In addition to the logistical problems with egg-freezing; people don’t seem to understand that having babies and small children is hard on the body physically. Pregnancy, birth and then anywhere from a few months to a few years of sleep deprivation take a toll. I’m a very fit, healthy individual but I noticed a difference even from my first baby at 31 to my last baby at 36. Thankfully, baby #3 was a reasonably good sleeper and was an overall relatively easy, non-colicky baby, unlike her elder siblings who hated sleeping and screamed inconsolably for several hours each evening. Even so, I remember thinking “geez, I am getting TOO OLD for this!” at 3 AM.
I think most of us underestimate the fact that by our 40s, we have a hard time pulling all-nighters, functioning on no sleep, and our bodies just take longer to recover in general. There’s a good evolutionary reason that fertility takes a nosedive after age 35.
Had a baby at 43. Conceived naturally. Gave birth without an epidural by natural delivery (in a hospital.)
Having said that, my daughter was not a sleeper and I spent my mid-forties being sleep deprived. I was lucky in that my husband earned enough so that I could stay home with our daughter until she started pre-school at age three.
I also had only one child.
Many women do start to have difficulty conceiving in their late thirties, but a good portion of women do not have this problem. If you look at geneological records of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, it was not uncommon for women to have children into their early 40s. My grandmother, who had seven children, gave birth to her last child at 43 years old.
This is not to suggest that giving birth in the late thirties or early forties is possible or desirable for every woman. However, historically, it was not uncommon. Doctors and hospitals deny this reality and often treat women who are trying to conceive in their late thirties with extreme reticence. I can't tell you the number of times I was treated as a high risk patient while being pregnant at 43. That was probably the most traumatizing thing about being pregnant.
Women of all ages are denied adequate follow up care after giving birth. About half of women suffer stress urinary incontinence as they age in part due to untreated injuries during vaginal birthing. Most doctors, including gynecologists, don't know how to treat this problem. In fact, there are minimally invasive surgeries that can correct stress incontinence. However, most HMO insurance policies don't cover the cost of this type of surgery.
For me, I don't regret having one child at 43. I loved having a professional career in my twenties and thirties, and having the opportunity to return to it in my fifties. I also loved being a stay at home mom for a few years. I'm still married to my husband, the father of our daughter. I didn't meet him until I was 39.
I am not a fan of telling women they can freeze their eggs as a path to a guarantee of having a baby in their late thirties or early forties. That is simply not true. However, I am also not a fan of telling women that they must sacrifice a career that they love in their early thirties, or marry someone they are not thrilled about in their twenties or early thirties.
At the same time, women should be made aware that for most women, there is a sharp drop in fertility after age 40.
The concept of putting off pregnancy, or of course puberty... the inherent lie is so obvious that you can never get that time back when it was optimal to experience those things. Why are people so willfully blind and so frustratingly stupid?
You’re not going to like the answer….surrogacy and nannies.
Did you happen to read that the woman behind the Bud Lite-Mulvaney catastrophe had three (3!) kids using surrogates?
I lack the strength to look into this further, because I’m almost positive I’m going to utterly cringe at the trend that I realize is happening and will enter full-on cognitive denial at the prospect of contemplating what advanced horror-level mental illnesses will result in THAT generation of wealthy-kids coming out of expensive-college Humanities departments.
its a scam look at the 2 party system which is not democracy- rather- it is a duopoly- but still the different camps state lies about "left " this or "right" that by flim flam merchants or careerist cynics ; or saying 40,000 bombed women and children and elderley are bombed in makeshift tents after herded into the same areas not 4 weeks before told you will be safe and you must go North - stating its a " "war"nuh they ate shooting fish in a barrel - innocent assassinated and targeted indescriminately by a fascist dictatorship ; but the same authority is in bed with the powerful and the narrative is to shut debate by fake labels saying there exists anti s,just like big pharma building a business for gender using gays and then saying its "anti t "..blah balh blah - some brave people try to call it out but the captured media bully and lie and skewer headlines into glib camp mentality - we need to remind these crime gangs and orotection rackets they are individuals
Once again, medical arrogance. Egg freezing is a good thing if, say, a woman has to have chemotherapy for cancer and wants to get more chances at a biological child down the line. If it doesn't work, okay, you tried. You knew it was a long-shot, but it was worth trying and gave a person going through something traumatic more hope for the future. But it's quite a different thing to make this a basic life choice, as if egg-freezing is just as good as nature, and to actually sacrifice the efforts one would normally exert to assure having children during the window period of fertility, believing egg freezing would give them the same chance at giving birth many years down the line.
This reminds me of the many years in which women were told not to breastfeed - and did not breastfeed - advised by doctors that formula was better for their babies and for their health. That's right. That's what doctors told them, and most new mothers believed it - they trusted their doctors. Granted, the harm was more subtle than the lie about egg freezing (which could mean not having biological children at all), and most formula-fed babies grew up unscathed. (I was one of them.) Still, it was wrong, and there were small, but very real, health effects from the lie that formula was better than breastfeeding, both for mother and child.
