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Tuesday 30 September 2008
Source: American Society for Reproductive Medicine
Certain anti-depressant drugs can harm male fertility by damaging the sperm's DNA makeup.
US scientists at the Cornell Medical Centre in New York looked at 35 men who were prescribed the anti-depressant drug Paroxetine, also known as Seroxat in Britain and Aropax in Australia, over a period of five weeks.
And only four weeks into the trial, they discovered the men's sperm had twice as much genetic damage as at the start of the study with the amount of genetic fragmentation in sperm rising from about 14% before the trial to over 30%.
Lead researcher Dr Peter Schlegel explains:
"If you look at normal sperm counts and motility, the standard measures of fertility, you saw no changes, but if you looked at sperm DNA, the genetic material in more detail you actually found dramatic changes in almost half of the men, normal men, who are on this drug".
The findings reinforce previous research which has already found a link between male infertility and the consumption of certain drugs. The same researchers reported two years ago that the antidepressants citalopram and sertraline reduced sperm counts in men and that their sperm counts returned to normal once they stopped taking the drugs. Other research has also found environmental factors such as exposure to certain chemicals and heat sources can impact on men's fertility.
But the new findings come with a word of caution from psychiatrists who believe male patients to not abruptly stop their medication and seek professional advice before doing so.
Sarah Williams
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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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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.
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The following is an opinion piece published in Australian Parents Magazine February-March 2008 in response to a column by author Alison Rushby
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I am infertile. I will always be infertile even though I've had a child. You see, I didn't have the child in the way nature intended. I had the child courtesy of that great 20th century invention, In Vitro Fertilization. And I consider myself one of the lucky ones, as IVF doesn't work for everyone. Many of those who sign up for it leave the clinic empty-walleted, empty-armed and broken-hearted.
Three percent of babies born in the western world today are the result of IVF and over one in six couples of reproductive age find it difficult to conceive. Yet until recently when the media has picked up on the issue, who would have known?
People certainly don't discuss their fertility problems. During the years I worked as a flight attendant I was the unwitting recipient of every gory birth story and every pregnancy tale told by my fertility goddess colleagues but not once did I hear anyone's infertility story. And I ask, why? Why, if it's kosher to be infertile, is it something you don't talk about? To not tell anyone you've had a miscarriage or are undergoing IVF? To not tell anyone how you've been trying for five years to have a child with no success?
I went on to write a book about my bumbling quest to become a mother, because of this and because there is scant literature available for those who struggle to reproduce. Whole shelves and even sections of bookshops are devoted to pregnancy and babies but you'd be lucky to find one book devoted to infertility.
To the pregnant women I lampooned in my book, I'm sorry. It was the IVF drugs I was taking, combined with the ragged mental state I was in after those years of trying to conceive. I know you don't all purposely flaunt your pregnancies, (those that do, you know who you are). Now that I've been pregnant and rejoiced in it, I can understand why you wouldn't want to hide it and nor should you. And I don't for a minute think that pregnancy wear should be confined to curtains for the stomach, i.e. smocks. Goodness knows there are enough fashion obscenities out there already without adding to them.
Yet I must explain on behalf of the other fertility-challenged women out there why we are like we are to the point of occasional militancy. Why we shun parties where there are young children or babies, why we can barely manage a smile when you say you're pregnant, why at times we can't stand the sight of you.
It's nothing personal, but it's borne of an aching emptiness, like a hunger pain that isn't confined to your stomach but cuts to your very soul. And like a hunger pain it gnaws at you day and night. We can't control it, it exists as part of our being and once unleashed it's impossible to bury it. There is no cure for it either, except of course a baby.
So when we're out and about the sighting of a pregnant woman or a baby is like a sighting of someone tucking into a hamburger when you haven't eaten for days. The pangs you feel are similar but a hundred times more intense.
