How to Make a Family: The Blog

Counting Heads

This could be good news. I think.

From the Yale Daily News:
The NIH has awarded $12.4 million to a team of Yale scientists to oversee the collection of data on the causes and treatments of infertility and other reproductive diseases and disorders.

The researchers, headed by Heping Zhang, professor of biostatistics and director of the Yale Collaborative Center for Statistics in Science, make up the Data Coordinating Center as part of the NIH’s Reproductive Medicine Network. [RMN]

They will oversee a network of seven other clinical centers to monitor study design, data management and analysis.

Here's what I'm hoping... Can we get an updated estimate on how many people are coping/struggling/dealing with, battling, journeying though, seeking help/treatment for... infertility?

This money's going toward some particularly large-scale studies. Lots and lots of subjects. Might be an opportunity for counting heads.

For a full decade now, when I write about the incidence of infertility, I have no other number to quote from all the best sources than that darn "6.1 million individuals."

Here ya go, straight from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine:

Infertility affects about 6.1 million women and their partners in the U.S.  -- about ten percent of the reproductive-age population (Source: National Survey of Family Growth, CDC 1995).

Now... I  know that there have been follow-ups to the NSFG, because I was one of the field data gatherers for it in 2002-2003. So, let's go check on those numbers to see if a change has been charted.

And what we find, on the CDC website regarding the 2002 NSFG is this:

1. How many people in the United States have infertility problems? The latest data on infertility available to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth. Of the approximately 62 million women of reproductive age in 2002, about 1.2 million, or 2%, had had an infertility-related medical appointment within the previous year and an additional 10% had received infertility services at some time in their lives. (Infertility services include medical tests to diagnose infertility, medical advice and treatments to help a woman become pregnant, and services other than routine prenatal care to prevent miscarriage.)   Additionally, 7% of married couples in which the woman was of reproductive age (2.1  million couples) reported that they had not used contraception for 12 months and the woman had not become pregnant.

What the Doc at U of Chicago Thinks

Stumbled across this interesting Q&A on The University of Chicago Chronicle's site. Dr. David Cohen, an RE with whom I've had the opportunity to chat briefly in the past (about an ovulation predictor product, if my memory serves me well), responds to a list of personal questions that no doubt inform his professional experience.

I vote every RE submit to the same and publish a compilation.

Link: Opine: David Cohen.

RESOLVE Board Growing

RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association has announced new 2-year-term members to its Board of Directors. New members are:

Susan Caughman, President, New Hope Media

Marcelle I. Cedars, MD, Director, Division of Reproductive Endocrinology, University of California, San Francisco

Alice D. Domar, PhD, Executive Director, Domar Center for Complementary Healthcare at Boston IVF

Frank R. Dunau, retired financial executive

David L. Keefe, MD, Chair, James M. Ingram, M.D. Professor and Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of South Florida College of Medicine

Deborah Rice, RN, Assistant Nursing Supervisor, Shady Grove Fertility Reproductive Science Center

Richard T. Scott, Jr., MD, Medical Director, Reproductive Medicine Associates of New Jersey and Clinical Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School

Link to press release: RESOLVE :: RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association Adds Noted Family Building Experts to its Board of Directors.

ASRM, On the Floor

If you've attended conferences related to any profession, you know the drill -- along with the education come the exhibitors. With major pharma backing plus the mushrooming peripherals of the fertility industry, the ASRM Show is spectacular to behold.

When the gates opened at 9:30 AM Monday, the crush of clinicians eager to scoop up freebie goodies galore was impressive. The clusters of exhibit booth representatives, virtually all dressed in Business Black and wired for sound, resembled a Secret Service gathering (or as Mary Fusillo of Freedom Fertility Pharmacy remarked, "... a bunch of funeral directors.") In spite of their somber attire, these reps were equal parts brass tacks and social flair. Remember that old saying about flies, vinegar, and sugar...

The line was long at California Cryobank, where "Got Sperm?" t-shirts were the prize for winners of a high-low card game. Brown & Brown, who provide a unique service -- insurance for all-things-fertility, complications, losses, liabilities, but not coverage for diagnosis and treatment -- had it going on, handing out cute and fuzzy dolphin toys with bellies full of -- aww -- twin dolphin babies. Organon's booth busily dispensed caffeine to the needy throng in the form of frothy cappuccino and espresso jolts.

