Not pregnant yet? You bet!

“Rice on the inside of a pot”: post scriptum

It’s not until recently that I found Nastya through mutual acquaintances and found out that she was a mother of two girls. I sent her a piece of text with the description of her session and got an answer, which I quote here with her permission:

Hi!

You just live your life and… bang! – you are in a book! You won’t believe it, but I don’t remember this session at al! I remembered it just when I read the text. This means all this is 100% in the past for me. I guess, it kind of is.

My father died a year ago. I felt bitter at the loss, I was hurt, but I didn’t feel guilty. I don’t feel it now. I think that I should have felt guilty. Because he warned me: “I will die”. And he did. And I didn’t do anything to avoid it! But I don’t feel guilty!

Now, thanks to you and this text passage, I have understood that I began this separation more than ten years ago. I’m so glad I did!!! Thank you!

I have two daughters, the girls are mirror reflections of each other. My first pregnancy was unexpected the doctors called it “diamond” pregnancy. According to all tests’ results I was told I would be treated for at least three years before I can even begin preparing for IVF – the doctors were not even hoping I could conceive naturally.

This is why I did not expect it – I started the treatment with this drug that had severe side-effects, including collapsing. I felt terrible, but I thought it was due to the side-effects. My husband suspected something and suggested taking a pregnancy test. It was negative.

I went on a business trip abroad, came back, and I felt even worse!!! So I drink the drugs, lie down flat and my husband suggests taking the test again. I was against it – why? Before the business trip it was negative, I didn’t have sex during the trip and after it – WHERE would it come from? To make him stop grumping I bought one.

I still remember how surprised I was when I saw it was positive! It turned out I was 10 weeks pregnant! And I felt bad because of toxemia!

I am very happy for Nastya, I looked at the picture of her two girls born almost ten years apart. Nastay is a happy mother – what else can I say?

“Motionless sperm”

An old man goes fishing. But the net is down. No fish is on-line.

    Internet meme

In the beginning of the chapter I said that in our society it’s usually women who undertake “saving” men. His is how they were brought up, the thought that a man can take care of himself does not even enter their minds. I gave three typical examples and there are hundreds more! In the first case, it’s a story of Yana who tries to get pregnant while it’s her husband who has “infertility” diagnosis. In the second case, it’s the story of Kseniya whose reproductive function is blocked, because she tries to meet the expectations of the meaningful men in her life, but does not listen to her heart. Finally, it’s a story of Nastya who feels obliged to fill the life of her drunkard father with meaning, ignoring her own human needs. Healing for women with similar patterns of behavior means discovering that their close ones can take care of themselves and becomong selfish in a good way.

To sum up, I would like to finish this chapter “Male factor” with what I began it – men with infertility diagnosis. While I was writing the book, I’ve got an example of psychological work with male infertility. Recently I shared with a male colleague that I was writing a book on female infertility. He was surprised:

– Why just female?

– It’s sad, I don’t have any cases of male infertility.

– I have, and plenty.

We discussed, theoretically, why men could have issues fertilizing. I suggested that one should analyze symbolic meanings of adjectives used to describe the sperm of a man. If they have “low motility”, one should try to find out where the man stays motionless, or, to put it in psychological terms, where he is rigid in his beliefs? If there are little alive sperm, one should find out what is dead and left unburied in the life of the man? As they say, we chatted and went our separate ways.

In two weeks after we had the talk, my colleague called me and told that his forty-three year old client who had had low motility sperm just had his sperm tested and it turned out that his sperm was like a young man’s. It happened after our conversation: while working with the client my colleague said that the sperm mirrored his behavior. And here is the result!

I want my readers to know: man can change and do change the characteristics of their sperm through psychotherapy.

While he was a boy, this man fell victim to sexual harassment attempt form his older teenaged peers. Nothing actually happened, but it caused an uprising of strong feelings in the client, and he kept this “skeleton in the closet” for almost forty years. He told his therapist about this childhood memory and expressed the long-suppressed feeling of being humiliated due to which he didn’t feel fully manly. The client was able to change the way he saw himself, which was —depreciated just because of the experience.

A more mature way to look at this is to understand that a man can’t be strong all the time. He loses in some situations, but he does not stop being a man because of this. Unfortunately, our society shares and even encourages the immature belief that a man should be on top of his game all the time. More often than not it is impossible for them to accept and take in the vulnerable side of their personality. This is why they put on a mask of “the strong one”, exercising their bodies, putting of the airs of an alpha-male (this is how my colleague described the client). And the weakness was expressed in a less apparent way – behavior of his sperm.

As soon as the client saw the connection between the “message” his body was trying to send him and his own behavior the symptom disappeared. Why wouldn’t it, if the “message” was read? Now nothing prevents the man from naturally becoming a father. And – remember the statistics? – there are forty such man in a hundred of infertile couples. Well, now it’s thirty-nine!

