Woman's Facebook rant about Fertility gets shared by 40,000 people

Emily Bingham has received praise from many young women after a Facebook post she wrote about women and fertility became wildly popular.
The freelance writer, based in Michigan, America, made the point that phttps://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3857675866110314515#editor/src=dashboardeople should stop incessantly asking fertility-aged women when they are having children.
The post was shared nearly 40,000 times, with scores of women applauding her for what she said. She shared an ultrasound image she found on the internet, and wrote a long post about fertility expectations.
It said: "Hey everyone!!! Now that I got your attention with this RANDOM ULTRASOUND PHOTO I grabbed from a Google image search, this is just a friendly P.S.A. that people's reproductive and procreative plans and decisions are none of your business. NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.
"Before you ask the young married couple that has been together for seemingly forever when they are finally gonna start a family ... before you ask the parents of an only-child toddler when a Little Brother or Little Sister will be in the works ... before you ask a single 30-something if/when s/he plans on having children because, you know, clock's ticking ... just stop. Please stop.
"You don't know who is struggling with infertility or grieving a miscarriage or dealing with health issues. You don't know who is having relationship problems or is under a lot of stress or the timing just isn't right. You don't know who is on the fence about having kids or having more kids. You don't know who has decided it's not for them right now, or not for them ever.
"You don't know how your seemingly innocent question might cause someone grief, pain, stress or frustration. Sure, for some people those questions may not cause any fraught feelings -- but I can tell you, from my own experiences and hearing about many friends' experiences -- it more than likely does.
"Bottom line: Whether you are a wanna-be grandparent or a well-intentioned friend or family member or a nosy neighbor, it's absolutely none of your business. Ask someone what they're excited about right now. Ask them what the best part of their day was.
"If a person wants to let you in on something as personal as their plans to have or not have children, they will tell you. If you're curious, just sit back and wait and let them do so by their own choosing, if and when they are ready."
She clarified in a further comment that the rant was inspired in part by a friend of hers, who struggled for a year with fertility treatment to get pregnant, and then was asked a mere month after her child was born, when 'baby number two' was coming.
Women really liked the post, leaving positive comments. Seraphina Maria commented: "I love you so much. People asking me about my child bearing plans drives me up a tree. Be they my parents or PERFECT STRANGERS, because that happens all too often."
Lindsay VanHulle wrote: "Can I like this a million times?"
This follows Kim Catrell's speech on Women's Hour, where she questioned the term 'childless'. “The ‘less’ in childless,” she argued, “sounds like you’re ‘less’ [of a woman] because you haven’t got a child.” She argued that there is too much of a pressure on women to have children.
Article: 28th September 2015 www.telegraph.co.uk
Read more about Fertility and finding a sperm donor at www.prideangel.com

Improve your chance of having a baby by avoiding selfish men

The new "Get Britain Fertile" campaign features a photograph of presenter Kate Garraway, made up to look elderly and pregnant. Her wrinkles and white hair juxtaposed with a fecund belly illustrate the main thrust of the campaign – to make British women aware of the decline in fertility by their 30s and 40s. However, is there a grown woman left in Britain who's not already aware of this? Moreover, when are we, as a society, going to address a painful truth: that where timing is concerned, female fertility is not, as is often supposed, controlled exclusively by women, but also very much in the power of the men they are with? There's much that's well intentioned about GBF. It claims to be aimed at both men and women. Garraway, an ambassador for the campaign, says she feels fortunate to have had children relatively late, and wants women to make "informed choices". However, GBF taps into the culture of misogyny surrounding female fertility. It feeds the urban myth of women "refusing" to have children because of careers, partying, or holding out for Leonardo DiCaprio. These delusional "picky" females have been figments of the collective imagination for so long they need to be dusted down. Indeed, GBF is accompanied by a survey, stating that many women aged 18-46 are concerned about practicalities: ranging from loss of earnings and workplace inflexibility, to childcare costs and housing. All crucial issues, but for the purpose of this article, let's look at the third of women who say they want children but haven't yet found the right partner. In my opinion that one-third is an underestimate. Even not finding the right man often turns out to be a euphemism for: "I met him, I spent years with him, but ultimately, he wouldn't have children." Put bluntly, many of these women at their fertile peak didn't refuse anything, their men did. Like it or not, this is how men influence female fertility and, ultimately, female infertility. The mere thought is enough to inspire feminist panic: women, not men, should control their fertility. Who could disagree? It's also true that some women don't want children, period. And yet how many of us have met (or even been) the thirty-fortysomething, forced to abandon a long relationship because the man wouldn't start a family? Such men may feel that the relationship isn't right, or don't want their freedom curtailed, or other reasons, all as valid as a woman making similar decisions. It only becomes unfair, verging on selfish, when men keep such insights to themselves for too long. These are the time-wasters, what I'd term the fertility-drifters, who think nothing of keeping women dangling for years on end. It's not that these women are pathetic wimps, rather that often they can't win: if they push, they're pushy (humiliating); if they don't push, if they're respectful and patient, they'll waste even more time. Frequently, these men go on to start families with younger women, leaving their original partners scouring dating sites, lampooned as desperadoes on the hunt for viable sperm. Some might say: "Diddums, that's life." Fine, so long as we acknowledge that this is something many women put up with during their fertile years, and that to castigate them is unfair. Sometimes it's not women who are picky, it's men. Ergo, such men should at least be part of the ongoing debate about late female procreation. After all, a stalled relationship at the wrong time with an immature, untruthful, or simply unwilling, man, is enough to compromise or even destroy a woman's fertility. If the GBF campaign really is aimed at both sexes, perhaps they need to include a photograph of a man with the caption: "Play fair and, by the way, sperm deteriorates too." Meanwhile, women may need another mantra – don't let anyone waste your precious time. Read more... Article: 19th May 2013 www.guardian.co.uk

Americans having fewer children - is the economy to blame?