By far the winner of innovative booth attraction devices was Fertile Hope. There, Lindsay Nohr Beck's four-month-old daughter magically represented just what her mom's organization is all about: the provision of reproductive information, support, and hope to cancer patients who risk infertility by treating their more life-threatening disease. While Beck's husband dutifully fed the wonder baby garbed in pink flowers, Lindsay said with a laugh that adding a baby to her life is all she imagined "and more!"

Over seven years after my own baby dream came true, I still find myself tickled now and then at how good it feels to just be a "regular" mom with a "normal" life. Welcome to the Parenthood, Lindsay.

I'm happy to report that I came away with nary an enticement to lug home on the plane.

Pass the Fun Over Here, Please

Last night's opening ceremony of the 62nd Annual ASRM Meeting was all polite applause and colleague-kudos, until the gospel singing started. Any readers who've had the dubious distinction of being shown to the semen procurement closet at their fertility specialist's office would've enjoyed the furtive glances and seat-fidgeting among the crowd as a local gospel choir threaded through the aisles. Gloriously inspired singing and heart-felt hand clapping couldn't budge many of the attendees, while a few of us intrepid souls sang and swayed along.

Later at the flavorful reception with representatives from nine NOLA food purveyors, a couple of New Hampshire nurses talked with me about insurance coverage issues -- which state's got it, which might get it. Their take is that NH -- the "Live free or die State" -- is destined to be left out of the insurance mandate expansion that's crawling across the U.S.

April Lee of Advanced Reproductive Care (ARC) and I caught up with our own tales of parenting. Pinpointing one's mind on infertility, its treatment, affordability, and even the more expansive peripherals (like the creation of life and all that entails) can grow tedious. Sometimes, the best remedy is a cold beer, some shrimp remoulade, and rib-tickling stories about camping with kids.

Party Time in NOLA

The best time to run in any city is early morning. As long as you don't mind darting around the previous night's street debris, the birds provide musical accompaniment and there's little traffic to fight. Same goes for New Orleans. 'Course "early" is a relative word -- in NOLA on Sundays, 9:30 AM still finds few competitors for the sidewalk.

The Morial Convention Center is just starting to buzz with sturdy workmen milling around outside, enjoying a last smoke before starting their workday. The only others around are small tourist groups with cameras, walking four abreast on the old brick paths, and doctors.

The docs and their wives huddle near the sprawling building, maps and brochures in hand, plotting how to spend their day before the big opening shindig of the 62nd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

On Saturday, I was privileged to attend the yearly IntegraMed America gathering. This is the company that's made "shared risk" a familiar term to infertility patients everywhere. The party's location, the swanky W Hotel, provided upbeat energy reflective of the ensuing chatter, part social, part business, among IntegraMed-affiliated docs, their staff, and the corporate folks.

I enjoyed IntegraMed COO Jay Higham's quick story about the company's awkward beginnings -- secret meetings with skeptical but interested fertility specialists, behind the potted palms, no less -- and how an early house-cleaning spurred the business forward to its lasting position as Number One Network of reproductive medicine specialists in the country. Though Jay might downplay it, I can't help thinking that the growth of INMD (as its known on Wall Street) might be at least partly based on the 'been-there-done-that' factor. He and lots of staff have been personal recipients of reproductive medicine's miracles.

When you work from your home with people from around the globe, eyeballing them on occasion is a real treat. Kudos to IntegraMed's Eileen Katzman and staff for a lovely evening at W. Among the wine and Cajun goodies, I caught wind of a few tantalizing research tidbits to be revealed as this conference unfolds. Stay tuned for those.

At a later dinner, Ron King of Vanguard Communications struck up a conversation with our waitress about her personal Katrina experience. Obviously, "after the storm" is a phrase heard often wherever you go in NOLA. As the young woman at Cafe Adelaide told us her tale of survival via instinct and perseverance, Vanguard's Director of PR, Jim Dissett, had a lightbulb moment: Tell the Katrina stories of local service staff, how they made it through and how they feel about the city's slow rebirth. Great idea, Jim. Let's see if I can sell it -- after the repro med show. I'm off to grab some press credentials.