#INfertility

[dennysbathroommetalband]

As someone who struggles with infertility, I *constantly* hear the defense from anti-choicers that I should be upset with abortion because I want a baby.

Let me say this loud and clear- going through infertility, IVF, and a miscarriage has only further strengthened my support of abortion rights.

Why?

Because I know how it feels not to have the right to choose.

Sure, it’s different in that I want a baby and some don’t. But I know the feeling of not being in control of your body. The fear of what the future looks like and how all of your goals and dreams are now murky and uncertain. The horrible depression and anxiety that comes with knowing no matter how hard you try or what you do, you don’t have control of your reproductive system.

Nobody deserves that.

“But, you could have had those babies for adoption!!”

No. Absolutely not. Adoption has never, could never, will never heal infertility. Whatever your opinions on adoption are, adopting a child doesn’t suddenly fix that trauma, and expecting that of them is downright cruel and abusive.

My infertility does not warrant a person to have to endure a pregnancy they don’t want. My infertility does not make their trauma “worth it.” My infertility absolutely doesn’t mean a child should go through adoption trauma all because I want a baby, and someone else doesn’t.

Stop using infertility to defend your bigotry.

[m00na333]

begging you guys to be normal about the fact that it is extremely likely that Dany can't have kids. I know, I know - a generic prophecy with aphorisms such as "when the sun sets in the east' is something that GRRM would intentionally write in so that he can decide to change it later if need be - but come on. I don't care about valyrian superiority or whatever - which is heavily implied only comes after bonding with a dragon, but I digress - Danaerys is a 14 year old girl, from a long line of freaks known for difficult pregnancies and the occasional dragon baby, who just miscarried. She's infertile.

Motherhood, and the responsibilities of rulership is what inflames her convictions to protect the innocent. Her loss of her child and freaky-deaky blood magic is what hatches dragons, the reason for her attachment to them.

It seems like the fandom either wants Mirri's words to be a vague prophecy so her and Jon can have magic ice and fire babies, or that she will be a childfree-redditor-girlboss.

The truth, I believe, is somewhere in between. Danaerys is upset about not being able to have kids. However, she is able to find peace and reconcile with her protective nature, and her dragons.

One of the best things about how GRRM writes female characters, I believe, is ow motherhood and fertility effect them all. Like as not, women in patriarchal feudalistic societies often were pressured and forced to have kids, it was a large part of their perceived value and duty. Imho, ignoring this factor would be dishonest, and would make all of the amazing female characters seem one note and flat - Like if none of the male characters ever thought about violence. More than that, lots of women irl have complex feelings about motherhood, which is perfectly encapsulated with the female povs:

Catelyn Stark's identity is so interwoven with motherhood, but she is not everyone's mother. She is a perfect example of how motherhood is not just an extension of the self and of legacy, but due to the personal connection and the responsibility towards your children.

On the other hand, Cersei sees her children primarily as a function of her legacy, and for the power that they add to the family. She seems aware that Joffrey is a cunt, is cruel to Tommen and her objections about Myrcella's treatment are borne from her (justified) anger towards how she was treated in the name of Lannister legacy.

Brienne wants children, thinks about having them, but has not had the opportunity due to her romantic failures and dedication. I don't think that she'll end up a mother, but it does seem as though Brienne, someone who's built their identity around the protection of the innocent, genuinely has hang ups about it. Some of her reasoning comes from her insecurity about not being a "proper lady", which is worth noting however.

Asha is almost exactly opposite to Brienne. She has no children, does not plan to have children, and takes pride in the fact that she has dedicated herself to combat and leadership. I think that she conversation she has with Alysane Mormont where the latter says "better to have [children] to early than too late" and she thinks "fair enough" is such a loaded exchange, and I'm glad that the author can recognise that a woman not wanting children does not exclude her from this kind of introspection, and that she is not removed from Westerosi's views on women.

Sansa dreams of being the perfect highborn lady/queen; Dashing, gallant knight, beautiful children, but then has that fantasy spoiled, so much so that getting her period is the worst thing that can happen to her.

Arya's whole thing is her discomfort with the path that Westeros dictates for women, the idea that any agency she has would be through a hypothetical son. That, and one of her tutors is a women who is now infertile in order to further her dedication to a death cult.

Infertility and motherhood are complex ideas, the way that everyone feels about them is different and unique. Eschewing this fundamental aspect of the work to service some fantasy about representation, or about magic starkgaryen kids is ignoring thematic motifs.

[littleflowerfaith]

Please please pray for my husband and I as we wait to see if we are finally having a baby after two years of infertility. This could be it but the anxiety is very difficult. I feel hopeful and hopeless at the same time.

St Gerard Majella pray for us

Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us

[m00na333]

this is so cool. Honestly love the way that reproductive health is handled in this series. I like the idea that John Arryn is the one who's infertile because I think the dichotomy that this man who is so revered by Ned and at the very least respected by everyone else, who started a rebellion to protect his wards, is the "problem" and not his wife.

also thanks for the good work you do irl op

I am forever interested in how George writes about moon tea, because I used to work in an abortion clinic (and will again, god willing). I think readers want moon tea to map neatly onto the abortion pill -- which it absolutely does not. Mifepristone (the key part of a medication abortion) wasn't developed till the 1980s and didn't get FDA approval in the U.S. until 2000, so the first three books were written before it was even accessible in the U.S!

(Sorry, the former clinic worker in me is requiring me to do a quick aside to note that mifepristone is the most studied drug in the world, and is safer than Tylenol. And you can learn more about abortion pills and how to use them at plancpills.org).

