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Saturday, March 24, 2012

On Fertility, Loss and Trying Again

This summer I wrote a piece for the New York Times about how women, because they look sexy and young well until their forties, believe (erroneously) that they have also managed to prolong their window of fertility. (I.e. I look as good as I did when I was thirty, therefore I must be as fertile as I was then.)

I wanted to write this piece to expose this fallacy and the one that pregnant Hollywood actresses in their forties and fifties are peddling. I'm all for privacy, but if you are in the public spotlight and then lie about using a donor egg or IVF or some other means of help, you are promoting the idea that women well into their forties can get pregnant without any intervention. IVF is expensive and it often fails. Women everywhere need to know this. Look, I'm a woman, and I think the whole thing sucks. It's not fair men can keep on having babies into their sixties. It's not our fault if we don't find Mr. Right in our twenties. Why should we suffer because we did what our parents and teachers and bosses and friends expected--and what we wanted, damn it!--and made a lovely career for ourselves before settling down and having a baby. It sucks. Yes. But it is a reality. And facing it earlier rather than later is the only answer.

Here's an excerpt from my article:

Advances in beauty products and dermatology, not to mention manic devotion to yoga, Pilates and other exercise obsessions, are making it possible for large numbers of women to look admirably younger than their years. But doctors fear that they are creating a widening disconnect between what women see in the mirror and what’s happening to their reproductive organs.

The unreality is reinforced by Hollywood, much to the growing dismay of many obstetricians and gynecologists. Not only are stars in their 40s now celebrated as bona fide sex symbols (Julia Roberts, Halle Berry, Salma Hayek, the list goes on), but judging from media coverage, they seem to be reproducing like rabbits.


It's a controversial topic and one I feel somewhat uncomfortable talking about given that I started having kids at 26, long before any of my peers, and have been blessed with three children. The last thing I want is for women to think I'm preaching to them.

But here's the thing, and one of the reasons I feel so passionately about this issue: I had a miscarriage. Right between my second and third babies, after a horrible sequence of events rocked my personal and professional worlds. Getting pregnant--welcoming a new child--was something good and positive to think about, to take my mind off the terrible things that had happened. But then, the morning of my 10 week ultrasound, I started bleeding. There was a heartbeat, that was the good news. I went home, got in bed, and moved as little as I could. But the bleeding continued. I finally miscarried more than a week later (in a toilet, at home, after a morning of horrible cramps).

My world went black. I managed alright during the day, putting on a brave face for school runs, social engagements, a pre-planned trip to Florida. But at night, as my husband and children slept in their beds, I'd sob into the fluffy white mat on my bathroom floor, wondering how I'd ever feel whole again. In hindsight, it took me a year to get over losing that baby. A whole year to feel ready to attempt to grow another life inside of me.

It took three months to get pregnant with Felix. I had morning sickness (a good sign) and no complications (other than the emergence of a painful varicose vein in my groin). And yet the whole time I carried him inside me I was worried. No, I was racked with anxiety, which anyone who knows me, knows that that is not my normal state of being. I didn't exercise. I didn't allow myself to fall in love with him. In fact, I felt rather ambivalent about his arrival. But then he finally arrived. And so did all the right emotions. Like a flood.



You can read the whole article HERE.






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