Now I must remind my readers that I have taken great pains to educate my friends about fertility, the biological clock, the one-in-a-million potential for a 46 year old woman to conceive with her eggs using IVF, never mind naturally. And even though I am now "only" 42, I've told them a 42 year old with a single-digit FSH has a small chance of conception WITH IVF and even if it's successful, she has about a 40% chance of miscarriage, given the likelihood of a chromosomal abnormality with the embryo. They also know I had my fallopian tubes removed to greatly reduce the risk of implantation failure and miscarriage.
So last week, while out to dinner, sipping a cold Corona light, my girlfriend V asks "Sky, have you ever considered just stopping all of this, meeting a guy and getting pregnant the natural way."
BHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! C'mon, you can laugh out loud, I give you permission! I did. I was even embarassed to - I didn't mean to make her feel stupid but the comment just floored me. I didn't even know how to reply without making it worse.
"Well, I think natural conception is a closed door in this life for me - remember, I have no fallopian tubes." Clearly she'd forgotten that as she then cocked her head and said "oh yeah" then added "but why not just meet someone and do the IVF thing with him."
And it occurred to me then that this is exactly why women will continue to follow in the footsteps of their infertile sisters, even when every single attempt to educate them has been made. No matter what they're told, they ignore it - seems too impossible to believe. As long as a woman has a period, other women will believe - despite fact, science and evidence to the contrary - that she can still conceive naturally. Ugh!
I wanted to scream - I'M 42, I HAVE A HIGH FSH AND NO FALLOPIAN TUBES!!!!! The chance of my meeting Vince Vaughn, his falling in love with me and our getting married is leaps and bounds greater by a million orders of magnitude than my ever having a natural conception. In fact, even if I had 500K to devote to a genetic baby and CCRM were willing to blow their stats letting me try, it's unlikely it would work. If you don't believe me, Google Alexis Stewart (daughter of Martha Stewart) who's blown 28K/month for years at the top infertility centers, using experimental treatments and consulting with the world's leaders in infertility trying - yet no baby. She's not the exception, she's the fucking rule for women our age!
@#$%^&*()$! Women just DO NOT GET IT!
Exasperated, I took a bite out of my burger, had a sip of beer and rendered the process of educating other women hopeless!
7 comments:
So unfair. We were all sold the fairytale hook line and sinker as children. Raw deal we've got. And you can't teach them all. Some just will never get it.
Sky, I totally get it! I can either scream at people (out of the frustration of yet again telling then the facts of life) or just not even try an more. They don't want to know. They believe the fantasy. Science be damned.
BTW, thanks a millions for the long explanation you left on my blog last week. I really appreciate the shared details
Too funny!
(to preface: my mom went through menopause at age 36 and I'm almost 32)
After I told my SIL that the doctors had diagnosed me with early menopause she scoffed and said "you're so young, you have plenty of time, I wasn't even thinking about kids until I was 2 years older than you are now" ... does she think menopause is irreversible in "younger" women?
These ladies ought to become doctors!
hugs - Marna
OH I SO GET IT! After all we went through - trying the old fashioned way from 34 on, my mom still suggested going back to that instead of DE after 4 failed IVF cycles and 37 dead embryos.
Plus, while I kept reading "don't walk, run to your RE after 35" I told myself it didn't apply to me. I had a baby after all. I was healthy, my family was fertile, blah, blah, blah.
What would have cost me to go? A lot less than it cost me not to.
When people try to convince me that I'm going to be the lucky recipient of a spontaneous pregnancy, it's annoying. When they do it to you, it's embarrassing - for them!
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