Does the poor economy has couples thinking twice before having children? Parenthood is expensive and young couples aren't sure they can handle the financial burden in today's environment. It’s not a surprise, then, that the U.S. birthrate has dropped to its lowest point since 1987. But, while the statistics may make an economic case compelling, some experts warn that the cause of the drop is more complicated than just dollars-and-cents. Birth statistics show that a significant drop took place in step with the recent economic decline. Before the downturn, the average number of births per woman in the U.S. peaked at 2.12, according to USA Today. This year the birthrate is heading for 1.87. based on research by Demographic Intelligence, a company that creates birth forecasts quarterly. A rate of 2.0 is considered "replacement level fertility." The United States saw 4.3 million births in 2007 and this number has dropped each year since then and is now about 3.96 million. That’s a decline of "a little less than 10 percent between 2007 and 2011," Steven Martin, a senior research associate at New York University, told the Daily News. But it’s not just about the money. Although the recession surely played a role in the birthrate decline, Mark Mather, demographer with the Population Reference Bureau, told the Daily News that there are other broader societal factors to consider. "We know that fertility rates declined in other periods of turmoil," Mather said, pointing to the Great Depression and high-inflation rates of the 1970s as economically-distressed historical precedents. But he also noted that the years leading up to the Great Depression saw an increase in contraception use, as did the 1970s. Martin mentioned a recent National Center for Health Statistics study that showed that approximately 37 percent of U.S. births are unintended or mistimed. "This could have the effect," he said, "of counteracting or buffering the fertility rate declines." These issues complicate a single-cause explanation of a birthrate drop, say these experts. Family planning, immigration - and accidental pregnancies - all combine to vary in different, multiple directions that impact the rates - although the economy is certainly playing its part. Article: 26th July www.nydailynews.com

Does having children really make you happy?

As I turn the pages of our family photo albums, I see countless pictures of our children growing up.
Most of the shots capture moments of happiness or achievement: my daughters are laughing on care-free holidays under azure summer skies, or clutching a medal, holding a certificate, winning a race.

These albums, stored in a memory chest I have created for my family, are a record not just of my children's happiness and achievements, but my own as well. I love to look at the pictures of us, it's a sort of proof that I'm living the 'parental dream'. Or that's what I thought.

But now I'm being told that my parental happiness is a delusion and that my photo albums - like my parental memory bank - contain only the moments I have chosen to archive.

Mothers and fathers, according to the latest research by top scientists, simply choose to forget - or else don't admit to - all the other hideous stuff which makes us miserable on an almost daily basis; the tears, the tedium and the tantrums.

To read more go to http://bit.ly/bwX7pK

How your personality effects when you choose to have children

A woman's personality can affect when she chooses to have her first child, according to a new study. The research found that traits such as 'conscientiousness' and 'openness' were associated with delaying motherhood, while more neurotic or extrovert women were more likely to have children young.
The study of over 16,000 mothers, by the Institute of Social and Economic Research, looked at the relationship between fertility, education and personality traits.

Researchers cross-referenced five different personality types - conscientious, neurotic, open, agreeable and extrovert - with the age at which the women had their first child.

Lara Tavares, the author of the study, said that the average educated woman had their first child two years later than her average less-educated counterpart - but analysis of personality traits could explain this timing gap more clearly.

'Personality traits influence both education and fertility decisions,' she said. 'More 'open-minded' people might be less vulnerable to the social pressure for having children.

To read more go to http://bit.ly/d1KW6T

Woman learns she CAN be a mother using google ... after 20 years

Julie Cameron was just 15 years old when doctors told her she would never have children. The distraught teenager was diagnosed with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser Syndrome, an extremely rare condition that meant she was born without a womb, cervix or fallopian tubes. So imagine her surprise 20 years later when Julie learned that she actually had two healthy ovaries - by using Google.
She typed the name of her condition into the search engine one night and was stunned to find that although she could never carry a child, her ovaries could produce eggs

Doctors 'never mentioned' that modern fertility techniques meant she could, in theory, could have a biological child using a surrogate. After discovering her ovaries carry healthy eggs, Mrs Cameron has found a willing surrogate and is now rying to raise £5,000 for the first round of IVF treatment.

If that works, she will need a further £10,000 to pay for surrogacy expenses. She said: 'It was a complete revelation - I just Googled it and the article that came up was about surrogacy. 'The article mentioned that women with my condition have no womb but still have healthy ovaries. I thought, "you have got to be kidding me".

'I got myself checked out and found I too had healthy ovaries. 'I always thought having a child was impossible for me and would Unable to qualify for IVF, Mrs Cameron and her chef husband, 31, are now on a fundraising drive to make their dream of becoming parents come true.

Mrs Cameron said: 'Having spent 20 years believing I had absolutely no chance at all of having a child, to discover I have healthy ovaries and there is a chance for me is still all quite surreal.

Go to http://bit.ly/bLUwhg to read more