# Why do we put ourselves through so much?



## jq (Nov 14, 2006)

Hello everyone.

Some people on this board ask themselves “why did I put myself through so much to try and have a child?” Sometimes I think we perhaps berate ourselves for “not accepting.” I don’t know, but maybe we even internalise some of the negative social attitudes where the fertile seem to resent their taxes paying for Tx and we are told we should just get on with life.

For people unable to have a childl, fertility treatment has indeed been available for centauries. It was just different in earlier times and people sought it out and used it. Very often help was based on religion and ritual, and/or was available from healers and shamans. But from the time of the Ancient Egyptians, the forerunners of modern medicine also had non religious/ritual treatments to offer, including herbal and holistic treatments. In fact many IF people who are disappointed in modern treatments or wish to supplement them turn to older forms of medicine such as Chinese medicine in its various forms, herbalism etc. 

So maybe history shows that it is a perfectly normal human response to infertility to seek some sort of help. Perhaps many of us only feel ready to move on when we have tried the forms of help or treatment that we believe offer us some hope?

Of course, in the past, as now, it was not always clear which of a couple had the fertility “problem.” But many women have obvious symptoms such as irregular cycles, pain or recurrent miscarriage and even in the distant past certainly knew that this suggested a problem in their system and sought help. 

In the absence of obvious symptoms, it was often assumed to be the woman anyway, hence Henry VIII’s frequent changing of wives in the search for a male heir- it did not seem to occur to him that maybe it was his fertility in question!

I wonder if some people might like to hear about some of the things people have tried in the past, and even still try? Maybe knowing that we are not the only generation to try and overcome IF we can accept that it is perfectly normal to do so?

Actually it may be that in some cultures women were not even allowed to start a family until they had gone through considerable trials. It is thought the myth of the Amazons was inspired by recorded Greek history. Herodotus said "No Scythian woman may marry until she has killed a man of the enemy." The fact that women were prepared to kill and to risk their lives through battle is a testimony to the power of their desire to have a family. A much more fraught path than TX!

Religious faith was and remains a source of help to have a family. Professor Robert Winston’s book, “A Child Against All Odds,” begins with a scholarly look at the Old Testament where the struggles of women to have a child are recorded. This doctor has questioned his practise from a spiritual basis, grounded in his Jewish faith, and seems to have made an honest and compassionate reconciliation between the two. I think I am corrrect to suggest he believes that his god has given us the abilty to help people to have a child and that it is the duty of IF doctors to use their knowledge to this end. He knows well that doctors cannot always succeed and seems honest in describing to patients what their choices and chances are given the state of current knowledge. Would that all IF consultants were that humble and willing to avoid playing god!

Even now, people turn to spiritual sources of help. Pilgrimages are one example that have been around for centauries.

Pilgrimages were tremendously expensive and potentially hazardous. Perhaps the cost and the risks, as well as the disappointment for those who remained without children, can be equated to modern expensive treatment with its attendant side effects. Overland travel, perhaps on foot, made for a long journey if you didn’t live just round the corner from the destination! While on the journey pilgrims were not economically active and had to beg or pay for food and lodging, passages on ships and ferries, tolls and so on. The cost was daunting for poorer people who usually earnt a living through daily toil. The fact that infertile people made (and make) such pilgrimages certainly suggests that even without modern treatment, not all IF people just got on with their lives.

My Phillipino SiL has told me of her cousin’s struggle with IF. She has no access to Tx as we on this board know it, but regularly takes part in the Obando fertility rites with her husband. This involves childless couples in an ancient folk dance through the streets to the church. They push a cart with symbols of what they are hoping for (statuettes of pg women, dolls, baby clothes...) to encourage reproduction. The dance has its roots in older religions, but the fertility gods and goddesses have been replaced with a Catholic saint, the Virgen de Salambao. It is heartbreaking for the cousin and her husband to return year after year, but they do so as they continue to hope for a miracle. My SiL thinks her cousin will continue with this until she has a child or her irregular periods stop altogether. While there is little financial cost, the emotional cost of publicly displaying their hopes is considerable.

Back in England, there are many examples of pagan fertility rights. Has anyone seen the Cerne Abbas Giant? Also known as the Rude Man  - do an intrnet search for a piccie  if you have never seen it! It is said that a women who sleeps overnight within the outline of the giant phallus will definitely conceive, and there are rumours that in the past people had orgies up there at certain times of year so that women whose partners were infertile had another chance! 

But not all help was based on religion and ritual. Some forerunners of modern medicine offered diagnosis and treatment.

