I wanted to bring to your attention a couple articles that caught my eye recently. I found them pertinent to our discussions here and I hope you take the time to read them.
The first one is "How Older Parenthood Will Upend American Society" by Judith Shulevitz, which appeared in The New Republic:
It's a sobering read about how the graying of American parents is affecting the makeup of many generations to come. This article covers many aspects on this topic. The main one that jumped at me was the paradigm shift that has come as a result of the correlation between significant rise of children born with mental and physical disabilities (genetic mutations, autism, schizophrenia, etc.) and the increased age of the respective fathers. It appears that the proverbial ticking clock may no longer be limited to women, but now men need to become much more aware of when they choose the finally have children.
The other highlight for me was the obvious, nonetheless painful reality of the brevity of human life -- "A woman who is 35 when her child is born is more likely than not to have died by the time that child is 46." Many couples that I know undergoing IF treatments are in their mid-thrities. Somehow it feels completely normal -- after all, many are educated, professional men/women, who wanted to accomplish certain things before being surrounded by diapers. I wonder how it will affect the sociological conversations for the next generation in terms of caring for older parents at a younger age and future healthcare entitlements for the rest of us "older parents" (with dwindling numbers of babies, who will care for us and how will our care be payed for?).
The article does raise the question of IF treatments and its effects on the wellbeing of the next generation and the lack of regulation of this industry.
Which leads me to this next article: "Are Infertility Doctors Turning into Predatory Bankers?" by Peter Ubel, which appeared in Forbes:
This brief article covers the murky waters of the for-profit IF treatments (the more patients an RE has the more money he/she makes, thus possibly offer more treatments than necessary) and the kickbacks REs receive from referring patients to loan companies that are supposed to help pay for the exorbitant IF treatments.
This reminded me of two important topics that I always bring up: 1) Sadly while we look to our REs as these heavenly beings who are going to make our dreams come true, in the end, it is a business transaction. So if you are not getting 100% of your RE/clinic, you can always take your hard earned money elsewhere. And 2) we MUST continue to advocate for our cause and press our lawmakers to get insurance companies to provide greater/full coverage.
