The Fertile Heart™Revolution with Julia

This post is about our human propensity for misplaced worship—which in the world of baby-making puts us at great risk.

Yesterday I met Amy Klein,the NYT Fertility Diary columnist. We didn’t actually meet face to face. We tweeted at each other.

Engaging consultants can be useful, but giving away your power to “great healers” in Chinatown is not much different from giving away your power to the fertility specialist on Park Avenue.

I hope Amy Klein’s education in I.V.F. continues. I hope she keeps questioning her doctor. She may want to ask him about the most recent study published in PLOS on causes of I.V.F. failure, showing that “ICSI ” the next step she is prepping for, may fertilize the egg but it does not improve implantation and live birth rates in women over 37.

A failed IVF is a challenge to the part of us that equates a cost of treatment with its potential to heal us; it’s a challenge to the escalating commodification of babies and every other aspect of our lives.