Medication abortion has only really become widespread recently. It took till 2020 for medication abortions to represent ~50% of all abortions (the other type is surgical abortions, which people are generally more familiar with).

George has said that he was inspired by real-life historical herbal abortion methods:

No, [moon tea]'s real enough. Tansy and pennyroyal are two powerful (and DANGEROUS) natural abortifactants. Carelessly used, however, they can kill, so I was purposely vague and added a few fantasy touches to "moon tea." I did not want anyone trying them in real life. A web search will turn you plenty of both of them.

But I've always felt that better comparison might be Silphium, a "lost" ancient herb, with a variety of medicinal uses (including effective birth control and abortion!). Outside of Lysa, who we will get to shortly, no one suffers any side effects or issues from taking moon tea. And it sounds like people are drinking moon tea for contraceptive purposes as well. Silphium aligns better with that since tansy and pennyroyal would be too intense/dangerous for reoccurring, regular use.

Although, rather than contraceptive use, it's actually more accurate to say it sounds like people are taking it once a month in case they are pregnant to end the pregnancy/regulate their period. It's almost like a fantasy Plan B.

In fact, something similar (a little more involved than just drinking tea, though!) did occur in the 70s and 80s in the United States, created out of the Women's Health Movement:

Menstrual Extraction, or ME, was never envisioned as a service that lay women practitioners would provide to other women who needed an abortion. Rather, the early self helpers advocated that women join self help groups and practice extracting each other's menses around the time of their expected periods. If a pregnancy happened to be present, it would be extracted along with the contents of the uterus.

(Menstrual Extraction is extremely safe and effective, and is responsible for helping an untold number of people avoid pregnancy! The history of this is really interesting, and I recommend reading further if you are interested.)

There's also been a movement to get abortion pills approved as contraceptives which follows the similar idea of breaking down the divide between abortion & contraceptives, and focusing on menstrual regulation. It's pretty exciting!

Anyway, the last thing I wanted to touch on was Lysa's (forced) use of moon tea, and how it may or may not have impacted her fertility.

First of all, in the real world, abortion does not impact future fertility -- this is a myth spread by the anti-abortion movement.

Now, in the world of the books, moon tea is made from intense, potentially dangerous herbs. However, it's extremely widespread and we never hear about any negative side effects outside of Lysa's experience. And, given that the world of the books does include religious beliefs that moon tea is murder based on what the High Septon says about Margaery in AFFC, I feel like if there were to be widespread fertility impacts based on consumption of moon tea, we'd be hearing about it!

Holy septas have examined her, and testify that her maidenhead is broken. She has drunk of moon tea, to murder the fruit of her fornications in her womb.

So I don't think it's fair to attribute Lysa's miscarriages & stillbirths to moon tea.

I believe (based on some googling) that when Lysa was forced by Hoster to drink moon tea -- an act of blatant reproductive coercion -- she had a near death experience (this is all apparently in the World of Ice and Fire app which I don't have so please feel free to correct me).

There's a couple of factors here that might have caused lasting impacts -- Hoster might have given her a very large dose, Lysa was quite young at the time, these are pretty intense herbs (although, again, in the books, no one else ever has side effects that are mentioned), or Lysa's advanced gestational age at the time might have made it more dangerous.

I can't speak to how use of herbal methods is impacted by gestational age, but in real life, medication abortion is only approved up to a certain point during pregnancy; however, this is more a result of political opposition to abortion and not based in medical fact. In fact, the further along someone is in their pregnancy, the lower the dose of abortion pills required to have an abortion (in fact, a very small dose of misoprostol -- the other pill in a medication abortion -- is used to induce labor!).

So I guess I could see a world where Lysa was pretty far along, and Hoster gave her a really large dose of moon tea or dosed her multiple times (thinking she needed more because she was very pregnant and/or he had difficulties with getting her to drink the dose resulting in multiple partial attempts) which was harmful since the herbs are dangerous at higher concentrations.

Based on some very limited googling, however, I don't think tansy or pennyroyal would impact long-term fertility. Generally, herbal abortion methods risk liver damage and/or death, not loss of fertility. A lot of the scaremongering about how abortion impacts fertility is based on fears about how surgical abortions, not medical abortions, could "damage the uterus" from potential surgical scars -- which can also happen from c-sections and other procedures, and is rare enough to be labeled statistically insignificant. Obviously, moon tea is not a surgical method, and is more analogous to medication abortion. The side effects of medication abortions (which causes cramping to empty the uterus) are fever, abdominal pain (from the cramping), nausea (from the misoprostol), and, in very rare cases, hemorrhage -- not long-term fertility impacts.

But I think an important part of this conversation is that Jon Arryn canonically has fertility issues -- his first wife died during childbirth with a stillborn child, and his second wife died childless. I think it's much more likely that Lysa's struggles to carry a pregnancy to term come from Jon Arryn and not moon tea! There's been a recent amount of historical speculation that Henry VIII had a blood group incompatibility with his wives or some other medical issue which led to issues getting pregnant and carrying pregnancies to term. I've always wondered if that's a partial inspiration for Jon Arryn.

(Anyway this post was inspired by @m00na333's excellent post on fertility in ASOIAF which made me want to dive into the mechanics of moon tea deeper!)

[reasonsforhope]

"The first modern attempt at transferring a uterus from one human to another occurred at the turn of the millennium. But surgeons had to remove the organ, which had become necrotic, 99 days later. The first successful transplant was performed in 2011 — but even then, the recipient wasn’t immediately able to get pregnant and deliver a baby. It took three more years for the first person in the world with a transplanted uterus to give birth. 

