Forty, Fat, Infertile and Falling Apart
This past week, I received an email from a 50-something-year-old asking me if I could take the DNA from her dead husband’s ashes and use them to get her pregnant. I should note that I’m holding a pen in my hand… not a magic wand. Although this is the first time the word “cremation” was ever a part of a fertility request, it was not the first time a woman over 45 has asked if she could get pregnant using her eggs. Let me be super-duper clear here: There are women who do get pregnant or who are even fertile over the age of 42. However, they are very sadly in the minority. Then, even if they can get pregnant, because their egg quality has dipped, they either tend to have more miscarriages or the children they conceive are more susceptible to chromosomal issues. I know this because I tell women this all day. I don’t enjoy being the bearer of bad news and many get pissed at me. What pisses them off even more is the majority of doctors in the United States won’t even see a patient over a cer...