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This morning, Giuliana Rancic revealed she has breast cancer.
E! News host, Giuliana Rancic, announced today that she has breast cancer. In an exclusive interview on the “Today Show“, Rancic said her cancer was found early and that she will undergo lumpectomy surgery this week, followed by several rounds of radiation.
If you follow celebrity baby news, you’re likely to know all about Rancic’s attempt to have a baby via in vitro fertilization. But did you know that it was thanks to her IVF treatment that the breast cancer was found?
E! News Online reports, “Just prior to beginning their third round of [IVF] treatments, the doctor she was working with told her she needed to get a mammogram to ensure there was no possibility of cancer before attempting to get pregnant, as the hormones would accelerate any cancerous cells present in her body. After resisting, Rancic agreed to get one.” She resisted, she says, because at the age of 36 she thought she was too young to have breast cancer.
Does the upside outweigh the downside in a contest to win IVF treatments?
Earlier this year a charity in the United Kingdom launched a lottery, the winner of which received free in vitro fertilization treatments.
Some cried that the lottery preyed on the emotions of parents unable to conceive, most of whom would be unlucky enough to win the pricey treatments. Others argued that the upside for the winner was enough to make it worthwhile.
But what to make of a competition launched by a Canadian radio station in which they are advertising the chance to “win a baby?”
Hot 89.9 in Ottawa is offering three rounds of fertility treatments worth over $30,000 to the contestant who can convince listeners and a panel of judges in 100 words or less that they are most deserving of the chance to become parents, according to The Guardian.
Continue reading »
Dangle the hope of a million dollars in front of someone's face, but not the hope of a very real baby
If you’ve ever struggled to conceive, then you don’t need to be told that it’s an emotional and heart-wrenching time. Wondering if you’ll ever give birth to the healthy baby that you’ve always dreamed of having can leave you thinking of little else.
That’s why my heart is breaking a little for those in the U.K. who might be trying to get pregnant without much success. A charity called To Hatch is launching a monthly contest beginning July 30 in which a $32 ticket will make you eligible to win $25,000 worth of personalized fertility treatments. The contest is open to everyone — single people, gay, elderly, straight and couples.
But like counting on winning the lotto jackpot to change your life, what is a contest like this really doing to everyone who won’t win (which is, realistically speaking, everyone) but enters anyway? Does someone going through the emotional trauma of infertility really need a contest like this to raise and then dash their hopes yet again?
Making a baby from three parents
This week, a British medical panel gave the green light for further research on a technique using genetic information from three parents. The panel said that there was no evidence so far that the technique is dangerous.
The method would be used during IVF to help couples when the baby is at risk for mitochondrial diseases (resulting from faulty DNA in the mitochondria, which lives outside the nucleus and is passed down by mom). Here’s how the three-parent technique would work:
This time, the needle leads to life.
Imagine if, in order to conceive a child, you had to replicate an act that had wrecked your life beyond recognition. An act that had, in fact, almost killed you. One that had led you through a hazy maze of dark and hopeless days during which you’d repeat that act up to forty times in a futile attempt to forever numb the self-hatred you had come to feel?
Would you do it? Would you prick yourself with a needle just like the one you once used to administer heroin and cocaine in hopes that instead of becoming high you might become pregnant? Or would you fear that by doing so, you’d put yourself at risk for falling back to the place you’d fought so valiantly to escape?
Aussie couple wants a girl badly enough to abort male fetuses.
An Australian couple recently made a very strange decision to terminate a pregnancy. They have three sons, and lost a baby girl shortly after her birth. They got pregnant again, using IVF. Then, they decided to abort the twin boys they conceived because they “want the opportunity to have the baby daughter they were tragically denied.”
Um.
Sasha Brown-Worsham at The Stir calls this a further tragedy. The couple terminated an otherwise viable pregnancy because they didn’t like the gender of the children they were expecting. I’m too deeply pro-choice to call it a tragedy. Sasha says they’re destroying life in trying to create the life they want, but that’s not quite right. I’ll stand behind a woman’s right to have an abortion for any reason. No one should ever be forced to be pregnant.
That said, I do find this couple’s actions appalling. From my armchair psychologist point-of-view, they’re flailing in grief. They probably shouldn’t be adding any children to their family right now, regardless of gender. Imagine if they do have a “replacement” girl, what life will be like for her? And for her three brothers? Shudder. Continue reading »
Imagine if one of these guys was born 11 years after the other 2.
Each of our triplets were born exactly one minute apart. Still, the two minutes which elapsed from the birth of “Baby A” to “Baby C” seemed like hours to me. Imagine if I had had to wait 11 years!
Such was the case for a Walsall, Great Britain family. Parents Lisa and Adrian Shepherd were married in 1994. Lisa would soon be diagnosed with endometriosis and polycystic ovaries. She was advised that her chances of getting pregnant were “not promising.” After years of trying various solutions, the Shepherds entered the world of in vitro fertilization in 1998. Fourteen of Lisa’s 24 eggs were successfully fertilized with the father’s sperm. Two of the 14 were then implanted with the other 12 going to frozen storage.
Though the couple “didn’t get their hopes up,” they soon found out that they were expecting twin girls. But that’s only the very beginning of their story.
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Wendy Michaels 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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