and their clinic but only paid fifty dollars for a bottle of herbs, the strong inclination is to go with what the doctor said. It's a form of looking after your investment, making sure it gets a return. You can gamble with fifty dollars but not five thousand.
There's also the emotional investment. To undertake the rigorous and demanding IVF drug routine and procedures takes a lot of inner strength from you, unlike putting a tablespoon of herbs in a glass of water. So when subjected to the former the inclination is to do it as the booklet requires.
However, in terms of success rates for either approach on its own, there is overwhelming research to support either. It is what you feel comfortable with. I couldn't have thrown myself into the rigors of IVF in the early stages of my struggle to conceive, I just wasn't psychologically prepared for it and, whatever approach you choose, it is extremely important for you to feel right with it, to believe in it.
I have no doubts whatsoever that the herbal regime that I was on until succumbing to IVF played a major role in the success of IVF. The herbs cleaned out and toned out my reproductive system and in that way were immeasurably helpful.
So, IVF herbs vs IVF drugs - both have their usefulness and to my mind both played a role in the conception of my daughter.
To find out how herbs can help prepare for a successful IVF cycle, do have a look at Stacey Roberts' aka "The Baby Maker's" eBook ‘Herbs and IVF' here »
I'm convinced it was her ground-breaking formulas that got me across the line at my first attempt at IVF.
Jodi Panayotov
During my darkest hours, when I thought I'd never be a mother, I turned to a number of shows for comfort that showed a sizable lapse in judgement on my part.
I have no way to explain it other than I was in an altered state of consciousness and these programs, obviously designed for people like myself, filled a kind of void.
The void was created when I gave up my job, my leisure pursuits and most of my friends in the obsessive pursuit of parenthood and there was something about watching shows like Jerry Springer, where a cast of freaks aired their cataclysmic lives on stage, that distracted me from my own impending madness.
The truth is, I was feeling like a bit of a freak myself and therefore identifying increasingly with his guests. Had there been a show entitled, ‘Women Who Can't Stop Taking Their Temperature and Checking Their Mucous', who knows, I may have signed up. God knows I needed to get out more…
A curious piece of knowledge I unwittingly gained when watching Jerry Springer, was that the vast majority of his guests had achieved parenthood in some shape or dysfunctional form. It didn't matter what their circumstances were, what shape or form their lives took, whether they were a pimp or a paedophile, they had an offspring or ten out there. If my memory serves me correctly there was even a man who had managed to impregnate an unidentified farm animal.
Now clearly either this show or the people who applied to be on it had some secret fertility ingredient that loving couples at IVF clinics missed out on. I don't know what it was but I do intend on studying the show further to find out.
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A guide for relatives, friends and acquaintances who wish to remain relatives, friends and acquaintances:
1. Just relax and it'll happen
2. It (the miscarriage) was meant to be
3. Have you tried having lots of sex?
4. You're trying too hard
5. You just have to try harder
6. Forget about it and it'll happen
7. You've left it too late
8. Don't panic
9. I told you that you should have started earlier
10. I can't imagine what it's like but then I fell pregnant first go with all four of my children
Further explanations that may be necessary for R, F and A's that still don't get it.
To make a point let's substitute the struggle to conceive with the struggle to pay off a steep mortgage, with a few alterations to the above comments.
