I sat down with a colleague the other day and we started chatting about our lives. She is getting married in November and so we chatted about the how far she was with the arrangements and the venue and blah blah blah.
The conversation then turned to ’starting a family’. She very confidently anounced that she still had plenty of time. (She is 33) And only saw the need to start trying after she turned thirty-five. Of course my reaction was to inform her that she was in fact mistaken ……”Your egg quality decreases dramatically after the age of thirty-five. So don’t leave it to long”
I felt that I had to tell her this, and her reaction was one of disbelief. “Well my mother and grandmother had children in thier forties”
Well, in my opinion THAT simply shows that they were lucky. In fertile terms this is considered a miracle!
Now, is my thinking right or is it wrong. Am I right in saying that there are to many woman that believe that they have all this time to have a child. And is it not a dangerous perception for them to have. I also suspect that this is not the only ‘dangerous’ perception that woman have when it comes to fertility.
My thinking is as follows….
I have a very unrefined idea in my head. It involves educating young woman on their fertile health. My infertile journey has taught me so much about the ‘art’ of making a baby. And through my education, I have noticed the distinct lack of knowledge that woman have concerning their fertility.
Think about the knowledge that you had before you started trying to fall pregnant. Where did it come from? How much did you actually know?The last education that I remember recieving was in biology class at the age of 16. And the emphasis was more on – How not to fall pregnant.
When we actually started trying I knew;
- That I should take folic acid
- That I ovulated 14 days before I menstrated
- That I should live a relatively healthy lifestyle.
- And that I should not put too much pressure on myself.
This was the information I recieved.
I have just asked a friend of mine what she knew.
“I knew that i had polycystic overian sydrome already so i knew if i did not come on i had to go to the doctor. I new that i would ovulate around 14 days from the first day of my cycle.”
“I knew that i could take my tempertature everyday if i wanted to know when i was ovulating.”
So my point is…….
Do you think that young woman know enough about thier fertility?
What kind of information do you think would be useful?
If young woman were offered access to this information, would they be interested in recieving it?
Or is this idea in my mind insane……
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Just wondering? « Skrambled…
My infertile journey has taught me so much about the ‘art’ of making a baby. And through my education, I have noticed the distinct lack of knowledge that woman have concerning their fertility. Think about the knowledge that you had ……
This is a fabulous idea! I knew jack shit! I did not know anythign about ovulatoin and mentrual cycles and thought it was a blessing that I never got my period (huge saving on tampons). Little did I know. And I don’t think I’m alone in my ignorance. I think there are more of us out there than we can care to imagine.
Your colleague needs a reality check. Both my Mom and my sister fell pregnant – just like that! The fact that her Gran and Mom had kids in their forties means jack. She maybe lucky like them, but she also may not be.
xxx
IMHO, woman do not know nearly enough about their fertility. I get a lot of emails asking advise. People who want to buy ‘pragnancy’ kits that will help them fall pregnant the first month because that will be a ‘miracle’, to people who tell me disturbingly TMI details about their periods. There is a lot of uncertainty out there. I also knew more than most about fertility when I started, because two years before we took the ‘plunge’ (hehe) to conceive I started researching. I was ready, with all the vitamins and charting and healthy living and cutting out etc. Not everyone wants to educate themselves. I find that most people just wants to be spoonfed.
And I agree with you, waiting too longs is never a good idea.
I think this is a great idea Sian, however, I do feel the need to point out that perhaps you’re asking the wrong audience. Given that we are the exception and not the rule we’re probably not the best people to ask about this. I mean lets be honest, a large % of women out there can wait till they’re older, get really drunk one night, have sex and viola, one month of trying and they’re pg. Personally, I’d rather NOT know all the shit I know, I only know it because I’m the exception to the rule, if I were “noraml” none of this info would be necessary.
Just my HO!
Late coming to this but, my 2 cents . . .
I had the knowledge. After we were trying for under a year I started doing a bunch of research and knew what it meant for treatment when we found out it was MFI. BUT I didn’t want to believe it and when we got pregnant with IUI (against ALL odds) I thought we were different.
I kept reading “if you are over 35 get thee to an RE ASAP!” But that didn’t apply to me. I was healthy, a baby with IUI, they just want my business, etc. etc.
So it isn’t just educating them, but making them realize it really does (or more likely than not) apply to them.
Speaking of which, the lady who treated me during our IVF cycles for acupuncture started ttc at 38 and told me she wasn’t worried because she comes from a very fertile family. I wanted to tell her, “yeah, I did too.”
sigh.