If and when we do manage to have a child it is like being presented with a gourmet meal when you've been starving for a long time. It's only natural therefore to think that the person who's only been waiting a few hours for food perhaps won't savour and appreciate every mouthful in the same way. It's not based on fact but on feeling.
Had I known that my fertility would take off to an uncharted destination sometime in my thirties and not left a forwarding address, I would probably have done things differently, not attempted to get ahead with the mortgage and enjoy my career. How could I have known though, when nobody talked about it? Media coverage was practically non-existent and women's magazines focused on things like ‘Multiple Orgasm', not ‘Multiple Birth as the Result of Fertility Treatment'.
Similarly had I been offered half the information about miscarriage and IVF at work that I received about episiotomies, I'd probably be the mother of two teenagers now.
Yet many women don't have the luxury of choice. Factors way beyond their control contribute to the postponing of motherhood, for example finding a partner who has not only evolved to a Homo Sapien, but is willing to have children NOW.
So please don't judge us but listen to us instead. You've been talking for years and we've just found our voice.
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'When trying to conceive becomes a battle to stay sane'
by Jodi Panayotov, The Australian
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I knew there was something wrong with me when I began frantically pulling everything out of the rubbish bin for the third time. Or should I say something else wrong with me. I already knew I had endometriosis, hyperthyroidism and that my hormones were out of whack (all under the infertility umbrella of afflictions), but this? It felt like something in my brain had gone into overdrive and was compelling me to do previously unimaginable things obsessively and repetitively.
How did it get to the point where I was on my knees rifling through salad scraps like a hungry street person? Except instead of food I was looking for one of a dozen discarded pregnancy tests, just in case a second line had shown up in the hour since I'd shoved it to the bottom of the bin in disgust.
This condition, like an obsessive disorder, had snuck up on me in the year since my first miscarriage and had become more pronounced in the year since my second miscarriage. My husband and I had been trying unsuccessfully to conceive for a few years and at some point recently it had taken over our lives and in particular mine.
At the time of the rubbish incident I was on herbs to correct my various reproductive ailments. This had involved the taking of my temperature every morning and charting it which may have been useful for my herbalist but was doing my head in. I'd taken to setting the alarm so I could get an accurate reading by taking it at the same time every morning. A temperature too high and I'd failed to ovulate, a temperature too low and I wasn't pregnant.With shaking hands I'd reach for the thermometer and depending on the reading of my basal temperature, I'd either leap out of bed happy or retreat under the covers. I became Linda Evangelista-esque in that a number dictated whether I got out of bed or not, although for her there was a dollar sign in front of the number while my number had a small elevated circle after it.
As for the temperature chart, I'd taken to studying it instead of the papers throughout breakfast, analyzing the little peaks and troughs as if it was a stock market graph. Did they mean I was ovulating or was I perhaps, oh God please, pregnant? And my mood would swing in peaks and troughs accordingly.
I realized how dependent on the temperature taking and charting I'd become when on one weekend my husband and I went away to the mountains and as we were halfway to our destination I remembered I'd left the thermometer and chart by the bedside. ‘We have to go back!' I screamed. There was no way I could face a weekend without it. It was as if my very existence now depended on that thermometer, it so dictated my days and moods that I wouldn't know what to feel without it.
At dusk we finally arrived at our destination, a villa tucked away in the mountains. The next morning was one of the mornings I wanted to stay in bed like Linda but breakfast was included so I dragged myself out to face a sumptuous buffet. At first it looked very inviting, laden as it was with fresh and home-made local mountain products. Then as I moved along with my plate the items started to turn into something else before my eyes. The plump dried figs became shrivelled ovaries, the berry jam endometriotic clots and the poached eggs blighted ova. I knew than that I needed help but I wasn't sure whether to call a gynaecologist or a psychiatrist.
As it happened I ended up seeing both. After that weekend I called my gynaecologist in Sydney and booked an appointment for IVF. I really didn't trust things to be left in my own hands any more, not when I was capable of turning a breakfast buffet into a dysfunctional reproductive system. And through a friend I found a ninety-year old one-legged psychiatrist who had more empathy for how my fertility problems were affecting my life than anyone in the medical fraternity.