1. Just relax and it'll happen
2. It (the large mortgage) was meant to be
3. Have you tried earning lots of money?
4. You're trying too hard to pay it
5. You just have to work harder
6. Forget about it and so will the bank
7. You've left it too late - you'll never be debt-free
8. Don't panic even if your house is repossessed
9. I told you you should have bought a house earlier
10. I can't imagine what it's like but then I own four houses and have mortgages on none of them
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OK he's actually a pregnant transgender person but he's living as a he and he has a lawful wedded wife and chest hair and a five o'clock shadow. Thomas Beatie was born a woman but at some stage started taking testosterone shots so he developed male characteristics, at least in the upper part of his body. If at this point you don't believe me, google ‘pregnant man' to get the low down. He lives in Oregon and the story broke in a transgender publication ‘The Advocate'. How did he get pregnant, you ask. Well apparently he used an anonymous sperm donor. And why, then, was he the one that got to use the turkey baster and not his wife? Well she had a hysterectomy about twenty years earlier so was unable to bear a child. ‘Over to you, honey'. So he stopped having his shots and presto! Months later he was with child. Except for the article in the TG publication which reveals that he's expecting a girl in July, accompanied by a photo that looks like Demi Moore with a beard, he's keeping a pretty low profile. A neighbour meantime has scoffed at the news, saying if he pushed his stomach out a bit he too could look six months pregnant. Which brings me to the question, how many of the blokes you see with expanded girths are not, as previously believed, men with beer guts, but are in fact transgender folk with child? But I digress. What does it all mean? Well firstly that there are quite a few women out there who are struggling to fall pregnant who'd have cause to be jealous. I mean, ‘I just threw my testosterone pills out the window for a few months, went to a sperm bank and made a withdrawal and next minute I was pregnant.' We girls should be so lucky! And of course there's the absolute humdinger of an answer this couple face when they get the ‘Mummy, where did I come from?' question. As for the medical bit, he's having a hard time finding an obstetrician to deliver. So you have to ask why they'd even begin to attempt to put themselves through this. But I guess the long-seated hunger for a child leads us to do all sorts of crazy things. Whether the scoffing neighbour is right and Thomas's stomach is the result of a long-seated hunger for a hamburger and a beer rather than a child remains to be seen. Trust Oprah to have put an end to the junk-food/beer drinking conspiracy. 
I have been trawling the sites about pregnancy and infertility on the internet since George Bush was a boy and there are some extraordinary stories out there but nothing beats the recent one about the pregnant man.
Next from the wife's point of view, at least they didn't have to find a surrogate to carry the child, it's all been kept in the family as such. Being someone who's had a hysterectomy herself, I wouldn't mind having a ‘husband' that could have a child for us. But then this fellow's not really a husband in every sense of the word, not from the waist down anyway. I don't think I could make that trade-off.
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Just when you think the odds are against you, think again. This true story is a triumph over everything that shouldn't have happened and did, an extraordinary beating of the odds. It's along the lines of a person cutting off their own head, eating it and surviving - just as strange, but in this case true.
Right. Take a seat while I try and work out where to begin. Pour yourself a drink if you're in between IVF cycles. OK, here goes.
A 57 year old woman, Susan Tollefsen from Romford, East London walks into an IVF clinic in Russia, hoping to have a child with her 46 year old partner. At this point her odds of achieving a pregnancy with IVF are zero with her own eggs, and, using the rates of success in Britain at private clinics treating women over 50, roughly twenty five percent with donor eggs.
She has already tried a few other ‘foreign' clinics over several years without success. She undergoes treatment and has 2 embryos implanted.
The first miracle occurs - she achieves a pregnancy but less than four weeks after transfer starts bleeding and miscarries. The odds of miscarrying at 45 or over are greater than fifty four percent.
Her GP confirms the miscarriage as does a negative home pregnancy test. (HPTs are 99% accurate in the lab but do have a higher rate of false negatives than positives).
Susan reluctantly relinquishes her dream.
Fast forward to twenty-four weeks later when she has been suffering from a swollen abdomen and presents at hospital with what her GP cited as a ‘hard abdominal mass'.
The fear is that she has ovarian cancer - the odds being high for a 57 year old with a swollen abdomen who has never been pregnant. It is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in women of this age.
She is fully expecting the sonographer to relay some grave news but instead he says, "Congratulations. You are pregnant." Thirty weeks pregnant to be exact and the baby is healthy.
Susan has now given birth to her first baby, a girl she has named ‘Freya'.
And if that's not a miracle, I'm not sure what is.