More than 70 such babies have been born globally in the decade since. “It’s a complete new world,” said Giuliano Testa, chief of abdominal transplant at Baylor University Medical Center.

Almost a third of those babies — 22 and counting — have been born in Dallas at Baylor. On Thursday, Testa and his team published a major cohort study in JAMA analyzing the results from the program’s first 20 patients. All women were of reproductive age and had no uterus (most having been born without one), but had at least one functioning ovary. Most of the uteri came from living donors, but two came from deceased donors.

Fourteen women had successful transplants, all of whom were able to have at least one baby.  

“That success rate is extraordinary, and I want that to get out there,” said Liza Johannesson, the medical director of uterus transplants at Baylor, who works with Testa and co-authored the study. “We want this to be an option for all women out there that need it.”

Six patients had transplant failures, all within two weeks of the procedure. Part of the problem may have been a learning curve: The study initially included only 10 patients, and five of the six with failed transplants were in that first group. These were “technical” failures, Testa said, involving aspects of the surgery such as how surgeons connected the organ’s blood vessels, what material was used for sutures, and selecting a uterus that would work well in a transplant. 

The team saw only one transplant fail in the second group of 10 people, the researchers said. All 20 transplants took place between September 2016 and August 2019.

Only one other cohort study has previously been published on uterus transplants, in 2022. A Swedish team, which included Johannesson before she moved to Baylor, performed seven successful transplants out of nine attempts. Six women, including the first transplant recipient to ever deliver a baby back in 2014, gave birth.

“It’s hard to extract data from that, because they were the first ones that did it,” Johannesson said. “This is the first time we can actually see the safety and efficacy of this procedure properly.”

So far, the signs are good: High success rates for transplants and live births, safe and healthy children so far, and early signs that immunosuppressants — typically given to transplant recipients so their bodies don’t reject the new organ — may not cause long-term harm, the researchers said. (The uterine transplants are removed after recipients no longer need them to deliver children.) And the Baylor team has figured out how to identify the right uterus for transfer: It should be from a donor who has had a baby before, is premenopausal, and, of course, who matches the blood type of the recipient, Testa said...

“They’ve really embraced the idea of practicing improvement as you go along, to understand how to make this safer or more effective. And that’s reflected in the results,” said Jessica Walter, an assistant professor of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who co-authored an editorial on the research in JAMA...

Walter was a skeptic herself when she first learned about uterine transplants. The procedure seemed invasive and complicated. But she did her fellowship training at Penn Medicine, home to one of just four programs in the U.S. doing uterine transplants. 

“The firsts — the first time the patient received a transplant, the first time she got her period after the transplant, the positive pregnancy test,” Walter said. “Immersing myself in the science, the patients, the practitioners, and researchers — it really changed my opinion that this is science, and this is an innovation like anything else.” ...

Many transgender women are hopeful that uterine transplants might someday be available for them, but it’s likely a far-off possibility. Scientists need to rewind and do animal studies on how a uterus might fare in a different “hormonal milieu” before doing any clinical trials of the procedure with trans people, Wagner said.

Among cisgender women, more long-term research is still needed on the donors, recipients, and the children they have, experts said.

“We want other centers to start up,” Johannesson said. “Our main goal is to publish all of our data, as much as we can.”"

-via Stat, August 16, 2024

[infertilitysuccs]

Seen at the JFK airport, by anonymous

[reality-detective]

“The miscarriage rate was 80 percent in the Pfizer trials. They knew that.”

Remember, depopulation is their goal 🤔

[dxmedstudent]

Thank you!

It's a strange thing that you can *get* academically, but it's still different going through it. Every day you sit there hoping that they are thriving and happy in their little tube 🥹 and that against the odds, despite a lot of them probably being abnormal and destined to fade away, that some of them can make it.

I know anti choicers think tjose of us who have IVF are callous and commodify life, bit obesity going through this process and seeing it unvokd really hammers home how amazing it is that any fertilised eggs develop into a baby.

New meme for today:

We've been really lucky, actually. We went from 14 eggs, to 11 fertilised eggs via the traditional cotillion in a petri dish rather than ICSI. From there on We had 7 promising embryos on day 3... and today we've transferred one top notch 5AA embryo and frozen 4 others that graded well.

Which is still attrition, as expected, but it's better than I was expecting based on the rough percentages i had been looking at - I would have been happy with even a couple of frozen embies to work with.

We've also been told that there are a few stragglers they are watching that may reach at least grade 3BB and be frozen - we'll find out tomorrow if any of them are late bloomers and keep growing.

The weird thing is that grading doesn't really guarantee a good outcome or a pregnancy, it just tells you if an embryo is developing normally or looks like it's faltering or likely to falter. But it's really the only indicator you have early on, unless you do certain kinds of genetic testing.

Just like the meme, The embryologist seemed pleased which is a good sign!

The NHS doesn't do PGTA as standard, so we don't know for sure that these embryos don't have aneuploidy (the wrong number of chromosomes), so we will have to wait and see.

Right now, we wait 10 days to test and Sherlock is put out that he's not getting quite as many scritches as normal (because I'm advised to wash my hands after every time I touch the cat. )

@brown-aes-sedai they did! An overachiever even! I'm happy with all the ones that we've managed to save, here's hoping 🤞

@bluestarsandcomets thank you! It's exciting for things to be progressing.

I'm really happy - because the most difficult and dangerous part of IVF is the stimulation part, and the NHS will only fund so many goes at this - so having more embryos saved means more chances to try. And given that success rates are modest, the more saved embryos, the higher the chance of walking away with a living child at the end.