The medical fraternity are all, ‘Swallow this, have another blood test, take this, try this,' but they seem completely oblivious to the emotional side of what you're going through. For instance, not once in any medical report do they say, ‘There are many side-effects to infertility beyond the physical ones. Some common ones are:
Homicidal thoughts towards pregnant women, Homicidal urges towards people who mistreat their children, Temperature Charting obsession, Repetitive Pregnancy Test taking to the point where you consider taking shares in the company who manufactured them, Extreme mood swings, Bursting into tears at someone else's pregnancy news, for example Liz Hurley's. And the less common: When foodstuffs remind you of faulty reproductive organs.
If I thought IVF would be the answer to both my reproductive issues and my mental issues I was very mistaken. Yes, it produced a baby but the emotional toll took ages for me to recover from it. On the one hand IVF took the onus from me and placed it in the hands of a medical team but on the other hand I had to play a far greater role in it than I had with my herbs.
Everyone knows IVF involves injections but what I didn't realize was that there would be a plethora of blood tests that left my inner arms looking like that of a junkie and these were carried out at obscure hours in the morning. Sometimes these were paired with internal ultrasounds, after which I'd spend until mid-afternoon obsessively awaiting the results and whether we would continue the next day. It was like doing an exam every day that you had no way of studying for.
I'd thought my mental state was pretty ragged until I started the IVF drugs. To put them in perspective, I seriously believe that one day, ‘My client was under the influence of Lucrin and Puregon when she killed him, Your Honour,' will be a valid defence in a trial. It's like PMT tripled. And coming on the tail of the years of trying to conceive stress it can be a force to be reckoned with. I think that for the first time in his life my husband was scared of me when I was on those drugs.
The day I got the positive pregnancy result from the IVF clinic it was like being let out of prison, a mental prison that I'd been in for the past three years. But I was on parole until after the scans that showed a viable pregnancy. Suddenly I didn't know what to do with myself. I put the thermometer away, the charts, tipped out the herbs and thought, ‘what now?' It was as if I had to invent a new life for myself, which I did, although I had some scares during pregnancy which had me back in a state of high anxiety for a while.
Now when I look back on the diary I kept during the infertility years, which I've since turned into a book, it's not the procedures, the drugs, the temperatures that predominate but the insanity which accompanied them all.
Friends who've read the book are taken by utter surprise and say they had no idea what had been going on. Yes, they knew of the herbs, the IVF etc but they had no idea what was going on with me. It wasn't as if I was going to ring them and say, ‘Can you believe it, I've just spent an hour trawling through my rubbish and the pregnancy test still says negative,' or ‘I really think that figs look like ovaries, don't you?'
You see, when people speak of infertility nobody mentions that it has an insanity clause.
Buy In Vitro Fertility Goddess Here »
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So you are finally at the doctor's office after years of unsuccessful copulating, seeking an answer with a side of treatment. Admittedly it's been a relief to share with someone who's not going to run off and tell everyone you know your intimate secrets. Especially if it means your doctor is going to DO something.
The tests he sends you for are both embarrassing and painful but because they're going to shed fluorescent light on what ails you and your partner you'll live with them, even welcome them.
"You want me to put my feet, where..THERE, but they won't fit….auuuggghh!"
"How long did you say the needle had to stay in?" "Do I get anaesthetic?" "It's been twenty-four hours - should I still be in this much pain?" are all pressing questions you find yourself asking the doctor, whilst for your partner it's, "But how do I get it in there?" and "Do you have anything else but scotch/Penthouse?"
A couple of weeks later you're back, all anticipatory that they'll have found something and an indicated treatment will be offered.
Your partner is the first to receive his results and has to refrain from doing a Toyota ‘Oh what a feeling' leap out of his chair at the news that his ‘boys can swim'. Whilst happy for him you realize that this must mean it's you with the problem and nervously await the verdict.
