Embryo Culture: Making Babies in the Twenty-First Century
In 2008, after two years of failing to make a child organically, we learned the doom Kathy had already been feeling for more than a year was justified: I was diagnosed with male-factor infertility. Our only real chance to move forward would be in vitro fertilization. We couldn’t afford it; we couldn’t afford not to do it. One way we tried to work through that diagnosis, our anger, and our options was to start a secret infertility blog, “Less Than a Million.” This post and what comments from 2008 that are attached to it come from that blog.—gb
I just finished reading Beth Kohl’s Embryo Culture: Making Babies in the Twenty-First Century. If you haven’t already read it, I would recommend doing so. She does a really nice job of weaving her own experiences with IVF through what is really a cultural study of ART. History, religion, ethics—it’s all there. And she’s a witty and engaging writer.
I’m sure Greg will write a more substantial post after he reads it, so I’ll leave it at that. Groceries beckon.
Comments
February 10, 2008
greg / Feb 10, 12:11 PM
FYI: An excerpt from Embryo Culture is available on its website. (Click on the \"Book\" heading.)kathy / Feb 10, 01:20 PM
Upon further reflection....I wish Kohl had spent some time on male infertility. At times, the book reads as though infertility is strictly a woman\'s problem and that the woman undergoing IVF must be suffering herself from a medical problem. Since Kohl and her husband did IVF with ICSI twice, I\'m assuming there was an issue with his sperm (in addition to her PCOS), but she doesn\'t offer more than a cursory explanation--\"Gary\'s sample contained a slightly lower number of sperm than normal, and a slightly elevated number of abnormal sperm.\" So many couples pursue IVF because of male factor infertility and the woeful lack of treatments available for it...I also would have appreciated a more thoughtful discussion of the risk of multiple births associated with IVF practices in the U.S.
But enough of my griping.
greg / Feb 10, 03:52 PM
Clearly, the market for books (and blogs, and software, and everything else) is greater when they\'re primarily about women\'s infertility. It may be a conscious rhetorical focus on her part.At the same time, however, if Kohl went to a for-profit clinic and didn\'t ask enough questions, it\'s even possible that the clinic strongly recommended ICSI--which certainly upped the cost of their infertility treatments--even though it might not have unnecessary. Everything Conceivable compares infertility practice to the wild west, where everything is possible and there are few checks on those possibilities. I wonder what Kohl would say in retrospect (esp. after writing the book) about how much of her treatment was necessary given her and her husband\'s respective diagnoses.
greg / Feb 10, 07:05 PM
FYI 2: Kohl also blogs for the Huffington Post.Commenting is closed for this article.