Motherhood on Ice by Marcia C. Inhorn

Author:Marcia C. Inhorn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: NYU Press

Needlework

As suggested by both Danielle and Rebecca, the singleness of egg freezing is accentuated by the fact that women must engage in their own needlework—namely, self-injections of powerful and expensive hormonal medications, the dosage and accuracy of which are critical. Few IVF clinics offer direct assistance with these important injections. Nor do they host separate injection classes for single women undertaking egg freezing alone.

Some clinics now offer online injection courses that women can watch in the privacy of their own homes. But instructional videos may be hard to follow, since watching an injection on a computer screen is not the same as inserting a needle into one’s own body, a process that is “not hard but not intuitive,” as one woman put it. Even physicians who underwent egg freezing admitted having qualms about the self-injection process. Bridget, an internal medicine physician, told me, “I have more empathy for my diabetic patients now!” And Suzi, a surgeon, had much to say about how self-injection affected her both emotionally and physically.

When I was injecting myself, just the fact that you literally have to poke a needle into yourself is just very hard. And the fact that you’re on hormones makes you more emotional, and you’re just, like—you’re like a complete mess. It was really difficult. And the other thing was that when I went to go pick up drugs … it’s like a fertility drug pharmacy, so everybody in line is picking up, you know, Menopur, Follistim, whatever. And the majority of people in line are men because they’re picking up medication for their wives or partners. And it made me feel even more sad, because at least they have someone going through this with them, whereas I was doing it on my own. Does that make sense? And then so you feel really alone. You already feel alone having to do this, and then the fact that you see those men, it makes it even harder. It makes it even harder. You feel like there’s something wrong with you, like, “How are you even still single?” or “What’s wrong with you?”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.