It takes a while as there is much frowning, paper shuffling and throat clearing and mumbling on the part of the doctor.
‘CHRIST,' you think, ‘what's going on? Do I have a whole range of fertility issues?"
Eventually, as if he suddenly remembers there is a couple sitting in his office and it is not, after all, time for a leisurely Sunday-morning-paper type-browse of your notes, he looks up.
Both you and your partner stare at him, dry mouths slightly ajar.
"I'm afraid," he says, and you nod, feeling quite afraid yourself.
"I'm afraid that you have what we refer to as…um.."
Your hands grip the chair and you lean forward.
"It's ….er…UNEXPLAINED INFERTILITY."
"What's that???" you demand an explanation.
"It happens to about one in ten couples."
"What does?"
"The unexplained infertility as I've just said. It means basically that the tests didn't find anything untoward. Your tubes are clear, there's minimal endometriosis, and you're ovulating very month."
You realize it's like the answer to a multiple choice question - ‘none of the above'.
"But are there other tests you can do, you know, something else…?"
"No those are the main ones we use."
"So what now?"
"Well it's up to you."
"Up to me?"
"Yes, you have three options. We can do a course of fertility drugs or we can try a cycle of IVF or we can do nothing."
Nothing, of course is out of the question, otherwise you wouldn't BE here. But IVF???? Already? When there's nothing discernibly wrong?
"T-tell me about the f-fertility drugs," you stammer.
"Well you take a course of Clomid which boosts ovulation, producing more eggs so increasing your chances of conception. But."
Why is there always a ‘but'? "But what?"
"You also increase your chances of multiple births."
"Oh, is that all."
"Yes, I just had to inform you so that you make an informed choice."
"One more thing," you say after he's written a prescription and is holding it there in front of you like he's a game show host and you're about to take ‘the money or the box'.
"How, if we have ‘unexplained infertility', do you think this may work?"
"By boosting ovulation…"
"But you said I am ovulating."
"As I said, you'll produce larger and more eggs which increases your chances .."
You and your partner leave the office, taking the prescription and your unexplained infertility with you.
That night you pour a glass of water and open the packet of pills. Opening your mouth you pop the pill in, move it to the back of your tongue and take a large gulp of water.
There, you've swallowed it.
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Dejection hardly describes the state you're in when, after two rounds of fertility drugs that left you cranky, bloated and empty-armed, you get around to making an appointment with that naturopath.
Two years and five months of forced copulation and a diagnosis of ‘unexplained infertility' have played havoc with your well-being - if anything, right now you are an unwell being.
Along with unexplained infertility you've developed an unexplained reluctance to go back to your doctor. IVF is pending and this may have something to do with it though you can't be sure.
Every time you hear that combination of letters- I-V-F you go into a kind of dissociative fugue state. The best you can do is deal with it as an abstract theory, as something that happens to ‘other people'. Your partner thinks you suffer from ‘NIMO' or ‘Not in My Ovaries' syndrome and you suspect he may be right though it's not something you'd ever admit.
Before you can even get in to see the naturopath you have homework - called temperature charting. It is explained that this will give clues as to why you're failing to conceive.
"But I have unexplained infertility," you bleat. Regrettably, these days you often sound more like a sheep than a woman.
"Everything has an explanation," comes the measured human reply.
Well, charting a temperature can't be too painful, at least it involves sticking a thermometer in your mouth as opposed to unspeakable instruments of torture in your pelvic region.
After weeks of waking in the morning at the same time to take your temperature in a religious though not godly manner, it is time to meet your naturopath. You slip the temperature chart into a plastic sleeve and drive off.
The ‘clinic', whilst slightly alternative and rustic, manages to look professional and trustworthy. The naturopath, an unassuming gentle woman, ushers you in to her room.
