749th Friday Blog Roundup
“Social infertility” is the term the New Yorker is using to describe infertility when “it’s your biography, rather than your body, that prevents you from having a child.” I already took my stance in my book: the inability to create and carry a child to term comes in many different forms, and calling it infertility in one place and something else in another doesn’t make sense when we can all join together and ADDRESS THE ISSUE vs. fighting amongst ourselves to determine who gets to wear the infertility crown.
I also don’t support the “it dilutes the disease designation” argument. We have the disease designation. We still don’t have designated disease-like coverage. Nor would I have been cool if anyone had pointed out that Josh could marry someone else and technically wouldn’t be “infertile” anymore, therefore, they didn’t have to pay for our coverage because it was his “lifestyle choice.”
If you cannot conceive or carry children, you are infertile. And it frustrates me to all get-out when I hear stories about people wasting time and money to fulfill a rule vs. getting medical care that directly addresses the issue in a cost-effective manner.
My shoulders felt tense after reading this piece.
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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.
Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.
As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.
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And now the blogs…
But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:
- “How to be Childless and Happy in 10,000 Easy Steps” (Life Without Baby)
Okay, now my choices this week.
No Kidding in NZ has a post about keeping the lines of communication open and wondering about the balance between sensitivities and emotional protections. She writes, “I’m trying to find a balance between my own indignation at attitudes about parents and non-parents, or comments that might trigger (a loaded word in itself these days) my own hurt, and my wish to keep dialogue open.” It’s not an easy line to find because context matters so much, and the same words may enter our ears differently on two different days (or spoken by two different people). It’s an interesting question about how do you not take offense but how do you also not get hurt.
Mine to Command has a non-IF post that totally fascinated me about the giving of gifts. I’ve never seen the Big Bang Theory, but I love that example from the show. And it’s just an interesting roundup of questions.
An Engineer Becomes a Mom got me with this sentence: “I’m deep into the ‘I can’t fix myself fast enough’ mantra in my head.” It is a tiny post, but that line packed a big punch, for me.
Lastly, My Path to Mommyhood has a post about Father’s Day and a cruddy moment of customer service that her husband found himself in on that day. Cruddy, actually, doesn’t really cover it.
The roundup to the Roundup: The New Yorker’s piece on social infertility. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between June 14th and June 21st) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.
9 comments
I read the New Yorker article you referenced above and I might have a headache. I don’t understand why some companies that cover IVF would do so for some and not others. by “definition” my husband and I are not infertile, we have gotten pregnant 5 times at home trying for 6 months or less but I have not been able to carry to term, so I am thrilled that our insurance company does not have a lot of red tape for me to get the coverage I need. Off the bat, I do not like the term social infertility, but if that term allows other people to be covered for either IUI’s or IVF then, by all means, let it be used.
I appreciate that you accept all types of fertility journeys here, and all types of people without ranking us. I haven’t read the article, but might. I would fall under the “social infertility” because if I went and put some sperm in my vagina I could probably get pregnant again and carry to term again. But, because I’m single and of the variety that doesn’t have sex with men, my chances of that happening are slim. I would love to have another baby, but my “biography” is that I don’t have enough money and would like to no longer live in poverty before attempting the sperm in vagina thing again. I am 34 today and had my first child at 27. I think it’s important we have these discussions amongst ourselves and maybe the designation will make it so more insurances cover treatments for other people, like lesbian couples, or single parents by choice. But, I would never equate my journey with that of someone who dealt with miscarriages and years of medical treatment. I could be empathetic to their struggles, and sympathetic to their desire to have a child. Thank you for having a nonjudgemental safe space for all us.
Fascinating article. What comes to mind is that rights are what other people have decided to give us. I would like to investigate further this idea of positive and negative rights and how that relates to responsibilities. Because responsibilities are the flip side of rights.
Hmm. I disagree on calling the couple infertile. That’s like saying a gay male couple who need a donor egg/gestational carrier infertile. No. They might be very fertile. I’m not at all saying the couple in the article shouldn’t get coverage but I wouldn’t call that infertility. I get why an insurance company would have that requirement though, in general. Which doesn’t contemplate the situation in the article.
The concept of “social infertility” has been around for several years in childless-not-by-choice circles. Not all CNBC women have experienced loss or infertility as I have… for example, some have husbands who don’t want (more) children; some are single, never met the right guy to have babies with and didn’t want to try on their own. As Working Mom says above, they might be fully capable of conceiving & carrying a child, given the right opportunity.
I wrote about “social infertility” as part of a blog post a few years back: https://theroadlesstravelledlb.blogspot.com/2014/03/article-no-baby-boom.html ). What I said there was:
“I don’t particularly like the term — I think it’s hard enough to get people to take true medical infertility seriously as a problem without muddying the waters. But I do agree single women who want to be married and have children are a segment of the childless/free world that tends to be ignored or left out in the kids/no kids discussion.”
I’ll admit I hadn’t considered the angle of who gets to have their fertility treatments paid for by insurance. Even though most of our medical needs are covered through our government-run health plans here in Canada (which might be why it doesn’t spring immediately to mind as an issue for me…!), few of them include very generous coverage when it comes to infertility treatment, and that goes for supplementary plans that most of us get privately or through our workplace benefits too. (I blazed through my workplace plan’s $1500 lifetime maximum fertility drug coverage in less than a week.) So it is something to consider. I’m all for better coverage and for more people being able to at least try for the families they want, in an affordable way. I’m just not sure we all belong under the “infertility” banner.
Of course, I tend to have a problem with labels generally…! Case in point: am I childLESS or childFREE? Some prefer one term while some prefer the other — and of course, there’s often confusion with those who are childfree by choice, who don’t want to have children and are happy to be “free” of them. I don’t find either term very satisfying, to be honest, but for lack of a better choice (for now, anyway?), I generally go with childless or childless/free on my blog.
I tend to share Lori Beth’s views about medical infertility. I struggled for a long time to be able to say the “I” word, and so have never really understood why anyone who wasn’t medically diagnosed would want that stigma.
But, if there is a right to reproduce, and it seems there is as certainly hetero couples or individuals can reproduce as many times as they want (and they do), then surely that must extend to any other couples or individuals. I feel that the problem is the restrictive approach and terminology used by the insurance company or by government health policies. And that resultant discrimination should definitely be addressed.
PS Thanks for the shout out.
When someone assumes people going through infertility haven’t tried X, Y or Z; https://hopelessinfertile.wordpress.com/2019/06/20/why-arent-you-doing-what-i-think-you-should-do/
thanks for the shout out. ☺️ I read the article and feel like I’m too close to be objective, especially because I didn’t have coverage for infertility beyond a few IUIs (although it was something…) I like your observation, same here. DH wouldn’t be “infertile” except that he’s married to me.