Head Scratcher: Is In-Vitro Fertilization The New Gastric Bypass?
Posted by: Amelia McDonell-Parry
Filed in:
celebs
3:15PM, Tuesday August 5th 2008
In the past few years, the following celebrities over the age of 35 have given birth to or are expecting twins: Marcia Cross, 44; Jillian Dempsey (wife of Patrick Dempsey), 40; Rebecca Romijn, 36; Jennifer Lopez, 38; Julia Roberts, 37; and Nancy Grace, 50. Angelina Jolie just gave birth to her twins at the age of 33, with Us Weekly claiming that she conceived via in-vitro fertilization (IVF)—a story she and Brad Pitt deny, saying they would have been happy to talk about using IVF, if that had been the case. Of the other women mentioned, none of them have only Marcia Cross has spoken out about using IVF to conceive, and a few others have outright denied it, despite the fact that a woman’s ability to conceive drops significantly after the age of 35.
With so many twins born in Hollywood in such a short period of time, it seems highly unlikely that all of these little bundles of joy were born through complete happenstance. So why would they keep quiet about it? Does IVF have the same hush-hush, shameful stigma surrounding it that, say, gastric bypass has? We all remember when Star Jones suddenly lost hundreds of pounds and tried to play it off as all yoga and yogurt, finally coming clean in an interview with Larry King years later. Many people were angry that she didn’t use her celebrity for good and share her story to inspire other women and men with weight problems. But couldn’t the same be said for celebs who don’t talk about IVF? Should we expect celebrities to inspire others with their difficult fertility stories, and if so, why wouldn’t they? We wanted to find out why IVF might be such an on-the-down-low topic. Here are five reasons why celebrities might not be willing to share this secret.
1. How It All Works Isn’t So Sexy: Discussing the details of IVF includes going over how the father’s junk ended up in the egg’s trunk. Do you really want to think about Marc Anthony, a copy of Jugs, and a Dixie Cup?
2. Test Tube Baby Insults: Maybe keeping the conception story quiet is to protect the kids down the line. Back in my middle school days, calling someone a test tube baby was grounds for a throw down.
3. His Infertility: Ever consider the fact that maybe trouble conceiving has nothing to do with the mother? For all we know, McDreamy could be shooting blanks.
4. Pre- and Post-Birth Complications: When more than one embryo is transferred, there is always the risk of a multiple pregnancy. Some couples may be gung ho for this, but multiple births does endanger the mother and the embryos. The most common complication is premature delivery, which can lead to complications after birth, if the babies survive. Who wants Billy Bush and the Access Hollywood squad diagnosing their children with birth defects?
5. More Than Just One, Or Two, Or Three: Because many IVF treatments result in multiples, there are lots of twins and triplets born to couples using IVF—but what about those couples who have four or five or more embryos fertilized and choose to terminate a few of them in order to only have their ideal number of children? Hollywood is filled with control freaks, but this still is an awkward convo to have with Rachael Ray at 11am.
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Kiki T
wrote on August 5 2008 @ 03:49 pm: [report]
add Lisa Marie Presley to that twin list too
SFNYgirl
wrote on August 5 2008 @ 03:53 pm: [report]
Actually, the incidence of twins increases for women over the age of 35 and even more if you are over 50, without fertility treatments. The National Org of Mothers of Twins says: “The older one is, the higher one’s chance of having fraternal twins. The twinning rate is doubled for ages 35 to 40 and then decreases again, probably due to a decrease in fertility as one ages. The rate increases again for the age group 45 to 49 years. Older women are having multiples at an increasingly high rate. Since 1990, the twin birth rate has risen 80 percent among women 40-44 years of age (from 24.7 to 44.5 per 1,000) and almost 600 percent among women aged 45-49 compared to only a six percent rise for women under age 20. There were more twins born to women ages 45 to 49 in 1997 than during the entire decade of the 1980s. ... you are less likely to give birth over the age of 45. But if you do, there is a 33 percent chance that it will be a multiple birth.”
wendy
wrote on August 5 2008 @ 03:54 pm: [report]
You said the chances drop significantly for women after 35 but women between the ages of 35 and 40 have an increased chance of having twins.
atlgirl
wrote on August 5 2008 @ 04:30 pm: [report]
It’s a shame that any woman should feel she has to be in the closet about assisted reproduction. That said, I think it’s a celebrity’s right to disclose how much he/she wants to about that most personal of choices. It would be great if more celebs—like Brooke Shields—came out about their experiences with infertility. I know so many woman who believe they can wait until their 40s and still magically get pregnant. And while it’s not as common, I do know women who get pregnant the old-fashioned way in their late 30s and early 40s. Twins or not, you can’t just assume.
Lindsey
wrote on August 5 2008 @ 04:55 pm: [report]
Your statement about the celebrities listed not mentioning whether or not they used fertility is not completely correct.
In the People Magazine cover story that Marcia Cross did with her twin girls last year, Marcia OPENLY admitted that she and her husband gave up their honeymoon so that they could stay and get fertility treatment. The article is readily available online on “People’s” site.
While a lot of celebrities are secretive about this, all of them aren’t.
Elle
wrote on August 5 2008 @ 06:05 pm: [report]
I don’t under the secrecy around IVF either. I mean if you can’t conceive, you can’t conceive. There is nothing shameful about that. There are so many women out there who can’t conceive naturally and knowing that so many celebrity mom’s are having IVF would probably make them feel better. Who cares if you have a test tube baby? In another 10 years, the majority of children in school will have been conceived via IVF.
Rachel Inbar
wrote on August 7 2008 @ 12:10 pm: [report]
Higher order multiples are more common with IUI, when it’s difficult to control the number of ova that are released. With IVF, if you transfer 2 embryos, the incidence of triplets is extremely low (though not unheard of). I don’t think 4 or 5 are really reasons that celebrities would avoid discussing IVF. A reason you’ve omitted is the use of donor gametes (particularly eggs, in women over 40). The chances that a woman had IVF at 50 using her own eggs are nil, whereas, if she conceived naturally, they’re obviously hers - hiding IVF in this case significantly reduces speculation… I think one other point is that celebrities don’t want to be accused of having ‘designer babies’.
*she*
wrote on August 8 2008 @ 11:13 am: [report]
” I mean if you can’t conceive, you can’t conceive. There is nothing shameful about that… Who cares if you have a test tube baby? In another 10 years, the majority of children in school will have been conceived via IVF.”
I’ll probably be cruxified for this, but is IVF on this scale is a good idea? Our world is already over-opulated world at 6+ billion and perhaps there’s a biological reason those with fertility problems can’t reproduce- biology knows what it’s doing and doesn’t want to pass on faulty genes. If people really want to raise children they can always adopt.