In this issue, you'll find:

• Message from Pamela Madsen – New Connecticut Fertility Law; Egg Donation
• Upcoming AFA Events and Support Services:
  • Fertility Dream in Chicago, Danbury & Boston
  • Pregnancy Loss Coaching Tele-Group
• This month's featured article:
  • What’s in a Word? By Jacky Boivin, PhD

Dear Friends,

Good news from Connecticut this month! Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell signed into law a bill that requires insurance coverage of many fertility treatments. This law offers infertile couples, who have had insurance for at least a year, coverage for a variety of procedures, such as induction of ovulation, artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization (IVF), which will help many Connecticut residents start families.

We hope other states continue to follow suit, and also mandate insurance coverage for fertility treatments. Another important ART issue receiving national attention, is ensuring that egg donation continues to be an option for those who will rely on donated eggs to build their family.

Egg donation has helped thousands of women achieve pregnancy and deliver healthy children who would have otherwise never realized that dream. The AFA is committed to keeping this option available in the United States. Egg donation, however, has received extensive negative publicity, mainly as a result of what is considered high fees that fertility clinics pay to some donors.

Since negative media attention has the potential to initiate legislation in Congress that could effectively eliminate gamete (egg and sperm) donation as an option for many needy couples, The AFA and others have begun to contact independent agencies providing oocyte donation matching services.

Banning of gamete donation has already occurred in a few countries outside of the United States, like Italy in a parliamentary vote in the spring of 2004. A referendum to overturn that Italian law in 2005 was unsuccessful. Couples who seek donor eggs in Italy now have to travel outside of their country for assistance, increasing the financial cost and emotional burden for many Italian couples with reproductive difficulties.

Thankfully, fertility patients in the U.S. do not have to face this issue today and the AFA will continue to advocate for egg donation to ensure we do not have to face this issue in the future. We are pleased to share with you the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) list of egg donation agencies who are SART members, and who agree to follow SART guidelines for egg donation. We hope this list will be of assistance to you should choose this option on your fertility journey

Stay well,
Pamela

This month's featured article:

WHAT ’S IN A WORD?
by Jacky Boivin, PhD

“Barren”, “sterile”, “infertile”, are just some of the words we use to refer to men and women who have reproductive difficulties. Does it matter which one we use? What do these words mean to you? When I think “barren”, I think of a dry unyielding landscape extending as far as the eye can see, nothing growing, not now, not ever; “sterile” is cold, harsh, unkind, it repels life rather than offers it up; “infertile” is better, but the “in” makes the word deeply painful. Many hear "not quite fertile." It makes me think incompetent, incapable, incomplete. So words do make a difference, but does it affect how people with the problem behave.

Some words used in reproductive health label people whereas others label problems, and from a psychological perspective that is an important distinction. If you are a “sterile man” or “infertile woman” that is an all-encompassing label, the adjective is applied to the whole of you, not just your blocked tubes, hormones or wandering sperm. This kind of label narrows your horizons, your possibilities, your competence, and essentially asks that you take on another identity, become someone new and worse someone less complete. And herein lies the problem: many people who believe they have reproductive difficulties are reluctant to take action because they fear how that label might affect who they are, how they think or feel about themselves and how others see them.

Indeed, once you have a label, you generally start to act in a way that confirms that label, or what that label means to you. If being a “sterile woman” makes you feel incompetent, then you pay more attention to those aspects of your behavior that confirm that label. In other words, the label generalizes your feelings of incompetence from your reproductive ability to all of your abilities, so that you come to perceive yourself as incapable in a variety of ways.
When you label people instead of problems you also affect the way other people behave towards you. Because the label is attached to you, people may start to make assumptions about what you can or cannot do, even if the task at hand has nothing to do with the particular problem. So you take the label personally and so do people around you.

So if the label makes a difference and it affects people, why not label the problem rather than the person? Is a ‘sterile man’ the same as a man with “reproductive difficulties”? What does the word “difficulty” mean to you? It makes me think – obstacle, hindrance, hassle, and all of these make me want to solve the problem. “Difficulties” is a familiar word, one we encounter all the time, at work, in relationships, at the post office. We know what to do when we have difficulties, we have possible ways of coping, we have experience resolving them. “Difficulties” is an action word, a get going sort of word, a call to action, a challenge. More importantly, reproductive difficulties as a label does not narrow who I am; in fact it adds to my complexity as a person: I am + "reproductive difficulty". Whether or not the difficulty is there, “I am” remains intact.

It is because words matter that patient advocacy organizations are committing themselves to labeling problems rather than people and to raise awareness that reproductive difficulties can be overcome. By changing the label, it will be easier for people to start finding solutions to their reproductive problems now.