Infertility Tales

Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos

There’s More Than One Infertility Outcome

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Update: As evidence of a sea change in how infertility is portrayed, Yahoo Shine featured on its homepage a story about “the growing women’s movement to de-stigmatize infertility.” It came in the wake of the latest edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves (which&hellip

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Going Up!

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An an infertile (that’s right, all you “as a moms,” … we infertiles can invoke superiority, too!), I’m happy to report that there’s finally a movie coming to theater near you that contains
a story line that portrays infertiles as endearing, not selfish … sweet, not reviled or pitied.

Time magazine says the movie, Up, will
prove to be one of the most satisfying movie experiences of the year. Hallelujah! It’s about freakin‘ time. Hollywood has some serious making up to do for consistently negative story lines
about my people. Time‘s Richard Corliss writes:

“Spanning two continents and seven decades, Up begins in a 1930s movie theater. A newsreel tells us that famous explorer Charles Muntz (voiced by Christopher Plummer) is just back
from South America’s remote Paradise Falls with the bones of a prehistoric bird. Denounced as a fraud by archaeologists, Muntz vows to retrieve a member of the species and bring it back alive. In the
audience, wearing aviator goggles atop his thick-rimmed specs, is young Carl Fredricksen, who is enthralled by Muntz’s motto, ‘There’s adventure out there!’

“On the way home, Carl finds a kindred spirit: a girl named Ellie, as vivacious as he is stolid, who harbors the same dream of visiting Paradise Falls. It’s love at first sight, and in a
tender montage, Up shows us their life together: the wedding, the fixing up of their home, the quiet walks, their respective jobs at the local zoo (she tending the animals, he selling
balloons), their eager preparations for a child they later learn they can’t have, their need to defer the big trip to pay for home improvements, then her slowing pace and death. This series of
vignettes is played without dialogue and underscored by Michael Giacchino’s wistful waltz. It’s the sweetest, saddest 4 1⁄2 minutes you’ll ever see on film.”

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Aha! The Origins of “Just Relax”

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You may recall me mentioning a book called Infertility Around the Globe: New Thinking on Childlessness, Gender and Reproductive Technologies. While it’s not exactly light reading (though academic tomes rarely are), it contains some intriguing&hellip

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Dreamer or Masochist? You Decide

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The calendar doesn’t lie. It’s my two year blogoversary. A pomegranate-infused martini or other adult beverage anyone? I’m pouring. So…hundreds of posts, a book manuscript, a BlogHer panel, a New York Times feature article and&hellip

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At What Cost?

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Updated Friday a.m. I’m troubled. Sickened, actually. When did drugs/treatment intended for infertility become recreational options for people with children? This story gets weirder by the minute. You’ll find a great discussion taking place in&hellip

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Calling All Warriors

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war·ri·or Pronunciation:ˈwȯr-yər, ˈwȯr-ē-ər, ˈwär-ē- also ˈwär-yər n. 1. One who is engaged in or experienced in battle. 2. One who is engaged aggressively or energetically in an activity, cause, or conflict You know who you&hellip

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