Medical arrogance is obviously one of the factors behind so-called "gender affirming care" (aka chemical and surgical mutilation and sterilization of healthy bodies) as well. I hope people learn soon!
Yes on not-quite-unscathed part. Speaking as a biologist - aside from the overall negative impact of less strength in the mother-infant bond, weaker immune stimulation and its resulting long-term effects including higher rates of asthma and autoimmune diseases, I’m pretty sure that it kicked up the level of boob-fetishes in my cohort of men by an order of magnitude.
And it is worth noting that many poor women were unnecessarily spending money on formula. But of course money couldn’t have been a motive for the “mistaken” belief in formula’s superiority to breast milk, right?
Not to put all the blame on women for believing the hype about egg freezing, let's remember that many of these women who froze their eggs may have been in careers that would be harmed by taking time off for child rearing or were with partners who believed children would harm their careers. Too many professions require people in their 20s-30s to be more than full time to succeed (academia, medicine, law, etc)--and by the time they've reached their professional goals, their fertility is compromised, sometimes drastically.
Yes, but most doctors actually don't work in gender medicine. (I despise the ones who do, but there are plenty of decent doctors in all kind of medical fields that are completely unrelated to trans crap).
Good point. We have to put the fantasy of perfect control over one's female fertility in the context of a social and economic system in which being a mother punishes women economically. It is well established that, at this point in history,most of the wage penalty imposed on women is tied to motherhood. No wonder the women to find work arounds.
This kind of fertility intervention has something in common with pharmaceutical mental health therapies in that it promises to treat a source of emotional distress, namely the uncertainties that attend the prospect of being able to have a child. An argument can be made that simply proving that freezing eggs is a medically safe and effective way of deferring pregnancy wasn't sufficient.
Shouldn't those seeking regulatory approval have been required to follow a group of women who'd had their eggs frozen long enough to determine the validity of such touted social and psychological benefits as "you can (and will) have everything. You don’t have to choose between having a career and having a family. You don’t have to settle for a man."?
In addition to the logistical problems with egg-freezing; people don’t seem to understand that having babies and small children is hard on the body physically. Pregnancy, birth and then anywhere from a few months to a few years of sleep deprivation take a toll. I’m a very fit, healthy individual but I noticed a difference even from my first baby at 31 to my last baby at 36. Thankfully, baby #3 was a reasonably good sleeper and was an overall relatively easy, non-colicky baby, unlike her elder siblings who hated sleeping and screamed inconsolably for several hours each evening. Even so, I remember thinking “geez, I am getting TOO OLD for this!” at 3 AM.
I think most of us underestimate the fact that by our 40s, we have a hard time pulling all-nighters, functioning on no sleep, and our bodies just take longer to recover in general. There’s a good evolutionary reason that fertility takes a nosedive after age 35.
Had a baby at 43. Conceived naturally. Gave birth without an epidural by natural delivery (in a hospital.)
Having said that, my daughter was not a sleeper and I spent my mid-forties being sleep deprived. I was lucky in that my husband earned enough so that I could stay home with our daughter until she started pre-school at age three.
I also had only one child.
Many women do start to have difficulty conceiving in their late thirties, but a good portion of women do not have this problem. If you look at geneological records of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, it was not uncommon for women to have children into their early 40s. My grandmother, who had seven children, gave birth to her last child at 43 years old.
This is not to suggest that giving birth in the late thirties or early forties is possible or desirable for every woman. However, historically, it was not uncommon. Doctors and hospitals deny this reality and often treat women who are trying to conceive in their late thirties with extreme reticence. I can't tell you the number of times I was treated as a high risk patient while being pregnant at 43. That was probably the most traumatizing thing about being pregnant.
Women of all ages are denied adequate follow up care after giving birth. About half of women suffer stress urinary incontinence as they age in part due to untreated injuries during vaginal birthing. Most doctors, including gynecologists, don't know how to treat this problem. In fact, there are minimally invasive surgeries that can correct stress incontinence. However, most HMO insurance policies don't cover the cost of this type of surgery.
For me, I don't regret having one child at 43. I loved having a professional career in my twenties and thirties, and having the opportunity to return to it in my fifties. I also loved being a stay at home mom for a few years. I'm still married to my husband, the father of our daughter. I didn't meet him until I was 39.
I am not a fan of telling women they can freeze their eggs as a path to a guarantee of having a baby in their late thirties or early forties. That is simply not true. However, I am also not a fan of telling women that they must sacrifice a career that they love in their early thirties, or marry someone they are not thrilled about in their twenties or early thirties.
At the same time, women should be made aware that for most women, there is a sharp drop in fertility after age 40.
