Not pregnant yet? You bet!

With loud and clear “I am f***ed up”

    Internet meme by Bluher

As I was writing the chapter on IVF, I was also asked to give an interview on credit addiction for women’s online magazine “She”[25 - R. Efimkina, We Borrow Money To Cause Envy http://she.ngs.ru/news/more/749337/]. I gave the interview, but, as I was busy thinking about the book on infertility, it occurred to me that these two things were very much alike – freely giving credits to people and broadly using IVF.

The similarity is obvious: IVF is like a credit you take from yourself and pay interest later. I’ll explain: bank clients have their paying capacity evaluated, a woman undergoes full thorough medical examination to find out if she is able to take the procedure. It is a serious examination and it has tons of side-effects: developmental issues, mental illness, etc. Infertile woman can’t do what a healthy woman can. Some side effects are both sad and ridiculous, because no one controls a woman’s health when she goes in bed with a man: does she have a history of mental illness? Crazy part is that the nature ALREADY deprived the woman going through with IVF of health necessary to have a baby in a natural way. If she was healthy, why would she pay hundreds of thousands for what happens in bedrooms every night, if one is up to it?!

It’s the same with credits: save the money and buy, don’t ask money from a bank, don’t make yourself a slave for twenty years! But now, it’s those people who can’t afford are the ones who borrow. Can’t afford it, but want to buy a house. Cant’ afford it, but want to have a baby. What if either lived their life according to their means, or tried and became a person of means? May our wishes coincide with our options.

Step two: a woman’s ovary is stimulated to have several eggs. Doctors say it is harmless or try to avoid this topic. For example, Vladislav Korsak CEO of International center of reproductive medicine in St.-Petersburg gave a rather vague answer to a direct question if IVF was dangerous: “Living is dangerous altogether”[26 - Science of IVF. ELLE, 2013, March. P. 190.]. And women online share dreadful details of their experience. Whom should we believe?

One of my persistent acquaintances went through IVF for eleven times. In Israel. She almost went blind, but she gave birth to twins. But again, after going in psychotherapy. She did this not to be dumped by her (ve-e-e-ry high-ranking!) husband. After the therapy she was the one to leave him and take the children. How is a woman to pay for having her pituitary bombarded with hormones in such a way? At the very least, her climax comes several years earlier. Even if she does not become a mother, she will still have to pay. But afterwards. How does a bank customer pay for having the whole sum at once now? He takes one sum of money, but he gives back a different one – with interest. As they say: you take other people’s money, but you pay back your own. And he pays the interest in the first place. If he decides to terminate the contract, he still has to pay the interest.

Step three: one has to wait and hope the embryos survive. The more embryos there are, the higher the chances for conception are. Then several of them are put into the uterus, the rest are frozen for the next time, and some of those that are already in the uterus, will be terminated to prevent multiple pregnancy. Church people think it’s murder, but there is no other way – no one will pay hundreds of thousands for lowering the chance of successful pregnancy, because of some moral requirements. There is a bank analogy again: when you pay off a loan, you’ll have to give up all the other projects in case you are not able to pay the interest – then what?

Step four: bear the baby. Not all people bear the child until the end of the term, as well as not all people pay the credit. 20% of the cases – that is how often the pregnancy happens after introducing “un-frozen” embryos (it’s mean number in Europe[27 - Science of IVF. ELLE, 2013, March. P. 191.]). I don’t know the number of successful pregnancies, as well as the paid credits.

Step five: giving birth. The Head of pediatrics in our country states, that 75% of IVF babies are disabled and calls to the government to stop supporting this dead-end project[28 - http://www.pravmir.ru/eko-neopravdannyj-risk-glavnyj-pediatr-rossii-o-posledstviyax-zachatiya-v-probirke/]. It is worth saying about the women as well. They shall require medical help to cure the consequences of artificial insemination for a long time afterwards. The same thing happens with credits: those who stumbled up to the finish line have changed, their needs have changed. The apartment they needed 15—20 years ago and bought for the mortgage does not make them happy anymore. Or there was a financial crisis, so the huge investment in real estate that plummeted in value since then has lost all meaning. Now you have an apartment that doesn’t cost this kind of money – it’s no party. The bank customers realize that they have paid triple price.

Where am I going with this? Am I saying that those who take credits are immature dependable people? No, of course not. Taking a credit is a rather healthy solution and it disciplines, if a person reckoned his/her abilities, saw all the consequences of the choice and agreed to it. And he won’t blame the bank for not giving all the information on how he would feel paying back the debt for a long period of time. If someone is able to pay the credit with no fines and no harm to the other aspects of his/her life, it means it’s healthy behavior. However, there always were and always will be those who cannot live in balance.

