Tag: reproductive technology

How to support your loved one during the infertility journey | CNN

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Editor’s Note: Chloe Melas is a reporter for CNN, covering all things entertainment for the network across platforms. After nearly two years of fertility treatments, she and husband Brian Mazza now have two sons. Melas was a recipient of Resolve’s 2020 Hope Award for Advocacy.



CNN
 — 

“Bobby and Sara are having twins!”

I remember my husband coming into the bathroom where I was taking a bath to tell me about his childhood best friend’s happy news.

We had been trying to get pregnant for several months at that point, and we were going through rounds of intrauterine insemination, better known as IUI.

I wanted to genuinely give a nice response, but I just sank down further in the tub, my eyes welled up with tears. I felt nauseous and angry. I let out a mumble: “Great.” But what I wanted to do was scream, “Why them and not us?!”

I carried around such bitterness and resentment throughout our yearslong struggle to start a family.

As it turns out, we were in the same boat as millions of people all over the world.

Infertility affects about 1 in 6 people, according to a recent report from the World Health Organization previously covered by CNN. Rates of infertility — meaning the inability to conceive after 12 months of having sex without protection — are similar across all countries and regions, according to the WHO report.

During our fertility treatments to get pregnant with our first child, Leo, I kept our fertility treatments a secret from my family and friends. I didn’t want to have to deal with answering any questions or let anyone down if the procedures didn’t result in a baby.

But it was difficult to mask my overwhelming despair. At one point during my first round of in vitro fertilization, or IVF, I finally saw a psychologist. I’m not sure if it had to do with the copious amounts of fertility drugs, the daily injections or the months of failed treatments — but it was a perfect emotional storm. I needed validation that what I was feeling was, in fact, normal.

As it turns out, lots of people feel this way. Receiving a psychiatric diagnosis, most commonly anxiety or depression, is something up to 40% of women affected by infertility face, according to the American Psychiatric Association.

“During the journey, there are often long wait times with appointments or providers. Waiting to get test results, waiting to hear something was effective, waiting for next steps. All that waiting can really put us in a non-ideal mental health space,” psychologist Dr. Heather Tahler told CNN. She is the mental health services lead at women and family telemedicine startup Maven Clinic in New York City.

“I think another big stressor people feel is the societal pressure for family building to look a certain way. We don’t talk enough about all the different paths that people go through to build their family.”

This kind of distress can be severe. Dr. Elizabeth A. Grill, associate professor of psychology at the Ronald O. Perelman and Claudia Cohen Center for Reproductive Medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, equates the stress of an infertility diagnosis to that of a terminal illness.

“The research shows that the distress levels of those going through infertility are equal to patients diagnosed with heart disease, cancer and HIV,” Grill said.

Part of my sadness was how isolating it all felt. When my husband and I initially began tracking my ovulation and good old-fashioned sex wasn’t working, I would talk to my girlfriends and certain family members, who would brush my worries aside and tell me the key to getting pregnant was to lower my stress levels. “Just have a glass of wine before sex,” one friend said. “Take a trip,” a relative suggested. They were trying to be helpful, but it was hurtful.

To find out what could be helpful for others, I talked to several people for their advice on what to do and not do when supporting a loved one going through infertility.

Talk less and listen more, advised Grace Bastidas, the editor-in-chief of Parents. She regularly covers the topic of infertility and recently published a piece about how to help people going through infertility.

“If a friend or a relative tells you they’re having a tough time conceiving, try not to minimize it by saying, ‘Just try to relax.’ That’s really not helpful,” Bastidas said.

“It really doesn’t validate how they are feeling in the moment,” she said. “If you don’t know what to say, sometimes just listening and being that ear or that shoulder and letting them know they can count on you is what you can do.”

It sounds awful but for more than a year, I found it very difficult to be happy for anyone becoming pregnant. I’d get invites to baby showers and dread having to go. I’d see pregnant women in the checkout aisle at the grocery store and feel pangs of sadness.

It felt like every woman on the planet was pregnant, except me.