Hell, for couples who are extremely lucky, there is the option to save remaining embryos to try for a sibling down the line - this would have to be done privately, but time is fertility so saving eggs from now would be much better than eggs in say 2-3 years time when we'd conceivably want another.

Enjoy the meme I sent DxDude after our egg retrieval.

We had a good number of eggs and most of them have fertilised! They are now chilling out and growing for 3 days and we shall see how many of them develop well. It's normal for a degree of attrition at each stage, so I've warned DxDude that we may not get many blastocyst that are healthy enough to implant this coming week.

This is precisely why the aim is to collect as many eggs as reasonably and safely possible. It's strange how full of hope and promises a few tiny cells can be, I'm really hoping they develop well, if only you could psychically spur on your peetri dish children to flourish! I have a lot of feels about them, and I really hope we can get enough healthy blastocysts out of this cycle to have a baby - though I know there is a good chance that may not happen, but they will be loved even if they perish along the way.

I may update you guys with more numbers, but I think I'd like to see how things develop first.

We were offered standard IVF or ICSI - though as they felt that icsi wasn't needed we opted to let them mingle organically to see how well they would fertilise. The difficult thing is that on your first cycle, you have no idea how you'll respond to medication or what the problem is and whether ICSI would help. If we end up having more rounds, we will hopefully have an idea of what has not worked.

The procedure itself went smoothly. I got the good stuff for pain relief, and what they say about propofol is true, it burns! Alfentanil made me feel sort of drunk. I also got a diclofenac PR that I was very grateful for - given that I effectively had a knitting needle repeatedly punched into my swollen ovaries via my vagina. I'm sharing this specifically because there's justified concern around women historically receiving inadequate pain relief for procedures. I'm still a little sore days later, but it's not too bad.

The staff were lovely and I was pleasantly surprised that nearly all of them were women. Of course I wouldn't care if they were male, but it's interesting how big and diverse the team of people working with you are. We saw plenty of nurses and ODPs, multiple embryologists, an andrologist, an anaesthetist and a fertility specialist just for this one procedure, not counting the appointments that I've had prior (many nurses, multiple specialists, pharmacists, ultrasonographers, receptionists etc).

There's something kind of lovely about a big team of people working together to help you make a family. It might be a lonely journey at times, but it's nice to know we are not alone.

[mindblowingscience]

A review on the health effects of microplastics has some scientists suspecting the worst. The tiny synthetic particles that are found in our air, food, and water may be causing fertility issues, colon cancer, and poor lung function in humans, according to researchers at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). Picking out some of the strongest evidence on microplastics published between 2018 and 2024, the team has identified several health risks to the digestive, reproductive, and respiratory systems of animals.

Continue Reading.

[chocookittycat]

Would You Still Fall for Me? (Part II)

PART I

character: Shanks

trigger warning! infertility; angst; slightly nsfw

"I'll leave," I said in a hushed tone. His eyes widened.

"I don't want to make things difficult for you and I don't want to keep you from fulfilling your dream."

"Where the hell do you pull all this BS from?" He snapped, his voice modulated but his tone sharp.

"Do you think that's all I see in you? That I chose to stay with you all these years because I thought you could give me kids?"

"But..."

"But what?"

"But you gave me such a sad and disappointed face."

He looked surprised.

"I'm sad and disappointed because you didn't tell me right away, —because you thought I couldn't be trusted with something like this."

I took a deep breath and swallowed hard before I faced him.

"I know how much you want a family. To have kids of your own, little ones running around this ship, clinging to you, begging for your attention. I wanted that too, Shanks. I dreamed of us having beautiful children—our children—to dote on, to proudly show off to the crew. But tell me... how was I supposed to say I can't give you that? That I can't fulfill the dream we shared? That I—your lover—can't bear your children?" My voice cracked.

I took a moment to catch my breath.

"I love you… And I promised myself I'd do everything I could to make you happy. But this?... I can't."

I started crying, and he pulled me into his arms.

“I’m sorry,” I kept repeating, the words tumbling out as he just held me—no pressure, no rush—his warmth steady against my unraveling. I could feel him crying too—his tears soaking through my clothes—as we grieved together for the life we couldn’t have. When our sobs finally subsided, he spoke.

When my cries finally quieted to shaky breaths and hiccups, he spoke, voice low and sure.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, my love. It's heartbreaking, yes... but we’ll face it together. I don’t want to lose you—kids or no kids."

I hiccupped again, trying to form words, but he gently cupped my face.

"But your dream..."

He smiled softly, brushing away my tears with his thumb.

"My dream is you. It’s always been you. That future I talked about—raising kids, running around the ship—it only matters if it’s with you. If you weren’t the one bearing them... if you weren’t the one by my side raising them... then it wouldn’t be the same."

"It’s you. It’s always been you. And it will always be you.”

"S-shanks," I croaked out before pressing my head against his chest, his arms wrapping me in a tight, comforting embrace. He nuzzled his face into my hair while pressing a warm, and lingering kiss on the top of my head.

He lets out a deep breath.

"Still...." He pulled back to meet my eyes, while I looked up at him, both our faces tear-streaked, waiting for what he was going to say.

"I haven't forgiven you for keeping this a secret." His tone shifted to a dangerously low and suggestive one.

"Why don't you make it up to me. Besides, no longer worrying about pregnancy scares will give us all the freedom to just go at it like rabbits in hea-"

"OH MY GOD. SHANKS!"

He chuckled, cupping my face gently, his voice still teasing.

“Hey, we oughta look on the bright side, am I right, babe?”

"You're such a whore even at the most inappropriate times!"

"Your whore." He winked.

