You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2007.
Here is a great video to share with you, as one woman explains why the experience of IVF can be so overwhelming.
When you are dealing with the challenges of infertility, you need to treat yourself with extra care, but it can be hard to feel loving toward a body that seems to be letting you down.
For every woman who has been there, this video will remind you that you do not walk this path alone.
To say that the challenge of infertility is stressful is to put it mildly. One of the things about stress is that it can cause you to regress into old behaviors you thought you’d left behind, long before you started dealing with issues of fertility.
That’s what recently happened to one of my clients. She had finally set some great boundaries with toxic family members who were literally poisoning her relationship with her husband, and adding undue stress to her fertility struggles. But after yet another failed infertility treatment, she reached out to them in despair and desperation. It didn’t take long for her to regret her choice and remember why she had initially cut these ties.
Infertility is stressful, and regressing into old patterns that you wrongly imagine can bring you comfort is a real possibility.
That’s why it’s important to shore yourself up, and surround yourself with positive, supportive people and resources that can take you through the tough times. Our connections need to be life-giving, not life-draining.
How far would you go to have a baby? For Jennifer and Kendal, who appeared on the
Oprah Show (Tuesday, 10/9/07), “the ends of the earth” was not too far.
After 3 years of fertility treatment, the $30,000 they had saved was gone, and there was one remaining treatment they wanted to try–using a gestational carrier. Unfortunately, in the U.S., this treatment came with a price tag of $70,000.
The Oprah Show followed Jennifer and Kendal in their quest to a small fertility clinic in Akanska, India. Gestational carriers there can be had for $5,000–a relative pittance for many U.S. couples. But for an Indian family, $5,000 is more money that the average family makes in a lifetime!
Pregnancy rates at this Indian clinic are astonishingly high–44 percent! And as Jennifer and Kendal shared during their Oprah Show appearance, a little more than two months ago, they discovered that they, too, were included in this happy number.
This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to spend time in Kansas City with my friends Wayne and Pam McKamie. Wayne is the founder of Focus Seminars, a breakthrough personal growth seminar he offers several times a year in Kansas City and other parts of the country.
In addition to the seminars, Wayne and his wife, Pam also offer quarterly workshops for married couples to present ways for them to strengthen their relationship. What an honor it was for me and my husband Mark to lead this workshop. This really was a give and take experience as the positivity of the group energized our 30 year marriage. It reminded me of the power of a committed relationship to support us through the tough stuff, whether it’s infertility struggles or anything else life brings us.
As an added bonus, the next morning, I was a guest on Focus Sunday, on KCXM radio and I talked about my upcoming book, I Am More Than My Infertility: 7 Proven Tools for Turning a Life Crisis into a Personal Breakthrough (www.iammore.net). I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as this broadcast is available online or as a download.
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Oklahoma musician Kellie Coffey was new to me when I first heard her sing and saw the music video, “I Would Die for That.”
Her song and her personal story are powerful, touching, and will make you cry. In four and half minutes she manages to capture the range of feelings so many women share from the time in their lives when they want to avoid pregnancy at all cost, to the other end of the experience, when they would “die” for a chance at motherhood.
Her video is one of the most played on You Tube and her story, told in the Celebrity Baby Blog is the sad-happy tale of Kellie’s challenge of infertility.
When it comes to fertility, there are limits to the timing of having it all. Now even Hollywood is getting on board to put out this message.
“Desperate Housewives‘” Marcia Cross, who graced the February cover of Good Housekeeping Magazine while pregnant, and the April 11 cover of People Magazine, with her infant girls, has made no secret about her own reproductive treatment.
According to the website, Expo Say, Marcia related, “I don’t like the average woman being misled into thinking that fertility is something that goes on forever. When a woman gets older, they get a donor egg, which doesn’t make the baby any less beautiful or perfect. One’s own eggs only last so long, and sometimes at 43 or 44 you can have your own baby, but statistically it’s very difficult and expensive. You don’t want to wait that long.”
Amen, Marcia.
Sometimes, it’s important to do whatever you can do get through challenging times.
My client Jenny is no stranger to the emotional rollercoaster of infertility. On her third IVF, she is hopeful but all too aware of the risk of failure. This time, though, she has a strategy in mind to help her deal with the results.
A rock band Jenny has loved since she was a teenager is doing a concert a couple of weeks after she’s finding out her results. “Getting tickets.” she says, “works for me either way. If it’s success, I’ll celebrate; if not, I’ll still have something to look forward to.”
Maybe it’s because we see so many women in the public eye who manage to have careers, delay starting a family, and then give birth to beautiful babies, that we tend to think it is an option for everyone.
But just because some Hollywood celebrities, who have spent thousands, (maybe hundreds of thousands) of dollars manage to wait until their thirties, forties, or later to start a family, doesn’t mean it is a realistic option.
A fact most women don’t know is that fertility begins to decline while women are still in their twenties. I Am More than My Infertility, a book coming out this month, talks about fertility and infertility in ways most other books don’t. To learn more about the book, visit the website www.IAmMore.net.
Here’s an interesting television news clip that follows one couple dealing with infertility. You’ll notice some surprising, but accurate numbers about how fertility declines as a woman ages.
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The longing to mother a child is one of the toughest things about infertility. Chronic feelings of emptiness and despair can make it hard to even get through the day sometimes.
Recently, one of my clients, always a dog lover, decided to splurge and gift herself with a puppy. Adopting this little creature has brought brightness and joy to a time that has been marked with months and months of failed infertility treatment. Even founder of Conceive Magazine Kim Hahn has shared how her little maltese, Tulip, was a source of great comfort during her struggle with infertility.
Certainly, a puppy is no replacement for a child. But finding something, anything, that can bring sweetness to what can be an otherwise bitter time in your infertility challenges is a wonderful way to truly nurture yourself.
Here’s a You Tube video about a test for fertility and infertility. What’s interesting is that the test is for both men and women, and is approved by the FDA for use at home. It is probably not a definitive answer for most couples facing fertility and infertility challenges, but it might be a good place to start.