Elizabeth Angell, editor-in-chief of Romper, a website for millennial moms, advises people not to hide your happy news but have grace and understanding for the ones around you who are struggling.

“Events like baby showers and christenings can be minefields for anyone going through infertility. I would take your cues from them,” said Angell, who has a section at Romper dedicated to trying to conceive.

“You should invite your good friends to any such celebration, but don’t be offended if they choose not to come. It doesn’t mean they aren’t happy for you. Give them the space to grieve and reassure them that you’re there for them when they’re ready to talk about it.”

Stepping up for your loved one, whether that means taking them to doctor’s appointments or sending a small gift can go a long way, Grill told me.

“If the person you are trying to support is open to ideas, try to think of what you would do for a friend diagnosed with any other illness,” Grill said. “Call or text to ask how they are doing, bring them dinner, offer to take them to appointments.

“Let them know you love them and are there for them. Learn to listen, support and show trust more than offering advice. Most importantly, validate their experience and learn to sit with them in the discomfort of their pain.”

Angell agreed. “Infertility treatments are often physically taxing. If that’s something your friend is going through, send food or a nice bathrobe or pajamas — something they can use when they’re resting and recuperating.”

Although well intended, “seemingly innocuous questions of curiosity … can trigger feelings of devastation and anxiety for those trying to conceive,” Grill told CNN.

Nora DeBora, who hosts The Ultimate Pregnancy Prep Podcast, has been open about how her desire to start a family hasn’t happened yet.

“As a single woman in my late 30s who deeply desires a family, it can be off-putting and uncomfortable when people ask ‘when are you going to have a baby?’ There is a lot of pressure that women put on themselves already while feeling like their biological clock is ticking with each passing year.”

Some days you might be handing your loved one a tissue, and others they may seem closed off.

“Being present for someone on their journey means meeting them where they are at,” Tahler said. “Some days it could be talking, some days it could be a hug. There are a variety of emotional responses day-to-day. It is best to remind yourself of this, so you don’t take it personally.”

It has been liberating but sometimes incredibly vulnerable ever since my husband and I first began sharing our story in 2018.

CNN's Melas with her husband, Mazza, and their two sons.

Recently, I went on the Pregnantish podcast with host Andrea Syrtash, who told me that the stigma around infertility is still very prevalent. That’s why she is compelled to feature stories of people who go the distance to create their families and how their relationships are impacted.

“‘First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby carriage’ is an outdated narrative for millions of people,” she told me.

“Modern family building and infertility impact every relationship we have. With our partners, friends, family, workplace and most importantly, the relationship we have with our bodies and ourselves.”

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When children are told they were born via assisted reproduction can affect outcomes, study finds | CNN

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CNN
 — 

At age 14, Helen wasn’t bothered by the fact she was born via surrogacy.

“My mum is still my mum. My dad is still my dad,” she told UK researchers conducting a study on the mental health and well-being of children born through egg donation, sperm donation and surrogacy. Helen is not her real name.

“I was talking to someone at school and they said they were an accident,” 14-year-old Simon (also not his real name) told the researchers. “I know I was no accident, I was really wanted, and it makes me feel special.”

Parents worried their children may experience difficulties as a result of learning they were conceived by assisted reproduction can stop fretting — the kids are just fine, according to the study published this week after two decades in the making.

“When we began this study more than 20 years ago, there was concern the absence of a biological link between the child and the parents could have a damaging effect on their relationship and on the well-being of the child,” said lead author Susan Golombok, professor emerita of family research and former director of the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge in the UK.

However, at age 20, children born via egg or sperm donation and surrogacy were psychologically well-adjusted, the study found, especially if parents told the children about their birth history before age 7.

“What this research means is that having children in different or new ways doesn’t actually interfere with how families function. Really wanting children seems to trump everything — that’s what really matters,” Golombok said.

Clinical psychologist Mary Riddle, an associate professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University called the study “important, in that it represents research conducted over a long period of time.”

However, Riddle, who was not involved in the study, said the results aren’t completely applicable to the United States because surrogacy can be practiced differently in the UK in several ways.