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Anger and infertility go together like a horse and carriage, love and marriage, like bad hair and Donald Trump. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Whilst there may be serene and blissful pregnancies the battle to conceive is anything but.
I don't think I was ever so cranky as when I was trying unsuccessfully to have a baby, culminating in the IVF process. And giving IVF drugs to an already emotionally fraught woman is like waving a red flag at a mallee bull.
For the first time in his life my two metre tall husband was actually scared of me. I'm not sure what he thought I was capable of but he didn't want to find out. Which is why, when we were halfway up the mountain on our weekend away and I yelled that we had to turn back as I'd forgotten my basal thermometer, he did. Without arguing. Just went a little pale before putting the indicator on and doing a swift U-turn.
In a past life, BTTC (before trying to conceive), it would have been out of the question but this was now, I was mad and he was nervous.
Not that I ever shared what was going on in my head or anything. No, I kept the homicidal thoughts towards pregnant women, people who blew smoke in their children's faces and power walking pram groups to myself. Nor did I share any of the ideas I had about what should happen to people who abused their kids, Courtney Love, Jordan and other abysmal celebrity mothers.
Then there was the small stuff - the ‘you left the light on', ‘you forgot to buy parmesan cheese' and so forth. It was quite fortunate by the time it came to IVF and no sex was required because there couldn't have been any with my moods, unless it was of the make-up variety. But you better get in quick, I just spotted a mould spot on the ceiling and it's making me furious.
Seriously though, why do we get so angry? And why do we get so down on ourselves for being that way? The answer to the second question probably lies with the fact that there is still some expectation, stemming from last century that women aren't supposed to get really angry. Bulldust!
All those 1950's magazines with the perennially happy homemakers, grinning whilst they ironed, beaming while they vacuumed, twinkling as they fetched their husband's scotch and slippers set some pretty warped notions of how we should be. Had there been IVF then, no doubt the woman would have been pictured there in backless gown and matching paper hat sunnily beaming her way through the egg pick-up, or smiling beatifically in wasp waisted dress as she injected herself with Puregon.
As for why we get so angry, well, aside from the sense of injustice that this is happening to us, and the lack of understanding and insensitivity we often experience from others, including loved ones, anger is a part of grief. A healthy part.
The grieving process comprises four parts - denial, anger, sadness and acceptance and when we suffering infertility which is something we struggle to deal with we will experience these emotions before we can either resolve or learn to accept the situation. Anger has as much of a role as sadness though different people experience each in different measures.
In accepting that anger is OK you can start to tame the beast, not feel so out of control with it. This doesn't means trying to suppress it - it will reveal its ugly head again later anyway, usually when you're at an important work party with your husband.
There are things you can do to take the edge off it - yoga, various forms of exercise, boxing, counselling, just putting headphones on and going off for a walk.
And if it's your partner that bears the brunt of it, talk. Tell him that this is how you are right now and it's not about him. It's about the situation. 
Unfortunately for him you can't shout at your ovaries or your IVF doctor.
The other thing to know is that it will pass, either when you fall pregnant or when you have worked through the process and reached a new place to be in.
Unlike Donald Trump who is stuck with his hair forever, you won't be stuck with the anger.
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If there is one word in the English language that strikes fear in my heart it's the big M - ‘Miscarriage'. I've suffered three of them you see and frankly it's a noun I'd rather not hear again as long as I live.
The other is ‘Just try again'. OK that was three words but they have the same impact, especially when said by the doctor you were seeing for the miscarriage.
I remember only too well the first time I was told to do this. It was by a doctor wearing golfing pants and he'd dropped in after my D&C the night before.
Being the Thursday before Easter and all, he was in a bit of a hurry. Couldn't blame him really for speeding off in his imported European car with golf set sticking out the back while I sat at the window of my room and sobbed.
I did blame him for his parting words though: "Just try again." I repeated them over and over to myself wondering what on earth they meant, they sounded so light-hearted, so flippant, not at all in the spirit of the grave situation - the loss of my baby- at all.
