I'm a regular Awl reader (with a low commenter number and everything!). This is a pseudocommentername because my work doesn't know I'm doing IVF.
I've been trying to get pregnant for almost two years, and am at the end of the fertility road. After two pregnancies in seven months (a tubal pregnancy requiring emergency surgery and a miscarriage), I gained weight. The giant doses of estrogen you inject during IUI/IVF make you moody and fat. During and after fertility treatment, they won't let you do much in the way of exercise, since you can cut off oxygen to your ovaries; even swimming was on the list of forbidden activities from my doctors. There's a lot of resting during IUI and IVF, as well as after a D&C. More to the point in my case, pregnancy loss, like any emotionally devastating event, can trigger depression. Comfort eating, lethargy, anhedonia, you name it.
I read this post as I was just starting my second-to-last IVF cycle, having spent all my savings and surrendered my body, time, and mind to what can be an extremely alienating and spirit-crushing process. Though plenty of overweight women have healthy children, some of the studies you cite are certainly frightening for those of us in fertility treatment.
All I want to say is that when I read phrases like "But all that blubber is a lifestyle choice. The consequence of living well. No regrets," "300-pounders," "which in layman's terms is 'dead baby,'" and "That 'Shady Grove' sounds more like a funeral parlor than a fertility clinic might just be fate's dark sense of humor," I can't believe I'm reading The Awl.
One note: thin/fit women get preeclampsia. It can happen to anyone--your sister, your cousin, your best pal. As can infertility. As can miscarriage. As can depression. As can--believe it or not--weight gain. Normal, healthy, sophisticated people fall into all kinds of circumstances, though we all find that hard to believe when we're on top of the world.
On Real America, with Abe Sauer: Fat, Fetuses and Felonies
I'm a regular Awl reader (with a low commenter number and everything!). This is a pseudocommentername because my work doesn't know I'm doing IVF.
I've been trying to get pregnant for almost two years, and am at the end of the fertility road. After two pregnancies in seven months (a tubal pregnancy requiring emergency surgery and a miscarriage), I gained weight. The giant doses of estrogen you inject during IUI/IVF make you moody and fat. During and after fertility treatment, they won't let you do much in the way of exercise, since you can cut off oxygen to your ovaries; even swimming was on the list of forbidden activities from my doctors. There's a lot of resting during IUI and IVF, as well as after a D&C. More to the point in my case, pregnancy loss, like any emotionally devastating event, can trigger depression. Comfort eating, lethargy, anhedonia, you name it.
I read this post as I was just starting my second-to-last IVF cycle, having spent all my savings and surrendered my body, time, and mind to what can be an extremely alienating and spirit-crushing process. Though plenty of overweight women have healthy children, some of the studies you cite are certainly frightening for those of us in fertility treatment.
All I want to say is that when I read phrases like "But all that blubber is a lifestyle choice. The consequence of living well. No regrets," "300-pounders," "which in layman's terms is 'dead baby,'" and "That 'Shady Grove' sounds more like a funeral parlor than a fertility clinic might just be fate's dark sense of humor," I can't believe I'm reading The Awl.
One note: thin/fit women get preeclampsia. It can happen to anyone--your sister, your cousin, your best pal. As can infertility. As can miscarriage. As can depression. As can--believe it or not--weight gain. Normal, healthy, sophisticated people fall into all kinds of circumstances, though we all find that hard to believe when we're on top of the world.