It is very reassuring to note the absence of steel pointy objects and the smell you've come to think of as Eau d'Anaesthetique.
"Let's see what you have for me," she says, and you hand her the detailed history you've filled out, far more detailed than what you filled out at the doctor's, and the chart.
After a lengthy period of scrutiny, she beckons you to look at the chart.
"From the history you've given, you've suffered for years from dysmenhorrea and irregular menses and looking at your charts, ovulation's coming in too late."
"Late for what?" you ask stupidly whilst attempting to picture an irregular yet long-serving Prime Minister.
"Successful fertilization. What it means is that by the time your eggs come out of the follicle they're too old so they're not going to make a good embryo."
"That's it?"
"From what I can see, yes. And it's a common problem. Your irregularity and dysmenhorrea's never been treated."
"C-can you actually treat it?"
"Of course - there's a herbal formula for most things."
You can't believe it - suddenly you've gone from having unexplained infertility to having unpronounceable and unspellable infertility. You feel like rejoicing. You share this with the naturopath.
"Ahh, that's where we need to speak of diet…no alcohol is part of it. And no caffeine and you must have blahblahblah vegetable proteins blahblahblah fish oil blahblah.."
You're barely listening you're so happy. The whole things is like an epiphany and you find yourself humming Louis Armstrong's ‘What a Wonderful World.'
The naturopath interrupts the bit about ‘I see babies cry and watch them grow' to tell you that your partner must also follow the strict pre-conception diet. This will not go down well but at this point you're too joyful to care. Your partner's still in the middle stages of recovery from the stress of ejaculating into a small jar so to have to take on further challenges at this stage will be an enormous ask.
The naturopath takes leave to mix your batch of herbs - you are pleased to note they are individually tailored to your needs and not from a large imported vat that hails from a country where people are paid a dollar a day for their labour. Especially when you, the consumer, pay fifty dollars.
The herbs leave a bitter taste in your mouth but nothing that can't be eradicated with the insertion of a peppermint.
When all is said and done, the herbs, you find, are easy to swallow.
Jodi Panayotov author of In Vitro Fertility Goddess »
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This morning I experienced the resurgence of an old rage. It was a rage that had never left me but had been lying relatively dormant over the last few years, since the birth of my daughter. Before her birth it used to be present a lot and in those days when I felt it, it would leave me speechless and in tears. Today it just made me very angry.
What triggered this feeling? Nothing really. At least nothing that anybody other than me was aware of. You see I was in a children's clothing shop, something that to this day I still feel a sense of utter privilege and joy to enter, something that should have made me happy.
At first I was very happy, cruising around picking up things at end of season sale for my daughter for next year. Then, as I was rooting in a bin near the counter for some last minute things to add to my purchases I noticed a heavily pregnant woman, or should I say, heard her first (God they can be loud, can't they, always keen to let as large a radius of the surrounding world as possible know all about them).
She was busy telling the two shop assistants how she was buying all these girl's clothes because she thought it would be a girl. She wasn't totally sure, mind you, but she ‘had a strong feeling' and it was what she'd always wanted. The assistants went all gooey and started ooohing and aaahing and I resisted the temptation to intercede with the story of a friend who'd had the same overwhelming notion and whose son spent the first year of his life in pink singlets.
At this point, let me say, I was slightly irritated. After all those years of struggle and even though I myself have been what some people must have thought a smug pregnant, I still have my old reaction when I see a fertility goddess (this was undoubtedly one - ‘We weren't even trying yet') flaunting her pregnancy. Still, that is my problem, the woman is entitled to do so.
It was what followed that really started to bother me. As I'd approached the second assistant with my purchases she started carrying on about her ‘poor sister-in-law' who found out a few months ago she was pregnant and was, quote, "Absolutely devastated". The woman already had three children (which begs the question, how on earth did she get ‘accidentally pregnant') and just didn't know what to do.