For a start the word ‘just', as if it's all I had to do, it was simple. But it wasn't simple at all. I'd been trying for eighteen months already and this pregnancy was the culmination of those efforts. And ‘try', well, I wasn't really up to trying anything, not even the sandwiches the hospital caterers had left by my bedside. I was feeling a little too overwhelmed by my loss, the shattered dreams of the future to even think about getting up the energy and courage to ‘try again'.
So I was left with no answers, just an annoying mantra that sounded like it was sponsored by a sports corporation. Eventually, after almost a year and with the help of fertility drugs I managed to get pregnant again. And to my horror, started miscarrying again. This time it was me wearing the sporting pants, baggy enough to contain a bunch of maxi pads when I presented at the doctor's office.
Again, there were no explanations or answers, just the advice to keep trying. This time, dissatisfied and more prepared, I fronted my gynaecologist who'd put me on the fertility drugs and demanded to find out if there was an underlying cause for the miscarriages. Unless you are officially ‘recurrent', meaning three miscarriages in a row, it was not procedure to test but he agreed to. Only because I refused to leave unless he did and it's not a good look for a fertility clinic having its patients escorted out by burly uniformed men.
As it happened the tests found a thyroid imbalance that was thought to be causing the miscarriages and when it was fixed I went on to have a healthy baby. Both doctors were surprised as they'd simply put me in the ‘over 35' boat (apparently a sinking one), meaning that women over 35 are more likely to miscarry and do so more often due to genetic causes that are outside of medical science's jurisdiction. It's all due to Mother Nature not wanting us to have kids when we're older.
So when I read that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is pushing for women to be tested after two miscarriages I thought, Hallelujah! At last we're looking at answers and possibly prevention, not just Nike-style catchphrases.
As Kelly Maguire, a counsellor for Resolve who has experienced four miscarriages herself before having two healthy babies says, ‘It's almost as if you want something to be wrong so you can treat it."
She wisely adds, "My experience is, it's all up to you and how much you push your doctor."
Hopefully we soon won't have to be pushing doctors (as if we don't have enough to contend with) but until then there are things you can do if you miscarry.
This is a tough and pretty unpalatable one but if it's possible to save some miscarried tissue it can be used for genetic analysis.
After a second miscarriage a woman could be tested for possible imbalances of hormones, including thyroid, prolactin and progesterone, as well as for polycystic ovarian syndrome. Also underlying autoimmune disorders can be treated for example with aspirin to stop blood clotting.
And there may be underlying infections e.g., uterine that may be treated with antibiotics.
Then of course there are the known environmental factors such as smoking, excessive caffeine intake and alcohol.
There are many recurrent miscarriages that will not have found causes even after extensive testing. But if at least some can have identified causes, especially when treatable, then we can make some headway in preventing further miscarriages.
And at least then we may get back some feeling of control and not be forced to sob helplessly as the doctor drives off in their BMW.
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When you're trying unsuccessfully to conceive, going to gatherings of friends, families, parties, etc that you would once have enjoyed can be the equivalent of having you teeth pulled, one by one. Without anaesthetic.
During the time I was trying and failing to have a baby, I would gladly have a) waxed my own back b) watched a wall of paint dry or c) had all my moles burnt off with a Bunsen burner if offered the choice between that or attending a party where there would be pregnant women and people with kids. If I knew them it was worse as I wouldn't be able to avoid talking to them.
I knew it was isolating, not good for me or my future social life but it was better than turning up somewhere only to feel a knife go into your gut and be twisted and wrenched throughout the evening.
It's not as if you can gaily pretend the pregnant women/parents with young children are not there. And gone were the days when you could at least have gained satisfaction from the pregnant woman looking like the offspring of a Darrell Lea lady and a circus clown. These days the stomach is emphasised in tight slinky sexy fabric so there's no way you can ignore it, it practically says hello. It's almost as if has its own personality which is sometimes more than can be said for the owner. And it acts as a glaring beacon of what you don't have but desperately want.
