Last night I went to see the movie “Julie & Julia”. I read the book and the author, Julie Powell, does talk briefly about having PCOS and feeling immense pressure to have a baby. It’s not a central theme in the book but it’s just nice to have people openly acknowledge this issue. I wasn’t expecting the theme in the movie and it really wasn’t there in terms of Julie’s storyline. However, there are a couple of briefs moments where it is acknowledged with Julia Child. She and her husband are walking in the street and as a stroller goes by she turns and looks back in mid-conversation. I’m not sure everyone would notice this but as an infertile, this subtle gesture was not lost on me. Then later her sister marries, and she is also older, and sends Julia a letter that she is pregnant. As Julia reads it to her husband she breaks down in tears, all while being happy for her sister. Something an infertile can totally understand – joy and pain all in one moment. And that’s it. Nothing earth shattering. But again, it’s nice to see the infertility topic touched upon out there in mainstream media.
Here’s a great response we received from a wonderful woman who attended our support group once. I thought it was very honest account of what happens on the “other side” of the fertility journey. We wish **** all the best for a health pregnancy of her and the babies.
“Thank you for sending the email, since our IVF round was successful I was unsure about contacting anyone, I thought it might make people uncomfortable or upset. I know how I felt when hearing someone else had gotten pregnant and I didn’t want anyone to feel bad. This has been such a hard pregnancy so far, I’ve had hyperemsis pretty bad. From week 6 to week 12 I had to go to the hospital 3x’s for dehydration, I was hooked up to an I.V. at home for 8 days for dehydration, I was also hooked up to an zofran pump for 4 weeks, and I lost 20 lbs total… I have to go for a weigh in tomorrow to make sure I am gaining weight. I have been able to eat for about 1 1/2 weeks now, so I’m hoping that keeps up. The thing we have to deal with now, is we’re having twins, so the question EVERYONE asks is “Did you use fertility treatments?” It gets old having to field that question, over and over again. Only close friends, and family know we did IVF, but we say no to everyone else.
As Karen and I left the last meeting (which was great!) we talked about how each meeting we have new faces. It’s a good feeling to know that we continue to reach new people each month but we wonder what has happened to those of you have attended before? We know a few of you have gone to become pregnant and that is wonderful. How has the pregnancy affected you now after your fertility journey? What about the rest of you? We’d love to hear if attending even one meeting helped you take a new step on your fertility journey and where you are now.
Also, the national Resolve organization is now offering free teleseminars and offer a great range of topics. If anyone actually “attends” one, we’d love to know if you felt it was worthwhile.
Find details at: http://www.resolve.org/site/PageServer?pagename=teleseminar
I’ve seen a lot of articles similar to this recently:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20090620/hl_hsn/treatmentoptionshortenspathtopregnancy
The gist of it is that some couples can become pregnant quicker and for less money overall if they go straight to IVF and skip the IUI / injectible steps.
I’m not going to talk about the money aspect; that’s a topic for another day. What I do want to say is that these studies aren’t looking at the emotional aspect. IVF can be very overwhelming – there are a lot of drugs involved, and frequent appointments and blood draws. I personally didn’t find IVF to be that bad, but I’d already done 4 injectible cycles. I was already familiar with the drugs and how they affected me. We knew where and how to give the shots and it wasn’t intimidating anymore.
From a different angle, IVF seems like the last resort, the most drastic step. It feels like you’ve completely failed and need a doctor to make you a baby in a dish. I needed to know that we’d done all that we could before we moved on to that level of intervention.
It doesn’t matter to me what some study said, I still would have done the injectibles and IUIs. I needed that time and slower steps to progress to the IVF cycle. Without the IUI cycles, I would have felt MUCH more overwhelmed by IVF, and we wouldn’t have had any idea what dosage to start with. I’m happy with my decisions, and that’s really the key. You have to make the choices that are right for you and everyone has a different path.
When we met Lori, we also learned a new interesting element to her story – she and her husband are going to use a surrogate/gestational carrier. For those who are interested in following this story, sure to include some good laughs, read her new blog called “My Egg, Your Nest” at:
http://www.myeggyournest.blogspot.com/
We wish Lori, her husband and the surrogate, lovingly nicknamed “The Nest”, all the best!
