Today was a bit of a mundane day for Thomas and I....we cleaned out the basement to make a play space for the dog during the day (rather than my living room) and went out to buy odds and ends for the house. I started keeping track of the number of pregnant people/little babies while we were out....it has actually become a game for HH and I because let's face it, as any infertile will tell you....we are freaking magnets for things like that. The total for obvious preggo's was six (three in the mall, one at Target, one at Wal-mart, and the last at our local co-op where we got lunch). Well actually ~I~ got lunch there and Thomas munched on a meatball sub while I happily ate my organic, Asian tofu burger with carrots, onions, and sprouts on multi-grain bread =). Other than the preggo's there were roughly 6 or so infants all cutely wrapped in their strollers and one set of fraternal toddler twins, to which my mind immediately wondered if that mother used A.R.T to conceive.
Now, let me explain this one. First of all I do understand that A.R.T does increase the chance of multiples (hence the reason people see more than one and automatically jump to that conclusion), but I am also very well aware that the purpose of A.R.T is to bring home one, beautiful baby... but sometimes another one (or two, or three!) are added in there. So in saying this, I certainly wasn't looking at this mother with disgust if she DID conceive these twins through A.R.T (this should go without saying but I wanted to make sure my point was clear)And hell, I had twins at one point too courtesy of Follistim and an IUI....but my mind wandered to this question because I have been involved in IF for quite some time now, and it absolutely blows my mind that multiples can be conceived naturally! I know it DOES happen (obviously) but sheesh....it is quite a mind bender for an infertile like myself! I mean come on.....two eggs, without meds....that's something that only exists in fairy tales, right?
3 comments:
I found myself thinking the same thing today with a couple that looked to be in their later 30's pushing 2 adorable twin 18 month old boys.
The world confuses me sometimes. Especially when it comes to who gets pregnant easily...
Kind of about your post but indirectly.
It's seriously ~pissing~ me off that now that I am doing IVF, I get about a bajillion "ah, so you're going to have multiples!" comments.
I am trying my freaking best to not punch them in the face and explain how there IVF controls the aspect of multiples more than just plain sex. The stereotype of putting in massive amounts of embryos and having them all stick is just not the IVF reality anymore.
I may ~choose~ to have two put in. Or I may stick with my plan of just one to control that risk, but it's all going to depend on the quality of my embryos. I may not even get one to transfer.
So I look at multiples a bit differently when I'm out in public. I actually assume they weren't 'planned' as with using ART.
There was an article about IVF and multiples in the NY Times today. What annoyed me (similar to Nancy) was that they did not really point out until the very end (and even then it was very brief and unclear) that IVF gives you much more control of the number of babies than other forms of ART.
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