“I’ve got 44-year-olds who show up in my office after trying two months and say, ‘I don’t understand, my gynecologist told me I was fine,’” says [Dr. Jamie] Grifo. “Now, he didn’t say, ‘You’re going to be fertile forever.’ But they didn’t hear that part . . . And for these women, if IVF doesn’t work, it’s very hard to recover. They have to grieve and mourn and make a life. These women, the 44-year-olds, are the ones that struggle the most, because they are so angry. And they’re angry at one person, but they won’t admit it. They’re angry at themselves.”
While waiting for the hour-plus-late New York-Boston train, I went to the newsstand and bought the latest issue of New York Magazine for its fascinating cover article, “Waking Up from the Pill.” Although most readers here won’t come to the same conclusions as its author, Vanessa Grigoriadis, most will agree with her that the Pill has greatly exacerbated female infertility and led to a great deal of heartbreak among women who delay childbearing in the interest of career ambitions and sexual freedom. Even to a pro-sex feminist like Grigoriadis, the Pill has emerged as a tool to control rather than empower women, with disturbing consequences.
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