Rimma Efimkina - Not pregnant yet? You bet!

First, this technology was successfully applied in the United Kingdom in 1977. As a result, Louise Brown was the first test-tube child born in 1978. The first child (a girl) in the Soviet Union conceived as a result of IVF was born in February, 1986. If in 1990 the number of test-tube babies was more than 20 thousands, in 2010 it came up to about 4 millions 22 22 Wikipedia. .

It’s been not so many years after this, just one generation grew up, and we still know little about this method and its consequences. There are lots of questions, because mankind have made a number of discoveries and didn’t know how to “cover them back” afterwards. We can see mothers who receive huge amounts of hormones. What will happen to them? If the main criterion for using any method is set in the course of time, how do we know what will happen to test-tube babies? What will happen to test-tube babies’ babies?

It is known that there should be some spare embryos for IVF, they somehow “help” each other and there is a greater chance of pregnancy. But where should others go in case of pregnancy? They are either destroyed, or frozen for another procedure in case of failure, or used for scientific purposes if their “owners” donate them. Will humankind get away with treating human beings like this?

In March of 2013 ELLE magazine published in interview with Victoria Zaletova – the head of Moscow clinic called “Mama”. Victoria told that they had a married couple who gave birth to twins and for whom they froze two more embryos. So, the couple gave birth to another pair of twins six years later. “It looks like a miracle. But for us it’s what we see every day, just one of the methods we use. – The doctor comments. – One can argue if it’s good or bad. Reproduction specialists have a more down to earth position: there is a couple, their goal is to have a baby, there are certain options. Cosmos, universe – we don’t care much about this stuff” 23 23 Science of IVF. ELLE, March, 2013. P. 191. .

But we, psychologists, do. I would like to remind you that “cosmos” is translated from Greek as “order”. In practical psychology and psychotherapy order is very important. Essentially, this whole book is about how infertile women restored the distorted order in their minds, and only after this did they receive their ability to conceive, bear and give birth. When I hear someone saying that a man put himself beyond the laws of the universe, moreover above them, I feel the fear crippling down my spine. This means for me that people don’t know what they are doing.

What order is violated by reproduction specialists? They neglect a huge area of knowledge they are not aware of. They interfere with material stuff, as if forgetting that a man is not only a material object. There are oh so many things that are impossible to be described from a material point of view. For example, doctors believe that a personality develops only after birth. Psychologists view this differently – an individual enters this world determined by his/her prior experience: conception, pregnancy, birth – and the life goes along with this state.

Another issue is that IVF costs a lot. Money means business, how can you be sure that you are treated and not being used? It’s a mistake to call IVF a treatment method. It’s a trick, one more experiment curious humankind does on the nature: “What happens, if?..” And who will pay for this childish curiosity and what is really the price for it?

But the main question for me is the following: if women agreed to IVF, this means they had some reason for infertility? And the reason did not go away as the result of the procedure. Roman Nikolaevich Getmanov, obstetrician of Central City Hospital #70, shares: “We often have women who come to give birth after IVF. In my experience, they have more issues giving birth that those who conceived naturally. I think it’s due to the fact, that these women force their body to do something it probably does not need” 24 24 http://www.pravmir.ru/eko-neopravdannyj-risk-glavnyj-pediatr-rossii-o-posledstviyax-zachatiya-v-probirke/ .

I agree with this and I will add from my own experience as a therapist; isn’t it more logical to try and find the reason and give the body what it wants from psychological point of view? People exist as a whole – body changes as mind changes. If mankind accepts this point of view, the medicine will do exactly what it was meant to do – help people using holistic approach.

As I was writing the chapter on IVF, I was also asked to give an interview on credit addiction for women’s online magazine “She” 25 25 R. Efimkina, We Borrow Money To Cause Envy http://she.ngs.ru/news/more/749337/ . I gave the interview, but, as I was busy thinking about the book on infertility, it occurred to me that these two things were very much alike – freely giving credits to people and broadly using IVF.

The similarity is obvious: IVF is like a credit you take from yourself and pay interest later. I’ll explain: bank clients have their paying capacity evaluated, a woman undergoes full thorough medical examination to find out if she is able to take the procedure. It is a serious examination and it has tons of side-effects: developmental issues, mental illness, etc. Infertile woman can’t do what a healthy woman can. Some side effects are both sad and ridiculous, because no one controls a woman’s health when she goes in bed with a man: does she have a history of mental illness? Crazy part is that the nature ALREADY deprived the woman going through with IVF of health necessary to have a baby in a natural way. If she was healthy, why would she pay hundreds of thousands for what happens in bedrooms every night, if one is up to it?!

It’s the same with credits: save the money and buy, don’t ask money from a bank, don’t make yourself a slave for twenty years! But now, it’s those people who can’t afford are the ones who borrow. Can’t afford it, but want to buy a house. Cant’ afford it, but want to have a baby. What if either lived their life according to their means, or tried and became a person of means? May our wishes coincide with our options.

Step two: a woman’s ovary is stimulated to have several eggs. Doctors say it is harmless or try to avoid this topic. For example, Vladislav Korsak CEO of International center of reproductive medicine in St.-Petersburg gave a rather vague answer to a direct question if IVF was dangerous: “Living is dangerous altogether” 26 26 Science of IVF. ELLE, 2013, March. P. 190. . And women online share dreadful details of their experience. Whom should we believe?

One of my persistent acquaintances went through IVF for eleven times. In Israel. She almost went blind, but she gave birth to twins. But again, after going in psychotherapy. She did this not to be dumped by her (ve-e-e-ry high-ranking!) husband. After the therapy she was the one to leave him and take the children. How is a woman to pay for having her pituitary bombarded with hormones in such a way? At the very least, her climax comes several years earlier. Even if she does not become a mother, she will still have to pay. But afterwards. How does a bank customer pay for having the whole sum at once now? He takes one sum of money, but he gives back a different one – with interest. As they say: you take other people’s money, but you pay back your own. And he pays the interest in the first place. If he decides to terminate the contract, he still has to pay the interest.