Apparently the ancient Egyptians would insert garlic into a woman’s vagina. If garlic could be smelt on her breath it was taken that she was fertile. Wonder what garlic breath did for her sex life?!

Hippocrates, “Father of Medicine” (c.460-377 BC) published “The Nature of Women," "Women’s Diseases” and “Dismembering of the Foetus in the Womb.” Hippocrates used Egyptian inspired recipes to diagnose and treat infertility. For example red nitre, cumin, resin and honey was used to open the cervix to receive sperm. (Did he know that the cervix naturally opens out during the most fertile time of the month? Was he treating women for whom this did not happen?) Men were also given advice on how to conceive more efficiently

Avicenna, a great Arabic doctor (981-1037) was the author of "The Canons of Medicine" the primary medical text book until the 17th century. The book contained valuable information on gynaecology. Infertility was recognised as of masculine or feminine origin and again several recipes used by Avicenna were directly inspired from those of the Egyptians.

In 1552 Bartolomeo Eustachio recommended that husbands should place their finger in the vagina after sexual intercourse in order to keep the sperm inside. (Hey girls, remember all that legs up on a pillow stuff?!! And did they do it for 3 days, the rough length of time sperm survive in the womb?)

John Hunter (1728-1793), a Scottish surgeon, was the first to try human artificial insemination after it had proved to work for animals. Some time in the late 1770s he was consulted by a merchant who was unable to complete the sexual act. Hunter suggested that the merchant collect his sperm and that it should be injected into his wife’s vagina with a warm syringe. (That I know is one way used today by fertile lesbians using donor sperm privately at mid cycle. It can work!)

Marion Sims (USA. 1813-1883), published “Clinical Notes on Uterine Surgery with Special Reference to the Management of the Sterile Condition.” He carried out inseminations for 6 women all with cervical abnormalities, using their husbands’ sperm. One woman had a child. 

William Pancoast of Jefferson Medical College (USA) was the first doctor known to try donor sperm. In 1884, a wealthy merchant asked for help with his inability to procreate. What followed may shock some readers. The wife was anaesthetised in a lecture hall with an audience of medical students. Pancoast inseminated the woman, using semen obtained from ‘the best-looking member of the class’. Nine months later, a child was born. The mother allegedly went to her grave none the wiser about the child’s provenance.

So, my message is, all sorts of IF treatment has been around at least since history was recorded, so please don't think our generation is somehow out of touch with the human condition in trying to overcome our dissapointment at finding successful pg does not always come naturally. We do what we do. Some will be lucky and may grow as parents. Others will grow from finding the strength to move on.


Lots of love 

Jq xxx


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## siheilwli (Jan 18, 2006)

What a great post. Thanks
Cat
xxx


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## Myownangel (Aug 24, 2005)

Wow! Where did you find all that info? Is it stuff you have picked up over the years or do you have a book(s)? You ask why we put ourselves through so much - well I think that different couples have different limits and we just have to keep going until it feels right to stop. I have a friend who tried one round of IVF and was so ill that she decided that was it and her and hubby decided to say no to kids from then on - and they have never regretted the decision. In my case I have suffered the twists and turns of fate – and I truly believe it's fate or 'bad luck' and certainly nothing to do with God or any creator – because we got pregnant naturally out of the blue just before our 3rd IVF attempt. We had decided then that if the IVF didn't work we would give up and move on - but the natural pg shook things up, and so it goes on. But there comes a point when you have to let go… it is the only sane choice. And maybe a life without children has its own rewards - more adventure and it means we will have much more to talk about than schools, exams, uniform costs etc..
Bernie xxx


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## jq (Nov 14, 2006)

Hi Cat and Bernie,

It was a bit of a surprise to see your posts so long after mine. I thought I had gone OTT and not many people were interested! (But I have to say MM did ask if she could use these ideas in her workshops - if so, hope the ideas were of interest!)

To answer Bernie's question about how I knew all that stuff - It was picked up over the years, I studied A level history and then a bit of social history and anthropology at university, taking a particular interest in women's lives, I listened to my SiL when she told me about how IF is dealt with among poor people in the Phillipines, I live near the Cerne Abass Giant......

My post was partly a response to another post that seemed to suggest that we should just accept and get on with life, as IF women in the past had done. Knowing that men and women faced with IF had sought solutions since time immemorial, I had to illustrate that it was incorrect to believe tha previous generations just "got on with it" and so maybe it is perfectly natural that we try whatever treatment makes sense to us.

Bernie is so right to say we all have different points beyond which it does not make personal sense to go. I just think it is important to never berate ourselves for trying.....

Thanks for your interest.

Love Jq xxx


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