For example, a person who can soberly consider his/her financial abilities won’t even touch credit cards that are send to mail boxes, that are designed to immature consumers forcing them to exceed their means and spend the money they don’t have. It’s absurd: we borrow the money to buy the things we don’t need to impress the people we don’t know.

How do we learn to live in balance financial-wise? The recipe is the same: to give a rod, not a fish. To help a person once, you need to give them money. To help them forever, you need to rebuild the way they think to restore the balance between “give” and “take”. The law of balance is simple: to decrease the spending and increase the income. Read books on financial literacy, attend workshops, find ways to earn more, invest in your personal growth. Reaching financial success is not an issue, it’s a task. And it’s an interesting and achievable task, too.

And now on the subject of women and IVF: is it the only way to become a mother? You are the only person who knows the answer. Read books on psychology, go to workshops, find alternative ways of healing, not only in the field of medicine, invest the energy of your psyche in yourself, your growth, become an expert on infertility, learn this problem inside out. Try all the options of solving the issue: what happens if you never become a mother? What are the alternatives? It is also life, fulfilled and worth living. It’s not an issue, but a task to realize your creative potential. And it’s an interesting and achievable task, too.

My book is an attempt to make women hear me: infertility is not the problem of your body, it’s a problem of undeveloped, immature personality, and it can be solved with the help of non-medical psychotherapy. It’s a way to save so much money, health, time, energy! It will not be easy, it’s hard work, although it looks innocent: just a conversation with a specialist for one hour a week. But not only will you keep your health, but you will also take care of it, take the power over your life in your hands, fill it with meaning and joy.

Just know that there is such an opportunity, but if you know this, don’t tell that you have tried EVERYTHING!

“Jumble”

Drugs and surgery are the major methods applied. One of the main problems to use drugs and surgery in healing is their numerous side-effects. It is only the influence on physical body that is taken into account when prescribing the drugs.

    Barbara Ann Brennan

The story of Lida is a story of a woman who literary tried EVERYTHING. Now she is thirty-seven, she is joyful, vivacious woman who reminds of a sun not only by her spirit, but also by her brown eyes and bright-red hair. She came to a women’s psychotherapy group when she was thirty, by that time she had been trying to get pregnant for ten years. We used psychodrama method in our work with her, which is the way for the clients to play their situation, choosing the group members and staging the scenes from their own life.

So, Lida told she wanted to become a mother, but didn’t know what else to do, as she had tried everything for ten years.

– What else does it want? – she exclaimed desperately in tears. I tried to build on that phrase and told her:

– Ask it.

Lida chose two women for the role of herself and the baby and talked to the baby:

– What else do you want? Why don’t you come to me? What haven’t I done? I know everything about it. My poor entrails are cut and wounded, there is not a thing doctors didn’t do with them? I’m so tired!

– Then you don’t need to talk to the baby.

– To my entrails then?

– I think so. Who could play them?

– I need many people: uterus, tubes, ovaries.

– Choose as many as you need.

Looking attentively into the faces of the group members, Lida chose them for a new scene. The four women chosen for the roles of wounded entrails came to the group because they had miscarriages, lost pregnancies, abortions and infertility.

– Do you know how it all looks like?

– I’ve learned the anatomy over these years so well that I will make female organs with my eyes closed. But mine are all kinds of different, everything is wrung in and out.

I automatically make a mental note about the use of the verb “make”, which also has a figurative meaning: “make someone do something”. I just note it to check out my hypothesis: what if Lida’s infertility is a result of her strategy to make people do something? People are free and they don’t like to be made do anything. As well as entrails.

– Make the sculpture of your female organs of these people.

Lida puts the “uterus” in the middle, “tubes” and “ovaries” by the sides. The five women who play the roles of reproductive organs join their hands.

– Now wring like in a child’s game “Jumble”.

The women make the symmetrical orderly sculpture into a chaos of people while still holding each other’s hands. When Lida sees what happened she wipes her tears:

– These are my female organs…

– What is going on with you?

– I’m sad and I feel pity for myself.

– Tell me, when you look at this sculpture, does it remind you of something?

– Yes, it looks like our family: this is how I drag on my mother, my brother, two relatives who are like children to me, although they have their own parents…

– Now there are two ways: either get your organs or your family members in order.

– I will straighten it with the family soon just as well; my husband and I are moving to another city. I’d rather talk to my organs.

– So try to be a baby and get into the uterus.

Lida takes on a role of her baby and walks around the wrung sculpture:

– How can I get in… No, it’s not what it takes. I need to talk to my uterus and ask her to let it in.

– Do it.

Lida stops talking, it is obvious, something is going on in her mind. Then she stands on her knees and tells to her “uterus” crying”: