The grief of infertility can be all-consuming, but also difficult to understand for anyone who has fortunately never experienced it.
It is an unusual grief, a grief about lives that have not yet begun rather than lives that have ended. It often asserts itself more forcefully in moments of joy: the laughter of a toddler in a park, the smile of a mother-to-be at a baby shower. It can haunt you as you experience it and stay with you even if the day comes when you are lucky enough to call yourself Mom.
For years I lived with this grief. Today, my name is Mom. I am a person of faith and I believe that children are miraculous blessings. I also believe that science is a means by which miracles are made possible in this world. Even in the darkest hours of my long journey to motherhood, hope existed for me and my husband in the form of in vitro fertilization.
Following the Alabama Supreme Court’s recent decision allowing intended parents to sue for wrongful death following the negligent destruction of embryos created through IVF, the hope and miracles I have been fortunate to experience are threatened for families whose clinics have suspended treatment. . To the extent that Alabama’s laws have now been interpreted in such a way that IVF is at least temporarily unavailable, I hope that state policymakers will take prompt action to put in place policies aimed at protect.
As a political investigator, I often give data-driven advice to elected leaders, warning them of the consequences that could befall them if they do not carefully handle controversial issues. While the latest IVF debate is a potential election mine for Republicans, GOP leaders from House Speaker Mike Johnson to Donald Trump have already received the memo (an actual memo was sent to Republican candidates ) that IVF is such a popular innovation. that even much of pro-life America finds it worthy of protection.
At the same time, one need not be a religious fundamentalist to view embryos produced by IVF as having significant significance, nor the question of their disposal as unbearably fraught.
I am one of those patients who has thought deeply about the tensions between the life-saving potential of IVF and the complex bioethical debates around the embryos created by this process, grappling with the difficult questions of what I might do if the process led to embryos. I couldn’t reasonably wear it. I have become a strong advocate for ensuring that families can overcome the adversity of infertility and bring birth into this world through this treatment if they choose.
My husband and I met and married in our 20s. We had discussed and agreed that we would like to become parents one day. After a few years, I told my doctor that I was concerned that we hadn’t conceived yet. I remain furious with myself to this day for allowing him to dismiss my concerns. «Relax. It will happen. He didn’t. Like so many women, for years, I blamed myself. My work is too busy. I travel too much. I am too stressed.
When we were both 33, my husband and I decided to look for answers. It was both a blessing and a curse that our diagnosis was clear and indisputable. We were told that getting pregnant would be difficult and would require surgery followed by IVF.
Knowing the odds were against us, we nevertheless remained hopeful and began treatment. After a year with no results from our efforts and a break during which we considered alternatives, suddenly another egg retrieval gave us the incredible blessing of six embryos. The first embryo brought me a few weeks of joy with a positive pregnancy test, but that happiness was shattered when an initial ultrasound revealed that my pregnancy had ended in what is called a missed miscarriage. Our remaining embryos each led to a different form of heartbreak: negative tests, early miscarriages, wavering heartbeats on ultrasounds that had died down by the next appointment.
The pain was made worse by the fact that every time I went for an embryo transfer, I would look hopefully at the little blastocyst on the monitor and think: I love you and hope to meet you soon. Every time I heard the bad news about the end of a pregnancy, I had the powerful feeling that I was saying a real goodbye.
When you’re in the midst of infertility treatment, life can sometimes feel like a series of extremely difficult choices, miserable doctor visits, and upsetting phone calls. I simply can’t imagine what it would be like to be the hopeful future parents of these embryos in Alabama, learning that their dreams were shattered by an unauthorized person taking them out of a freezer.
Trying to put myself in their shoes, I can easily imagine how they viewed these embryos as more than just cells in a box suspended in development and frozen in time. I do not blame the plaintiffs for a single second for considering their embryos as their children, waiting for the moment to be born, now irretrievably lost.
At the same time, I cannot imagine that these plaintiffs, who had built their family dreams on this incredible technology, wanted their quest for justice to lead to closing this door to other families like them.
There’s a reason why so many conservative, pro-life Americans believe IVF is worth protecting. In a world where so many on the right bemoan the declining birth rate or the state of the American family, the ability to unlock the gift of life for those desperate to bring it into the world is a powerful force for the GOOD. In just the past five years, the number of Americans who know someone who has undergone fertility treatment has increased significantly, so it very likely follows that more people than ever know a child in their lives who is here on this earth accordingly. fertility treatment.
Years ago, I was told that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for me to ever have a child. In a few days, I will give birth to my second daughter, a sentence that still remains incomprehensible to me. As I write this, sleeping just upstairs is my firstborn, Eliana, whose name means “God Answered.” Every time I look at his beautiful face, I am grateful for the answer to my years of prayer. I don’t take a moment with her for granted. And I don’t take it for granted that it’s only through a miracle – faith and science in tandem – that I am called mom today.