- You're a fertile goddess, you're glowing,
it's so beautiful, you get all these parties.
No one's throwing me an infertility party.
No one's like asking what's on my IVF registry.
My name is Jordan, I'm a health journalist.
I'm here to talk about infertility,
primarily in young people like myself.
This is like the first time that I'm talking about it.
I used to get my period every 20 days which sucked.
All of a sudden, it started coming later and later,
and then it just stopped coming and I went to the doctor.
She said a variation of you're stressed,
you've got a lot going on, you work all the time,
don't worry about it.
I said, you know, I am worried about it
and can you just run some blood tests?
A few weeks later, she called me and it was pretty much
a scene like you would expect in a medical drama.
She asked me if I was sitting.
She told me that I was prematurely menopausal.
The last thing she ended the call on was do you want
to have children?
You know, being 24, I was like, yes,
but do I want to have children right now?
Like I hadn't thought of it.
In my mind, I was like, okay, yes,
yes, I want to have children.
She's like, okay, here's a list of fertility clinics
and like you should make an appointment next week.
Like that's how dire this is.
You know, I just like remember just like standing there
and just shaking 'cause I was like, how am I going
to be a mom at 24 and have kids and pay my student loans?
And I live in a fifth floor walk-up.
That kind of started what I would call the worst three years
of my life.
Doctors being dismissive is nothing new to me.
I was actually diagnosed with endometriosis when I was 12.
I had been having chronic pelvic pain since I was 10
and my pediatrician told me I was the little girl
who cried wolf.
My early childhood, my teen years, my early 20s,
it's pretty much just been doctors not believing me,
brushing symptoms off.
I learned really early, fortunately, to advocate for myself.
I made appointments with a few different experts.
Honestly, it was just one horror show after another.
I saw someone who was considered a pioneer
in restoring ovarian function and I was really excited
to see him, and during the appointment he turned
to my boyfriend and said, you're a really good man
for being with someone like her.
I just remember thinking like, okay, thank you, next.
I felt like what everyone was telling me was to do IVF.
There was no financial option for me to do that.
All of these people were giving me options
that were just so expensive.
If we put such a high price on pregnancy, then for people
with infertility, there is no chance at parenthood,
and then we're saying that only people
who are wealthy deserve to become parents.
What changed pretty immediately for me was how
to navigate a very fertile world.
It felt like right after my diagnosis everyone was pregnant.
It became very triggering for me.
It was like a knee jerk reaction,
it's like that might never happen to you.
I'm like, okay, yes, thank you, like you don't have
to remind me every time I see a pregnant person.
In so many people's mind, if I said I'm upset
because I might not be able to have kids, people are like,
well, you can just adopt, and I was like, well,
that's not the same.
My goal is to become a biological parent,
but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't love any child.
People are like, well, there are so many children
that need a loving home and aren't you a little bit selfish
not to give them one?
Telling someone who is infertile
that it is their responsibility
to provide that home is unfair.
Adoption isn't a cure for infertility.
Around the time I turned 27,
I went and I this time chose a female doctor.
That made quite a big difference.
She was kind of optimistic that with the right things
and the right timing that maybe something could happen.
I did several, I think three, IUIs.
It's the like turkey baster method, but you know,
in a doctor's office.
I wanted it to work, but I also still didn't really want
to be a mom at 27.
None of those worked which was disappointing.
Each time, it was about eight or $900,
not including the medication.
It's coming in every few days for blood work,
transvaginal ultrasounds which are internal ultrasounds.
You don't even feel like a person after a while,
it just kind of feels like you're on this assembly line.
Everyone is in your body doing things.
It's just terrible.
I had been fortunate to be able to save some money to try
and afford IVF.
Since the odds are not on my side, I have found a doctor
who's willing to work with me and
not charge me a million dollars.
What I wanted to happen was I was gonna get pregnant
and then when I was ready to share,
I was just gonna be like, whoops, like look what happened,
like I got pregnant, not I just spent 10s of $1,000s trying
to get pregnant and I'm dealing
with this terrible diagnosis.
I felt like the diagnosis and the whole entire road
that I had been on put all of this sadness
into what is usually a joyous life milestone for people.
I failed the first IVF cycle
and then I failed my second IVF cycle and after that point,
I just was so hormonal and bloated and I am the person
who usually people come to with their problem.
I just feel it building up inside of me.
So I just, I just tweeted the whole thing out.
That's literally how I did it and I immediately felt better.
For months, my whole life felt like lies
and I had to remember who I told what lie
and I just was so tired of juggling it.
I think telling people about my infertility,
it feels more manageable now
because I'm not shouldering this giant weight.
There are days where I think, why me?
And this really sucks, but I think the more that you connect
with the infertility community and you hear all
of the stories about how many people have been trying
for 15 years and have spent 100s of $1,000s,
the strength in that community,
they're all just so passionate about having children
and having their own children and not being denied
what other people have so easily.
That's really what it comes down to is feeling
like this is your right.
Wanting to pursue medical intervention to achieve it
like we would for any other disease
'cause that's what infertility is, essentially,
it's a disease.