The other problem is that pregnancy and children are no-brainer conversation topics like the weather and food so everyone ends up talking about them. When at a loss for something to say ask a pregnant woman about herself and you'll be occupied for ages. The same with a parent when asked about their child. If the child is gifted or there are more than one you'll be there for weeks.
Eventually should you be trapped in this group you'll find yourself at some point between Harlow's Baby Genius class and Montenegro's nightly kicking fest- and it's inevitable - asked about your plans for parenthood or if you have any kids.
What do you do? Flee in tears? Lie and say you don't like children unless poached with Hollandaise sauce? Or bravely announce that you have Joshua, Emily and Chloe but they're still at the clinic at this stage.
Hospital? Oh no, the IVF clinic. See they're only four cells and in a petri dish in a lab at the moment.
Got their room ready? No, no, I'm still getting the womb ready actually. One thing at a time..
How? With the help of progesterone…No, not a Greek designer - a pharmaceutical drug with unpleasant side-effects.
Hopes for their future? Oh, not much really at this stage, they've been dashed so many times. Just that at least one of them is eight cells by Monday.
And pretty much like most reproduction conversations between the fertile and the infertile it ends there. That's if it didn't end earlier with an upturned drink on a head. Because it's like putting two species from different planets and putting them together and expecting them to find commonality.
So, how to keep some connection going, to not fall off the social cliff into the isolation abyss? How do you get those around you who are not fertility challenged to get where you're coming from? To say it's OK if you don't feel like coming to the birthday party, baby shower or christening?
This is where the non-fertility challenged can help. Especially those who think Clomid is a brand of washing powder and Oestrogen a Freudian complex.
I have compiled a list of some points that were posted on this website by one of the wonderful members. I believe that they may be useful for friends, family and loved ones of those struggling with infertility. Because when we're going through it we don't necessarily find it easy to say these things. Some days it's hard enough just to get out of bed.
- Please don't tell me you know how I feel unless you have also had fertility problems
- Please don't tell me that it's all meant to be.
- Please don't tell me it'll be fine unless you have God on speed-dial. And if you do I want his number now.
- Please see that everything is not business as usual in my life, household and heart.
- Please permit me a clear calender and excuse my lack of involvement in other activities, as my days are at times filled with tests, results, endless appointments, phone calls, decisions, physical discomfort and fatigue.
- Please treat me with kid gloves, as I am hanging on by a thin emotional thread.
- Please give me permission to do what I need to do, be it laugh, cry, sit around, or be really, really active in something.
- Please excuse my lack of interest in everything else.
- Please don't ask me if I am pregnant. If and when that occurs, I will sing from the highest rooftop.
A few extras for those going through IVF :
- Please offer to come with me to an appointment or even drive me there
- Please help me around my house by washing a few dishes, vacuuming a room, or taking my dog for a walk. Remember my husband is overwhelmed and in need of support as well!
- Please let me know if you are supporting me even if a cylce fails. That is my biggest fear and the hardest thing to talk about.
- Please remind me that I am strong enough to endure this, as I am sure to forget along the way.
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Tuesday 3 March, 2008
A Los Angeles-based fertility clinic as sparked controversy by offering couples the chance to select both the sex and physical traits such as eye and hair colour in a baby when they undergo IVF.
The LA Fertility Institutes, which is advertising the service on its Web site, says it has already received requests from about half a dozen couples. The clinic's director Dr Jeff Steinberg, who is among the handful of fertility specialists who pioneered in vitro fertilisation in the 1970s, expects it's first trait-selected baby to be born in 2010.
But some fertility experts are angered that pre-implantation genetic diagnosis or PDG, which has long been used to avert inherited diseases, will now see its main purpose diverted to producing designer babies.
While it is unclear if Dr Steinberg's clinic will be able to deliver on its promise, the growth of PGD has accelerated genetic knowledge to the point of allowing such pre-selected cosmetic traits in a baby to soon become a reality.