Yes. My whore. My man, the one who I thought I had lost but kept his hold on me. The one I thought I'd cry over in a cold, empty room, but instead cried with me while keeping me warm. Oh, Shanks… the man that you are🤍

The end･ﾟ✧

[lady-of-blossoms]

「 ✦ whispers of heartbreak ✦ 」

Warning: angst, infertility, mistress

PART 2

___________________________

The nightmare Y/N experiences throughout her life is having to accept the fact that her husband is careless, remarried and has two wives.

This is because you were unable to get pregnant and in the end were forced to agree to gojo remarrying.

His second wife's pregnancy made the whole family excited and all of gojo’s attention was focused on his second wife—Rebecca.

at dinner and the three of them gathered,gojo , Y/N and Rebecca.

He stroked Rebecca's stomach, who had been pregnant for 6 months. He turned to you who was eating while daydreaming

"Y/N , today I can't accompany you to sleep because I have to look after Rebecca, is that okay?" asked gojo who didn't make an expression when he saw you.

Youre eyes widened slightly at his request, a pang of hurt and disappointment shooting through your chest. You swallowed hard, trying to keep your emotions in check as you met his gaze.

"Of course, gojo," you replied softly, forcing a smile onto your face. "I understand. Congratulations again on your pregnancy, Rebecca." You offered a genuine smile towards his new wife, youre heart aching at the sight of him so enamored with someone else.

"I'll just go to bed early then," you continued, standing up from the table and gathering your plate. "Have a good night taking care of Rebecca." You gave a small nod before turning to leave, your steps heavy with unshed tears as you retreated to youre bedroom alone once more.

Gojo watched her leave, feeling a twinge of guilt for causing her pain. But he quickly pushed it aside, focusing back on Rebecca. He leaned down to kiss her forehead gently, his hand still resting on her growing belly.

"Thank you, darling," he murmured fondly, before turning his attention back to his meal. "How about we take a nap together after dinner? It might be nice to rest before the baby comes."

He glanced over at Y/N’s empty seat one last time, feeling a pang of regret for how things had turned out between them. But he knew there was nothing he could do to change it now.

In the privacy of their shared bedroom, Y/N allowed herself to crumble. Tears streamed down yourr face as you sank onto the edge of the bed, your body shaking with silent sobs. The sting of rejection cut deep, amplified by the constant reminder of your own infertility.

You curled into herself, hugging your knees tightly to your chest as if to hold yourself together. Your mind raced with painful thoughts - memories of happier times with gojo, dreams of a future that would never come to pass, and the bitter realization that your had lost the man she loved to another woman.

"Why couldn't I give him what he wanted?" You whispered brokenly to yourself, your voice muffled against your knees. "Why wasn't I enough?"

The ache in your heart felt suffocating, like a physical weight pressing against your chest.

Gojo finished his meal and excused himself from the table shortly afterward. As promised, he joined Rebecca in their bedroom for some rest.

He held her close, his arm draped protectively around her waist as they lay down together under the covers. His mind wandered back to Y/n briefly, but he quickly shook off those thoughts, choosing instead to focus on the warmth of Rebecca's body pressed against his own.

"We're going to be parents soon," he thought contentedly, and everything will finally fall into place."

But even amidst this happiness, a nagging sense of guilt lingered at the back of his mind – a guilt he refused to acknowledge fully.

A FEW MONTHS LATER

It was a bittersweet morning for Y/N. Today marked both her birthday and the day she had to share the spotlight with Rebecca giving birth. You awoke to the sound of commotion outside your room, nurses rushing past and gojo’s panicked voice echoing down the hallway.

"Y/N! Y/N!"

He burst into her room, his face flushed and eyes wild with excitement. "It's happening! Rebecca's in labor!"

Y/N sat up slowly, your heart sinking at the news. Of all days... you managed a weak smile, pushing down the swell of emotion threatening to overwhelm you.

"That's wonderful, gojo. Go be with her. I'm sure she needs you right now."

Feeling the weight of your loneliness press down on you, you got dressed quietly and slipped out of the house unnoticed. You needed space to process everything that was happening, away from prying eyes and judgemental gazes.

Walking aimlessly through the city streets, you found solace in the familiar rhythm of her footsteps and the comforting buzz of the bustling crowd around you. Each step further from home served as a reminder of your freedom - a freedom you cherished despite its bitter sweetness.

"Today should've been about me," you thought bitterly, "but instead, everyone's only talking about Rebecca."

Lost in your thoughts, You found herself at a local café where you ordered a cup of hot chocolate to warm yourself from within. You took a seat by the window overlooking the street below, watching people go about their lives without a care in the world.

Sipping slowly on your drink, you tried to push away feelings of resentment and sadness that threatened to consume you. Instead, you chose to remember happier times with gojo - birthdays spent together laughing until your sides hurt, simple dinners shared under twinkling lights.

"Maybe this is my punishment for not being able to bear children," you pondered silently. "Or maybe it's just part of life's cruel irony."

Next chapter

TAGLIST🤍❄️🫐🩵

@kuro-chi69 @aishies-stuff @kalopsia-flaneur @luns-exlipse @anonnieghost @aqxllo @chatoicboy @sashisuslover @labelt-san

Dont steal

[qatarsprint2023]

𝖻𝗎𝗌𝗂𝗇𝖾𝗌𝗌𝗆𝖺𝗇!𝗋𝖺𝖿𝖾 𝗑 𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋

trying for a baby with businessman!rafe — soft!rafe, allusions to sex and infertility word count: 1k

Rafe and you had been engaged for about half a year when the subject of kids first came up. It wasn’t really a question of if but more of when. You both knew you wanted a family, and there was no doubt in either of your minds that one day you’d be parents.