Chapter 3

Mal (e) practice

Cosmos means order

Recently, I bought iPhone.

No idea how to turn it on.

No buttons and flat screen —

Is that supposed to ring?

It’s frustrating, but I’ve got no clue.

Someone’s calling. What do I do?

    Internet meme

It is impossible to skip the topic of IVF in a book like this, IVF being the most cutting-edge and the most expensive way of having a baby in case of infertility. IVF is a proof of the mankind being able to do the things that were only God’s work before. This brings forward different ethical, moral, and psychological issues.

IVF stands for in vitro fertilization, “in vitro” meaning “in glass”. It is an ancillary reproductive procedure used in case of infertility. Another ways to say this would be “artificial insemination”, “having test-tube babies”, etc. In the course of the procedure, the egg is removed from the woman’s body and artificially fertilize in vitro (in a test-tube). After the fertilized egg undergoes embryo culture for 2—5 days, it is transferred into the uterus for further development.

First, this technology was successfully applied in the United Kingdom in 1977. As a result, Louise Brown was the first test-tube child born in 1978. The first child (a girl) in the Soviet Union conceived as a result of IVF was born in February, 1986. If in 1990 the number of test-tube babies was more than 20 thousands, in 2010 it came up to about 4 millions[22 - Wikipedia.].

It’s been not so many years after this, just one generation grew up, and we still know little about this method and its consequences. There are lots of questions, because mankind have made a number of discoveries and didn’t know how to “cover them back” afterwards. We can see mothers who receive huge amounts of hormones. What will happen to them? If the main criterion for using any method is set in the course of time, how do we know what will happen to test-tube babies? What will happen to test-tube babies’ babies?

It is known that there should be some spare embryos for IVF, they somehow “help” each other and there is a greater chance of pregnancy. But where should others go in case of pregnancy? They are either destroyed, or frozen for another procedure in case of failure, or used for scientific purposes if their “owners” donate them. Will humankind get away with treating human beings like this?

In March of 2013 ELLE magazine published in interview with Victoria Zaletova – the head of Moscow clinic called “Mama”. Victoria told that they had a married couple who gave birth to twins and for whom they froze two more embryos. So, the couple gave birth to another pair of twins six years later. “It looks like a miracle. But for us it’s what we see every day, just one of the methods we use. – The doctor comments. – One can argue if it’s good or bad. Reproduction specialists have a more down to earth position: there is a couple, their goal is to have a baby, there are certain options. Cosmos, universe – we don’t care much about this stuff”[23 - Science of IVF. ELLE, March, 2013. P. 191.].

But we, psychologists, do. I would like to remind you that “cosmos” is translated from Greek as “order”. In practical psychology and psychotherapy order is very important. Essentially, this whole book is about how infertile women restored the distorted order in their minds, and only after this did they receive their ability to conceive, bear and give birth. When I hear someone saying that a man put himself beyond the laws of the universe, moreover above them, I feel the fear crippling down my spine. This means for me that people don’t know what they are doing.

What order is violated by reproduction specialists? They neglect a huge area of knowledge they are not aware of. They interfere with material stuff, as if forgetting that a man is not only a material object. There are oh so many things that are impossible to be described from a material point of view. For example, doctors believe that a personality develops only after birth. Psychologists view this differently – an individual enters this world determined by his/her prior experience: conception, pregnancy, birth – and the life goes along with this state.

Another issue is that IVF costs a lot. Money means business, how can you be sure that you are treated and not being used? It’s a mistake to call IVF a treatment method. It’s a trick, one more experiment curious humankind does on the nature: “What happens, if?..” And who will pay for this childish curiosity and what is really the price for it?

But the main question for me is the following: if women agreed to IVF, this means they had some reason for infertility? And the reason did not go away as the result of the procedure. Roman Nikolaevich Getmanov, obstetrician of Central City Hospital #70, shares: “We often have women who come to give birth after IVF. In my experience, they have more issues giving birth that those who conceived naturally. I think it’s due to the fact, that these women force their body to do something it probably does not need”[24 - http://www.pravmir.ru/eko-neopravdannyj-risk-glavnyj-pediatr-rossii-o-posledstviyax-zachatiya-v-probirke/].

I agree with this and I will add from my own experience as a therapist; isn’t it more logical to try and find the reason and give the body what it wants from psychological point of view? People exist as a whole – body changes as mind changes. If mankind accepts this point of view, the medicine will do exactly what it was meant to do – help people using holistic approach.

Eggs on credit

I asked Vasiliy to pay me back.

He spoke of liquidity and what the heck…

His obscure monologue was wrapped up