I'm sure by now most of you have heard/read about the recent sets of sextuplets in the news.
Why is it that the only time IF rates nationwide headlines, it's in that "freak of nature" sense? You know, where everyone reads it and thinks "that's so unnatural" .. because let's face it, gestating six IS unnatural.
I find this frustrating, to say the least.
When we went through our IUI's, the word 'sextuplets' came up a lot... my friends, my family, they're ALL familiar with the whole fertility-drugs-produce-multiples... they didn't seem to understand that most women have ONE baby. 'Cause, you know, when I got knocked up with RiceCake, it didn't make the news. There was no headline screaming about how femar@ helped us make ONE baby. When Rice is born, there will be no frenzied media interviews, no website set up for donations, no controversy about whether or not B & I 'played God' or took a big risk with our lives, or our child's life.
I lost count of the number of times I reassured my loved ones that we weren't trying for half a dozen, that we were, in fact, actively working to prevent that sort of thing. That it would be irresponsible medical care if my doctor didn't keep tabs on my follicles and if I didn't follow his advice about when to try and when not to try... because that's what I think when I hear about 5 or 6 or 7 babies born at once - someone screwed up. That's not an outcome that should ever happen.
There is no publicity for my kinda IF treatment, or my kinda results, even though, in my RE's words, this was "an absolute perfect outcome - a single intrauterine pregnancy".*
I am not who the public thinks of when they think of fertility drugs, or IUI.
They think of the women who have birthed four or five or six babies at once.
Because that is the face the media has put to infertility.
That is not the norm.
I'm awful sick of the assumption that everyone who undergoes fertility treatment is playing reproductive roulette. On one of those trainwreck documentaries that I can't seem to turn off, the father of yet another oversized brood stated "any time someone uses infertility treatment, they have to expect multiples" .. or something along those lines... Dude... no... maybe they have to be willing to accept the possibility, but they don't have to expect it. (yeah, that guy was another "here's your clomid, call me in a month" parent)
.. and I don't see it changing any time soon.
*that was his assessment at my first ultrasound. He was immensely pleased. So was I.
2 comments:
It's no wonder insurance companies drag their feet or hesitate at providing coverage when the media would be all over them like flies on shit for creating more multiples. It's moronic.
A successful infertility treatment is someone who gets pregnant with a live, healthy baby with the assistance of a specialist when doing it naturally just won't do.
Amen sister...and then some. I share in your irkdom. It's the OB/GYNs that hand out clomid like its an antibiotic, and do nothing other than a 21 day progesterone check that help result in what can only be termed litters. Here in Minnesota, we just had a set of septuplets born at 22 WEEKS. Sigh. What will the insurance coverage cost to care for these kids? I'm not saying that I wouldn't struggle with a decision over how to handle a higher pregnancy-reduction is a scary place to have to investigate. However, to your point, someone wasn't watching the store when this happened.
Multiples can and do happen. It IS a risk-but when I talked about it with my RE, he was more worried about the twins/triplets thing rather than even higher orders. The case of the two embyos where one splits and you end up with triplets (a recent experience of his with an IVF cycle). We cancelled a cycle where I overstimmed to the point of some 10 mature follicles (one word-OUCH). DD's comment re: insurance coverage is another issue. I shouldn't complain because at least I have coverage, but for those where money is the limiting factor as to whether they ever are able to have a family, it's beyond aggravating. Remember when the media was informational, not sensational??
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