Your life seemed almost perfect—successful careers, a beautiful home by the water and a love that ran deep. The only thing left, besides finally becoming husband and wife, was to start a family and the thought of that brought a new kind of excitement into your life.

At first, trying for a baby was thrilling. It meant sex— lots of it. Rafe would come home from work, and you’d be waiting for him in the kitchen while making dinner, wearing nothing but one of his shirts and a pair of panties.

You were so sure it wouldn’t take long before the two of you would have that joyful announcement to share. Every few weeks, you’d take a pregnancy test, and even though each one came back negative, you shrugged it off. It was still early, after all. These things take time, right?

As your wedding day approached, you couldn’t help but imagine yourself walking down the aisle with a small, adorable baby bump, visible under the gorgeous, gorgeous dress you and Rafe had spent a pretty penny on. In a way, you'd secretly hoped the timing would be perfect and all of your guests would be congratulating you on the happy news.

But even after your two weeks of honeymoon, which, if we're being honest here, pretty much consisted of finishing every day off on a sweet, sweet high in the bedroom, ended with yet another negative test, the first flickers of worry set in.

The two of you read countless books on fertility, tracked your ovulation cycle meticulously and tried every tip, trick, and old wives' tale you could get your hands on. But as the months of trying turned into a year, your optimism began to wane.

The casual "When are you two finally going to have a baby?" questions from well-meaning friends and relatives became increasingly painful and you found yourself withdrawing from social events, dreading the inevitable baby talk.

Rafe, meanwhile, threw himself into his work, trying to distract himself from his growing anxiety by working until almost midnight and leaving early in the morning on some days.

The, what had once been joyful, anticipation of parenthood had turned into a constant source of stress for him and sex started to feel like a chore— scheduled and not with the intention of pleasure but the goal of finally getting pregnant after so many months.

Every negative pregnancy test ended in tears, with Rafe holding you close, whispering reassurances you weren’t sure either of you fully believed anymore. You knew hope was fragile and yours was crumbling.

You began to dread the sight of that single pink line, and eventually, the thought of taking another test became unbearable. You were tired of the heartache, tired of the constant hope only to be met with disappointment. Maybe, you started to think, the universe had other plans. Maybe, no matter how much you wanted it, parenthood just wasn’t in the cards for you and Rafe.

It was a warm evening in July, and Rafe had come home from work about half an hour ago. The weight in your chest and that familiar lump in your throat refused to disappear even as Rafe gently encouraged you to take one last pregnancy test over dinner. You had lost count of how many you’d taken by now, and the idea of seeing another negative result filled you with dread. You didn't want to try anymore... it wasn't fair.

And now, as you were standing in the bathroom, you didn’t expect anything different than the last dozen times. Your hands shook like crazy when you picked up the test, trying not to feel hopeful and get your heart shattered like every time before.

It took a moment for your brain to process what your eyes were seeing.

Two lines. Two.

Tears welled up in your eyes as you stumbled out of the bathroom, the test trembling in your hand.

Rafe looked up as he sat on the living room sofa, his face full of uncertainty, and when he saw the look on your face, the world seemed to stop.

"What is it?" he asked, his voice low and cautious, eyes searching yours for some kind of answer.

But you couldn’t speak. The words were stuck somewhere between disbelief and joy, your throat tightening with emotion. All you could do was nod, a shaky smile beginning to form as your hand trembled, holding the test out toward him.

Rafe stood up slowly from where he had been sitting, a nervous, hopeful laugh escaping his lips. "No... no, you’re kidding. You’re kidding, right?"

His hands reached out, cupping your face gently, thumbs brushing over your cheeks. His eyes were wide, scanning your face as if he was waiting for you to say it was all a joke, something too good to be true.

You shook your head again, unable to find your voice, feeling tears prick at the corners of your eyes. Your heart was pounding so hard you could hear it in your ears.

"Lemme see..." Rafe whispered, his hands moving from your face to the pregnancy test still clutched in your fingers. He took it from you, his own hands trembling now as he looked down at the small plastic stick.

It took a moment, then, in a rush, the realization hit him. "Oh my god..." His voice was barely more than a whisper at first, then louder, more excited, as the truth sank in. "Oh my god, baby... oh my god!"

He pulled you into his arms, his embrace tight and warm, lifting you slightly off the ground as he buried his face in your hair. His laughter was mixed with tears, and you felt the hot, wet drops on your shoulder as he held you close and whispered sweet words over and over again.

You wrapped your arms around him, holding him just as tightly, your heart soaring with a mix of happiness and disbelief.

The two of you stood there for what felt like hours, wrapped in each other’s arms, soaking in the moment and for the first time in a long time, everything felt right.

[redwolf17]

If you've enjoyed The Weirwood Queen and would like to show your appreciation, I'd be incredibly grateful if you'd donate to my GoFundMe and help share it far and wide.

Infertility really sucks, and every dollar gets my husband and I a little closer to our dream of starting a family 💕

EDIT: We got married! And we hit our Phase I goal! Woooo! Phase II, here we come 🥰

[dxmedstudent]

Things to not say to infertile folks:

A lot of people don't really know what to say when discussing infertility, and a lot of people who are struggling with it complain that people say hurtful or triggering things to them - often unintentionally.

So I thought I'd write a guide about what not to say, taken , unfortunatelyfrom hearing or seeing people express these opinions:

You just need to relax/get drunk/go on holiday/not stress so much/not want it so much.