PDG is a technique whereby a cell is taken from three-day-old embryo and tested in a laboratory to see if it carries a genetic disease to stop parents passing on deadly disorders to their offspring. But in this case, the same technique would screen the embryo with the right physical traits such as eye and hair colour before it is returned to the mother's womb.
Josephine Quintavalle from the Comment on Reproductive Ethics is among a myriad of critics. "This is the inevitable slippery slope of a fertility process which results in many more embryos being created than can be implanted. Choices will always have to be made. Do you choose octuplets or the ones with the prettiest noses?" she told the BBC.
Another fertility expect, Dr Gillian Lockwood, a member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists' ethics committee, questioned whether is was morally right to be using the science in this way. "If it gets to the point where we can decide which gene or combination of genes are responsible for blue eyes or blonde hair, what are you going to do with all those other embryos that turn out like me to be ginger with green eyes?" Dr Lockwood also warned against "turning babies into commodities that you buy off the shelf."
But Dr Steinberg has dismisses the critics by claiming that his fertility clinic is simply offering "cosmetic medicine" which could give a couple the opportunity to have a baby with a darker complexion to if they already had a child with melanoma.
He also stressed that the service is being offered to those patients who have already agreed to having genetic screening for abnormal chromosome conditions.
And there appears to be a lucrative market for such services after a recent US survey of almost 1000 people who sough genetic counseling found 13% of respondents ready to back the approach to select for superior intelligence or athletic ability.
Sarah Williams
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Tis the season to be jolly, but try telling that to the women and couples out there who have tried and failed to conceive this year. Or those who have lost a baby through miscarriage.
If any season brings home the feeling of emptiness and sadness to the infertile it's Christmas. For Christmas has children at its heart whether you look at it commercially or religiously.
While the Christian world celebrates, of all things, the birth of a baby and stores have Santa trails especially for children nothing emphasises a state of childlessness in such an inescapable marked way.
So what to do if you are involuntarily and regrettably childless?
‘Carols by Candlelight', an event awash with families and ringing with the sound of excited children's voices is clearly to be avoided at all costs.
You'd escape to the cinema except everything playing features Ben Stiller or Tim Allen as a Christmas elf and besides, the audience are mostly elf-size themselves.
Similarly shopping centres have stages with non-stop children's entertainment and you can't even get past them for the dancing toddlers and Hummer-sized prams.
You'd go to the ballet but they're performing the children's Christmas favourite ‘The Nutcracker'. And the Eagles, Silverchair and Kylie are long gone from the Entertainment Centre, instead it's the Wiggles if you please and of course you don't.
Meantime the advent of Christmas feels like the build-up of an enormous pressure cooker, a forced time of celebration when all you feel like is fleeing to a desert island where there are strictly no children allowed.
Anything to avoid Christmas Day either with ‘unrequited' grandparents or nephews and nieces, oh so cute in their Christmas finery. These are the nephews and nieces you had to negotiate hundreds of children and their frazzled parents at ‘Toys R Us' to purchase presents for.
It's the frazzled parents that get to you the most, you don't understand them at all. How could anyone who's a parent possibly be frazzled? When you've been trying for years to become a parent yourself it's beyond comprehension.
Possibly it's the John Lennon Christmas song that is the worst of all the Christmas songs. ‘Another year over and what have you done' is haunting to the point of being disturbing. Especially when the answer is you spent the whole year trying to conceive and didn't get anywhere. Another year over and still no baby.
And spare a thought for those going through IVF over Christmas, it's highly incompatible with feeling festive and the drugs don't help. Imagine having to run off and inject yourself with a follicle-stimulating hormone during the turkey, come back and resume your seat and your paper hat with a big smile.
Yet if there's anything good about Christmas it is that it's followed by the New Year. A chance for new beginnings, the hope that this time next year you'll be pregnant or have a baby and this will have been the last childless Christmas.
A time when like people the world over you'll be celebrating the birth of a baby but this one will be your own.