Called “tummy mummies” by some of the children, surrogates in the UK may become part of the family, participating in the upbringing of the child they helped bring into the world, according to Golombok’s 2020 book, “We Are Family: The Modern Transformation of Parents and Children.”

“In the UK, intended parents often know their surrogate prior to the surrogate pregnancy whereas in the US, commercial surrogates are often matched through agencies and don’t have prior relationships with the families for whom they carry babies,” Riddle said.

It’s also more common in the UK to use “partial” surrogacy, in which surrogates are impregnated with the sperm of the intended father and are therefore the biological mother of the child, Riddle said.

“Here in the US, gestational surrogacy, where the surrogate mother has no genetic connection to the child she is carrying, is far more common and thought to be potentially less fraught with psychological and legal pitfalls,” she added.

The study, published Wednesday in the journal Developmental Psychology, followed 65 children — 22 born by surrogacy, 17 by egg donation and 26 by sperm donation — from infancy until age 20. Another 52 families who did not use any assistance were also followed. Researchers spoke to the families when the children were 1, 2, 3, 7, 10 and 14.

Young adults who learned about their biological origins before age 7 reported better relationships with their mothers, and their mothers had lower levels of anxiety and depression, the study found.

However, children born through surrogacy had some relationship issues around age 7, “which seemed to be related to their increased understanding of surrogacy at that age,” Golombok said.

“We visited the families when the children were 10, and these difficulties had disappeared,” she said. “Interestingly, the same phenomenon has been found among internationally adopted children. It may have to do with having to confront issues of identity at a younger age than other children.”

Developmentally, children begin to notice and ask questions about pregnancy between the ages of 3 and 4, said clinical psychologist Rebecca Berry, an adjunct faculty member in the department of child and adolescent psychiatry at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine.

“To satisfy their curiosity they’ll begin to ask questions about babies and where they came from as a way of trying to understand why they are here,” said Berry, who was not involved with the study.

Children as young as 7 will already have a basic understanding of genetics, and can be surprised when they learn they aren’t genetically connected to one or both parents, said Lauri Pasch, a psychology professor at the University of California San Francisco, who specializes in infertility and family building.

“Our current thinking is that it is best for parents to share the story of donor conception with their children at a very early age, so that if I were to ask their child when they are an adult when they learned that they were donor conceived, they would respond that they ‘always knew,’” said Pasch, who was also not involved in the study, via email.

“This allows the child to grow up with the information, as opposed to learning it later in life, when it comes as a surprise or shock and can hurt their trust in their parents and their identity development,” she added.

When it came to maternal anxiety and depression, there were no differences between families formed by surrogacy and egg or sperm donation and families with children born without assisted conception. Nor were they any differences in the mothers’ relationships with their partners at home, the study found.

However, mothers who had babies via donor eggs reported less positive family relationships than mothers who used sperm donation, likely due to insecurities about lack of a genetic connection to their children, Golombok said.

Young adults conceived by sperm donation reported poorer family communication than those conceived by egg donation, the study found. That’s perhaps due to a greater reluctance on the part of fathers to disclose they are not a genetic parent, Golombok said.

Only 42% of parents who had conceived via sperm donor had revealed the child’s birth history by the time their children were age 20, compared to 88% of egg donation parents and 100% of parents who used surrogacy.

When asked, many of the children said they weren’t concerned about how they were conceived.

“A lot of the children said ‘It’s not a big deal. I’ve got more interesting things going on in my life,’ while others said ‘Actually it’s something a bit special about me. I like talking about it,’ Golombok said. “I think it’s really nice to hear from the children themselves and I don’t think any other study has done this.”

Once told, a child needs to revisit the birth history from time to time, so parents should be sure any conversation is an ongoing one, Golombok said.

“There is this idea parents will tell the child and that is it. But you need to keep having these conversations to give the child a chance to ask questions in an age appropriate way as they grow older,” she said.

“Many of the parents in our study use children’s books that were specifically designed for this purpose,” Golombok added. “Then they could bring the child’s own story into the narrative.”

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