Is this really a cultural taboo?
Someone's gotta say it.
IVF never has been and never will be a solution to infertility.
It feels like a bit of an obvious statement, and yet at the same time, a complete cultural taboo. Something you’re not allowed to point out because doing so would imply you’re a heartless person who doesn’t want people to have children.
Although I certainly don’t believe anyone is entitled to children, I also don’t believe it helps nor heals anyone to pretend that fertility technology is solving the infertility epidemic.
According to the CDC, 1 in 5 women between the ages of 15 and 49 are unable to get pregnant after one year of trying.1 And in 2015, only 23% of assisted reproductive cycles from almost 500 clinics resulted in live births, which according to the author of Everything Below the Waist, is an incomplete number because it doesn’t include IUI and other treatments. “So for every successful IVF/ICSI birth there are two or three unsuccessful transfers, conferring an unknown amount of risk.”2
Even if fertility technology were highly effective and practiced “ethically”, it still doesn’t address the heart of infertility and the questions that arise from it.
What is the body trying to communicate by preventing a natural conception from occurring?
What are the spirits of our babies trying to communicate by refusing to come through us?
How does the nature of infertility provide a reflection of our personal lives and our collective as a whole?
If infertility were perceived not as pathology, but as an expression of our healing, how would we change our response?
These are some of the questions I’m asking in my 1:1 container, (IN)FERTILE MOON where I sit with Women in reverence of their unique journey, combining ancient astrological wisdom with foundational healing practices to illuminate the potential of their most harmoniously fertile selves.
I want to share with you two accounts of what Women experienced with me in this offering. They really touched me and helped me see how powerful this work can be:
Initially after our call I found the medicine quite confronting. The idea that I’ve been taking the easy way out was very hard to hold. But there was resonance in your reflection that by doing so much to alter my physiology with supplements recommended by this nutritionist or that herbalist I’m sending a message to my body that I don’t think I can do this on my own. And outsourcing the opportunity to listen to myself if there is any support that my system needs. So I’ve dialed the supplements way back, I’m actually not taking anything right now, and am making more space in my day for silence/ emptiness/ not fullness in the hopes that that space will make the subtle easier to hear.3
I think this experience illuminated something I already knew deep down - as above so below. In my spiritual fertility journey and throughout my conception experience I had disconnected from the cosmos. This offering was a remembrance of how my unique cosmology impacts fertility and gave me an additional perspective to incorporate into my life. I found the astrological health aspect to be incredibly helpful - especially elemental-based practices to counter the immense amount of Air that exists in my chart.
Your healing is so uniquely meaningful, as is your cosmic conception journey, and I know there is so much there for you to discover. Are you open to unveiling the layers of your experience?
All my love,
Athena
https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/features/what-is-infertility/index.html
Block, Jennifer. Everything Below the Waist: Why Health Care Needs a Feminist Revolution. Page 69.
Reminder that I do not offer medical advice or tell Women what to do with their medications and bodies! I provide information and education which may or may not radically change your outlook and choices.