Telling someone to be more relaxed or less stressed doesn't work - kind of like telling someone to calm them down doesn't, in fact, calm them down. It also minimises the fact that a lot of people with fertility problems have actual medical problems causing the situation, which may require treatment or might even be untreatable.

It also comes with the (likely unintentional) implication that it's your fault for not conceiving because unlike everyone else, you're just not relaxing enough. You fail at relaxing. You're doing trying wrong.

So you can't have kids? Like, at all?

Putting aside that it is a little insensitive to say this, technically infertility means that a couple tried to have kids for a year or more but were unsuccessful. Infertility is reduced fertility, and sometimes the term subfertity is seen as more accurate.

People can be told that they have a condition that affects fertility like fibroids, PCOS or endometriosis, but they may still conceive if having unprotected PIV sex and should still use contraception if they do not wish to get pregnant.

This is also why folks on T and folks on oestrogen/progesterone HRT should talk to their team about contraception, whether they are cis or trans. Whilst taking HRT can sometimes reduce fertility it does NOT render you sterile and people often need to use an additional contraceptive.

Sterility means being completely unable to have kids - for example, if you have had both gonads removed.

Infertile couples can sometimes eventually have children unassisted, and most infertile couples manage to conceive with fertility treatment.

Have you tried having sex/tracking ovulation/insert absolutely beginner knowledge here)?

Oh crap, we've been mistakenly putting it up the ass this entire time! Silly me!

Unless you're the couple's doctor and your job is to walk them through every possible issue and make sure nothing is missed, please assume that they have done their research and have the basic stuff down.  Treat people as if they are sensible and competent. Believe people when they say there is a problem. Leave the diagnosing to their fertility team.

Because when you think about it, if a couple have been trying for like 3 years and you ask them if they've tried LH strips, it's kind of patronising.

You didn't become an expert just because you accidentally got pregnant 5 years ago or conceived first try with your second. People who have been struggling with a health problem for years have usually done a ton of reading, speaking to healthcare professionals and lots of tests - they almost certainly know a lot more than you about it.

Oh yeah, I know how you feel! I've been trying for 2 months / hope to have kids and I'm terrified of being infertile, I couldn't stand that. It would ruin my life!

There's a place for sharing your concerns, but please don't expect people suffering a condition to have to console you about how bad it would be for you to live their life. Infertile people don't want to hear that their life is your worst nightmare, it's just a rude thing to tell someone.

Don't tell people with coeliac you'd die if you couldn't eat pasta, don't tell people who are blind that you'd end yourself if you couldn't paint or watch TV. Just ... have some tact.

Ha, being a parent is hard, are you sure you want that? Would you take one of mine?

No, Debra.

Please stop making light of someone's personal grief or disability. This is like making boomer "I hate my wife" jokes to someone who just lost their spouse.

But what do I say, then? I don't know what to say!

I've legitimately seen people say the most insensitive thinfs and then turn around to say this.

But...

You don't have to say anything- believe it or not you don't have to offer an opinion or advice on sonething you know nothing about. They aren't waiting on YOU to fix their problem or give them advice on something a team of specialists hasn't been able to fix.

If someone tells you that they are having fertility issues, just tell them you're sorry to hear that and that you hope it works for them soon. Or ask them if they want to talk about it and let them know you are there to listen.

More things not to say after the cut...

My friend's aunt's cousin was about to have infertility treatment, then they just had twins! I'm sure that will happen for you, when you stop trying!

Everyone tells us their one in a million "miracle stories"... but they just aren't fun to hear, for many people with infertility. They may give some people hope, but they can make people feel even more isolated and unlucky because we KNOW how unlikely it is that we'll have that same luck.

Also for most of us, stopping trying would make actually conceiving and carrying to term extremely unlikely. Please don't discourage people from seeking medical help when they need it.

Well I don't think IVF/using a donor/single parent families/lgbtq families is right/natural.

It's great that you don't need it and don't have to have it, then! But your opinion is kind of irrelevant to everyone else.

Lots of modern medicine isn't natural - and as a doctor, I REALLY don't think "naturalness" or your personal comfort level with a treatment you are completely ignorant about is a relevant metric for how beneficial a medical treatment is to the people who need it. 

We've spent all of human civilisation working to give us more tools (and better ones) to help people. IVF is a tool. It's an accommodation for a disability or inability due to circumstances that lets some people overcome their medical conditions or circumstances.

Are you saying that to cancer patients? To people wearing a cast for their broken arm? To people wearing a prosthesis for their amputated leg? I absolutely hope not. Please do not do that.

Other people's medical treatments are between them and their clinicians. If you don't like it? You're free to not have said treatment. If you don't want kids, you are free to not have any. I'm a passionate advocate for access to reproductive care, contraception and abortion.

But if you're pro abortion, you cannot meaningfully be anti-fertility treatment. Because you either believe in bodily autonomy or you don't. You can't pick and choose only when it benefits you.

I just think that if you can't have kids naturally, then your body/nother nature/God is telling you something and you should just stop trying. Maybe your genes are just bad and shouldn't be spread. Maybe you just wouldn't make a great parent.

Look, nature is stupid. It gives kids type 1 diabetes and genetic conditions that kill them in infancy and gives your loved ones cancer. Do you go around telling everyone that they should just due or accept being permanently seriously ill or disabled because nature gave them an illness? Do you refuse all modern medicine because you should be listening to nature's plan for your body? I bloody well hope not, because that's dumb when modern medicine exists.

There are all sorts of dumb reasons why people are infertile - why would having a tube blocked by endometriosis or slow sperm make someone a bad parent? Why are you literally telling someone to their face, whose meducal problems you dont even understand, that you think they are just too defective to make a family?

