On Friday morning, the stories in Michelle Obama’s new memoir,
For those of us who have suffered through the heartbreak of miscarriage and pregnancy loss and the joys of successful IVF, hearing someone with so much cultural capital write freely about it is uplifting. She also went on Good Morning America and spoke about it as well. Miscarriage, as many are aware, is a taboo topic. While many couples experience it, few talk about it. It’s common enough that you probably know someone who has experienced it, perhaps even your own parents.
But when it comes to pregnancy, we don’t want to talk about the darkness that comes with it. Being pregnant, carrying a child, is supposed to be a joyous thing. As an expecting father, you are helping someone bring a new life into the world. We talk about the gross stuff: it’s a rite of passage or a badge of honor. We chuckle about the things we do for our pregnant partner, the strange cravings, the kicks and flutters. But when it comes to things like pregnancy loss, couples are left to feel as if they are alone.
Like the Obamas, we turned to medical technology to conceive our children. As a male with cystic fibrosis, I am infertile in a technical sense. While I produce sperm like other men, cystic fibrosis causes a congenital defect that prevents them from mixing with the seminal fluid. With no way out, my sperm are destined to die where they are created. However, medical technology today allows the use of surgery to extract them directly and freeze them for use during later in vitro fertilization procedures. I’ll spare you the details on how they get them out, but it does leave one a bit sore for a few days.
IVF, however, is expensive. Few insurance plans cover it in the United States, as it’s considered an elective procedure, like cosmetic surgery. Even if there are medical causes underlying the infertility (as there almost always are), treating those underlying conditions are rarely insured. The discussion on the wisdom of this will be left to another day. What’s important here is that IVF is not something one does lightly. As Michelle Obama speaks to, not only is there an expense, but there is a huge commitment in terms of time and emotion. The woman needs to stay up on medications, including pills, patches, inserts, and even injections. There are frequent visits to the clinic for blood tests. And finally, there is the extraction of eggs, followed three to five days later by the implantation.
Our own personal journey started with miscarriage, failed cycles, and eventually, the birth of our boys.
A lot of money was spent tears shed, and questions asked. If you want to hear more about it, I spoke with The SocialDad Podcast back in May about my experience as a dad with infertility. You can listen to it here.