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The American Fertility Association Blog

Say Yes to the Dress – And To Your Fertility

July 9, 2009 - Thursday
Posted by admin

My daughter Caitlin and I routinely watch a TV show on cable called “Say Yes to the Dress”.  This is not the most comfortable show for me to watch, given that I’m an, ahem, divorced 53 year old, because it chronicles the buying angst of brides to be at Kleinfeld’s – The Most Famous Wedding Dress Emporium of Modern Times. 

You know, it’s funny.  My own mother did not get married in a wedding dress.  She married my dad on an army base in Maryland during WWII while he was on leave from the Pacific, wearing a blue skirt suit and a smile.  What’s ironic about that is, my mom’s two sisters both had big weddings.  They wore gowns that had “mermaid tails”  - (as I’ve learned from watching “Yes”), and accordion players, and lots of guests, and some kind of kosher food that I don’t know what it was that they served in the forties.  But in retrospect, you know what my mom’s sisters didn’t have that my mother did?  Amazing, everlasting, real love. 

My mom didn’t get the big dress.  But she got the big love.

Also, it would appear that my mom got PCOS.  Of course it was never diagnosed in those days, but it is pretty obvious to me now, what the deal was for her then.  She didn’t get pregnant for 14 years and had basically decided that the whole mother thing wasn’t in the cards for her.  Like so many of her generation (they were called The Greatest Generation, did you know that?), my mom just sucked up whatever obstacles life threw at her . She persevered and chose a great life for herself and for my dad too, despite any disappointments that she might feel. 

And then out of nowhere, the way it sometimes, every now and then happens for women with pco, she found herself pregnant.  Like so many women with this lousy disorder who never get a period she didn’t realize she was pregnant for five months, and then a doctor simply felt her belly and told her she had “ a little bun in the oven.” 

My parents were very lucky.  Their marriage would have survived forever, even with no kids.  Unfortunately, my dad died young, at 46, but my mom survived that too.

I don’t know.  Maybe it’s my generation and the ones that followed us.  Maybe not.  But you would have to live on another planet to not see the toll that infertility takes on married couples today.  I don’t know why but in these crazy times, in this crazy world, it seems like marriages don’t persevere as well as they did in generations past, especially in the face of bone crushing heartache.  I don’t know if that’s a better or a worse fate ( I really don’t) but I do know that in this day and age we have so many more choices than those that came before us and therefore, so many more disappointments. 

One more treatment to try, one more possibility for adoption.  On and on, seemingly without end. 

No end in sight.  But for many, no baby either.

I don’t really know why.  But I do know that the divorce rate seems to be higher for those who have gone through infertility treatment, resolved or not, than for the general population in our country. 

So here’s the deal.  The AFA will be talking a lot about infertility prevention for couples, and especially for newlyweds, over the next several months and into 2010.  Of course, we are always here for people when they are in the thick of it.  But if we can help prevent it?  We want to try to do that. 

That’s a good thing, and it’s important to us. 

The AFA is launching an initiative specifically geared towards young men and women who have fallen in love, and chosen to marry.  lt hits a little close to the bone for me and I hope it does for you too.  Like everything else that we at The AFA do, this one counts. 

So I hope I can count on you when I call.

Corey
Ben and Ruth’s kid      

Categories
Adoption • Fertility Preservation • Infertility • PCOS

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