Let's stay away from the eugenics, shall we? We could have a nuanced conversation about how genetic testing of embryos can potentially reduce or eliminate rare fatal diseases which kill children and have no hope of a life without significant suffering. And how most couples who have IVF successfully go on to have healthy chikdren who live normal lives. But no, Steve, stopping your mate with a mild varicocele from having children is not going to revolutionise the human race or fulfil some alternate divine fate.

Well, fertility is a first world problem, some people have real problems, we should be focusing on that instead.

Actually, it's a problem for millions of peole, around the world. The IVF industry is huge in certain parts of the Global south, for example India.

People think it's a white rich people problem because most of the people who can  afford to undergo fertility treatment privately or adopt...are the wealthy. But it's always been a problem - that affects people across cultures, socioeconomic groups and sexualities. And infertility has often been accompanied with shame and ostracisation. Stigmatising fertility care hurts everyone. Especially the poor.

Many LGBTQ couples need fertility care - whether because their gender affirming surgery or HRT or health complicates things, or they and their partner's combination of gametes makes things tricky. Making fertility care less taboo and more accessible helps them too. The conversation very often side tracks and ignores them but their struggle is valid too.

You people only want kids because they are brainwashed by the patriarchy. Infertility wouldn't be an issue if women were emancipated and not brainwashed by the patriarchy.

Look, I've been feminist in online spaces since before some of you were born. I'm not unaware of the patriarchy and how it colours our choices.

But we have to stop infantilising women abd removing their agency. I know single women and lesbians who have spent decades working through their issues with the patriarchy...who still want kids and are dealing with fertility treatment. Sure, we will never be entirely free from the many ways society affects us. But that doesn't mean we're all blindly falling into motherhood.

You don't want kids, that's great. But it doesn't mean that every single woman choosing to have them is brainwashed and unable to understand what she is getting into - and it's pretty misogynistic to frame it that way.

Nobody should be having kids because the economy/environment/etc

OK there's a conversation to be had about cutting our carbon footprint and being aware of how our choices affect others and the planet. We should all be trying to live more sustainably - I say as I wear thrifted clothes whilst typing this on the train.

But... are you saying that to able bodied people having kids? Are you sacrificing everything that you want for the cause? Or is the easiest thing to give up the thing that someone else wants? I'm all for encouraging everyone to be mindful of the planet but we shouldn't be restricting the rights of people with a disability to make that happen.

We make choices for ourselves, not for other people.

Why not adopt or foster? Adopt don't shop!

Well this is a whole post in itself...but basically, please assume that anyone who is trying for kids for a while... has at least considered adoption. Please tryst people to choose the right option for them and their family.

Children are not puppies, and the massive adoption industry isn't always ethical or safe, can be hugely expensive (often moreso than IVF in some places!), and also doesn't actually guarantee that they get to have a child at the end of it.

There can be a lot of trauma and complicated feelings for the adopted child and their birth family and many kids need very specialised support that not every potential adoptive parent can provide.

There are also far more infertile couples than kids who need adoption - so not every individualor couple could adopt. Many kids just need temporary fostering with the aim of placing them back with their family, which is important but very different.

I intend to flesh out this argument more in a separate post but IMO adoption should ideally be rare - because birth parents should have free access to contraception, abortion and be empowered and supported to look after and raise their kids within their communities if they want them. Adoption should serve the needs of the child, not the potential parents. And certainly not the agencies.

If you truly believe there are millions of kids out there needing a home, why aren't you adopting? Why aren't you clamouring for every fertile couples to adopt? Because on some level society still that's these kids as a consolation prize. And because many of the people judging infertile couples for having IVF over adoption aren't all that invested in actially learning about these kids or helping them.

Infertile people aren't solely responsible for solving complex societal problems on their own. This is something that we as a whole society need to address.

[pro-birth]

I have a weird relationship with the age-related infertility discussions. Does aging affect fertility? Absolutely. But are you doomed to never or not likely get pregnant if you "wait too long"...? That's where the conversation gets complicated, but no one seems to understand why it's complicated, let alone admit that it's not ever simple.

You see, it can take 7 or more years for a woman with endo, PCOS, etc to get diagnosed and properly treated for it. This means that her teen and young adult years are spent festering her undiagnosed complications until she reaches her 30s or so, and not only has perimenopuase to worry about, but her untreated disease(s) also. These compounding factors, obviously, makes it hard to get and stay pregnant.

And that doesn't even get into how terrible treatment is! Even when endo/PCOS/etc ARE diagnosed early on, they are --- surprise! --- given HORMONAL BIRTH CONTROL to "treat" it. At best, you get mild BC side effects while the condition never gets better, and you still struggle later on. At worst, you have someone with: severe nutritional deficiencies, wrecked gut and mental health, and other health risks that make pregnancy difficult to achieve down the road (or increase maternal health risks even if she does get pregnant).

Is age a factor? Yes. But assuming the woman is healthy and properly taken care of, it's a factor that shouldn't raise alarms. It may take longer for her to get pregnant, but a woman in her 30s and even 40s can achieve a full term pregnancy with the right support and knowledge. After all, women in the past traditionally had their last child in their EARLY FORTIES.

The issue is that everyone looks at age and nothing else. They don't question why it takes so long for female reproductive diseases to get treated and addressed. They don't question why fertility awareness is continually suppressed by the medical establishment. They don't question why women struggle to be taken seriously by their care provider.

I guess for them, it's easier to gaslight and shame women than to address the system that allows infertility to fester to begin with.