My favorite joke during my kids' infancy was that while 40 had been the new 30, 45 was the new 50.
The concept of putting off pregnancy, or of course puberty... the inherent lie is so obvious that you can never get that time back when it was optimal to experience those things. Why are people so willfully blind and so frustratingly stupid?
You’re not going to like the answer….surrogacy and nannies.
Did you happen to read that the woman behind the Bud Lite-Mulvaney catastrophe had three (3!) kids using surrogates?
I lack the strength to look into this further, because I’m almost positive I’m going to utterly cringe at the trend that I realize is happening and will enter full-on cognitive denial at the prospect of contemplating what advanced horror-level mental illnesses will result in THAT generation of wealthy-kids coming out of expensive-college Humanities departments.
its a scam look at the 2 party system which is not democracy- rather- it is a duopoly- but still the different camps state lies about "left " this or "right" that by flim flam merchants or careerist cynics ; or saying 40,000 bombed women and children and elderley are bombed in makeshift tents after herded into the same areas not 4 weeks before told you will be safe and you must go North - stating its a " "war"nuh they ate shooting fish in a barrel - innocent assassinated and targeted indescriminately by a fascist dictatorship ; but the same authority is in bed with the powerful and the narrative is to shut debate by fake labels saying there exists anti s,just like big pharma building a business for gender using gays and then saying its "anti t "..blah balh blah - some brave people try to call it out but the captured media bully and lie and skewer headlines into glib camp mentality - we need to remind these crime gangs and orotection rackets they are individuals
Once again, medical arrogance. Egg freezing is a good thing if, say, a woman has to have chemotherapy for cancer and wants to get more chances at a biological child down the line. If it doesn't work, okay, you tried. You knew it was a long-shot, but it was worth trying and gave a person going through something traumatic more hope for the future. But it's quite a different thing to make this a basic life choice, as if egg-freezing is just as good as nature, and to actually sacrifice the efforts one would normally exert to assure having children during the window period of fertility, believing egg freezing would give them the same chance at giving birth many years down the line.
This reminds me of the many years in which women were told not to breastfeed - and did not breastfeed - advised by doctors that formula was better for their babies and for their health. That's right. That's what doctors told them, and most new mothers believed it - they trusted their doctors. Granted, the harm was more subtle than the lie about egg freezing (which could mean not having biological children at all), and most formula-fed babies grew up unscathed. (I was one of them.) Still, it was wrong, and there were small, but very real, health effects from the lie that formula was better than breastfeeding, both for mother and child.
Medical arrogance is obviously one of the factors behind so-called "gender affirming care" (aka chemical and surgical mutilation and sterilization of healthy bodies) as well. I hope people learn soon!
Yes on not-quite-unscathed part. Speaking as a biologist - aside from the overall negative impact of less strength in the mother-infant bond, weaker immune stimulation and its resulting long-term effects including higher rates of asthma and autoimmune diseases, I’m pretty sure that it kicked up the level of boob-fetishes in my cohort of men by an order of magnitude.
And it is worth noting that many poor women were unnecessarily spending money on formula. But of course money couldn’t have been a motive for the “mistaken” belief in formula’s superiority to breast milk, right?
Once again, women are sold a medical treatment with no evidence based information.
Not to put all the blame on women for believing the hype about egg freezing, let's remember that many of these women who froze their eggs may have been in careers that would be harmed by taking time off for child rearing or were with partners who believed children would harm their careers. Too many professions require people in their 20s-30s to be more than full time to succeed (academia, medicine, law, etc)--and by the time they've reached their professional goals, their fertility is compromised, sometimes drastically.
Actually, I work in the medical field and from what I see most female MDs have kids before their mid 30s... (Presumably because they know biology)
Their knowledge of biology doesn't help them at all with regards to 'trans kids' though does it...
Yes, but most doctors actually don't work in gender medicine. (I despise the ones who do, but there are plenty of decent doctors in all kind of medical fields that are completely unrelated to trans crap).
Good point. We have to put the fantasy of perfect control over one's female fertility in the context of a social and economic system in which being a mother punishes women economically. It is well established that, at this point in history,most of the wage penalty imposed on women is tied to motherhood. No wonder the women to find work arounds.
in a dream I see millions of women joining in a winning class actions for the wide abuses and exploitation - suing the directors and share holders
Covergirl? Was she a child? Doubting that.
This kind of fertility intervention has something in common with pharmaceutical mental health therapies in that it promises to treat a source of emotional distress, namely the uncertainties that attend the prospect of being able to have a child. An argument can be made that simply proving that freezing eggs is a medically safe and effective way of deferring pregnancy wasn't sufficient.
Shouldn't those seeking regulatory approval have been required to follow a group of women who'd had their eggs frozen long enough to determine the validity of such touted social and psychological benefits as "you can (and will) have everything. You don’t have to choose between having a career and having a family. You don’t have to settle for a man."?