#fertility-risks

#fertility-risks

Rapid engagement and marriage can sometimes mask underlying issues that may only surface later, especially when couples have not lived together prior to tying the knot.

Since the first IVF baby was born in 1978, technological advancement of reproductive medicine has enabled millions to have children, marking a significant milestone in medical history.

I've wanted to pursue sterilization since I learned that that was something that a person could do. I've tried a lot of different options for birth control, none of them have worked for me. She added that she never wanted kids, has a history of assault, and is worried about living in a state with one of the strictest abortion bans in the country.

Economists from King's College London (KCL) and Stanford University in America looked at parents' participation in the workforce in the US between 2023 and 2025, including the proportion who worked from home at least one day per week. They analysed the impact of this compared with those who did not work remotely.

For more than 60 years, contraception has been almost exclusively a women's responsibility. Today, women have more than 14 modern contraceptive options, while men have just two: condoms and vasectomies. That imbalance has pushed women to shoulder physical side effects, financial burden, medical risks, and the career impact of family planning-costs that have been accepted as the "status quo" for far too long.

Over my decades of practice, seeing thousands of people who use donor conception to have their children, I have seen a steady increase in people who want to either co‑parent or who plan to use the sperm or eggs of someone they know and plan to call that person "mom" or "dad." While I have seen many of these beautiful arrangements work out well, many have not.

I can't even count the number of thoughts I have every single day, just bouncing around in my head like a ping pong ball. I think every mom feels the same way, which is why when you ask a mom what's on her mind, her response could range from something like "Oh, just thinking about my kid's new soccer team" to "The fall of democracy and the state of the world."

"I literally spent the first whole of my first trimester in bed on ice cubes, because I couldn't eat or drink," she said.

While we are profoundly grateful to have Shea in our lives and love her immeasurably, we also recognize that we have a moral obligation to find her genetic parents, she wrote. Our joy over her birth is further complicated by the devastating reality that her genetic parents whom we do not yet know or possibly another family entirely, may have received our genetic embryo. We are heartbroken, devastated, and confused.