As the fertility goddess and other assistant were nodding sympathetically and saying,
"How awful for her" I could no longer stay silent. I said quietly: "It's funny, you know. How for every person who is devastated to find out they're pregnant there's someone who is devastated to find out they're not pregnant."
Now for all that trio knew I could have been talking about myself. Was there one ounce of sensitivity in response? No. Just blank looks and uncomfortable squirming from FG and the other assistant who were probably trying to comprehend what on earth I could mean and the one who had the ‘unfortunate sister-in-law' practically snapped at me.
"Oh she's OK now, since she found out it was a girl. She had three boys already."
I resisted the urge to say, "Thank God for that, imagine the poor kid's life if it was a boy," in case she hit me over the head with my shopping bag and she didn't say another thing. There was just an agitated uncomfortable silence for the rest of the transaction as I'd broken the smug reverie that had been going on.
Before I had my daughter I would have fled in tears but now I find the strength to respond to these people, who are basically speaking and acting out of ignorance. I'd like to think that, uncomfortable as those women felt, they might think about what I said and think twice about what they say in future.
Which brings me to an important question. Why are we the ones fleeing from gatherings, uncomfortable to talk about our issues while the fertile always get centre stage? I know it's partly because of the responses we get if we try, partly to ‘protect' others but I think it's important that we have a voice, not just among ourselves but as a valuable (even if we're not procreating) part of the community. This raises awareness which not only empowers us but down the track leads to policies being made that assist us.
Every parent I've met in recent years is aware of how I got to have my daughter, whether they wanted to know or not, and it's interesting how many people who haven't had fertility problems have read and responded incredibly positively to my book. Using humour wasn't just about cheering up others who are going through the same trials but was about making it easy for those without fertility problems to read and understand.
Hence by breaking down the barriers, such as I experienced in the shop this morning, I'd like to think that we would no longer have to feel so isolated when we are going through our ordeal and the fertility gods and goddesses of the world may be more appreciative of what they have instead of just flaunting it.
Jodi Panayotov author of In Vitro Fertility Goddess »
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What are the links between stress and the inability to fall pregnant?
Of all the unwanted advice you get once people find out you're having reproductive difficulties, ‘Just relax and it'll happen' would have to be the one least likely to result in pregnancy and most likely to result in the homicide of the advisor. Is there anything else they could say that makes you more inclined to reach for the nearest solid object and repeatedly hit them about the head whilst shouting, ‘Just relax and this won't hurt a bit!'?
I can't think of anything that infuriated me more, ever, than when I was trying for a baby and someone who invariably hadn't been asked for their opinion would utter that inane phrase. Which also proves how stressed I must have been to get so upset.
Now it seems a small blind hairless rodent may actually hold the key to the link between infertility and stress (not to be confused with the large blind rodents who kept telling you to relax), according to research by Dr Chris Faulkes of the University of London and presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.
Dr Faulkes has studied colonies of 100-300 of these naked mole-rats which leave it up to the ‘Queen' of the colony to reproduce. The rest of them have their fertility suppressed by being subjected to bullying (and therefore stress) by this fertility Queen.
It leaves them free to go off and get busy foraging for food rather than indulging in ‘exhaustive reproductive behaviour' (See, I'm sure there are many career girls who can relate to that - ‘Not tonight dear I have to finish the Simpson Account and prepare a seminar before waxing my legs.. What?…Only if you must but promise not to wake me..')
Clare Brown of Infertility Network UK has agreed that stress may exacerbate fertility problems and undergoing fertility treatment in itself is stressful.
So where does that leave those of us with fertility problems?
Short of finding a fertility Queen to have our children for us and the usual yoga, relaxation classes etc it can help to keep a diary to let everything out, including annoying homicidal thoughts. Keeping the diary which became In Vitro Fertility Goddess » helped me enormously, especially as I made a point of sending up everything I was going through.
It may sound ridiculous but finding the humour in a dark situation can really help, I know it did for me. Not to mention the lives it preserved.
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.