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Women in Spain increasingly delay the fact of being mothers. Labor, social, cultural or personal issues make the chosen age to get pregnant for the first time, on average, over 31 years and that one in 10 has already turned 40 when she sees the face of her first baby.
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The problem is that from the age of 30, the ovarian reserve is reducing and the chances of a pregnancy by natural means decrease. And there comes the business of fertility and the “medicine of desire”, as he explains Julia Bacardit in his book The price of being a mother (Editorial Apostroph).
“It is a business that moves a lot of money. There are several steps: the private clinics, which are cheaper and more expensive, and then there are the pharmaceutical companies that sell the hormonal drugs (If you are a donor, the clinic pays you, well the women who try to be mothers pay it) but if you are the one who wants to be a mother, you have to pay it, “acknowledges the writer who wanted to reflect with interviews with donors and recipients how this complex process.
The truth is that the average age of women who undergo assisted reproduction treatments is 39 years and that more than 33,600 babies in 2017 They came to this world with these systems. Many children and many mothers subjected to different processes that have a very high turnover.
“The process with donated eggs is the most expensive, because you have to pay for the eggs and keep them. That is between 8,000 and 10,000 euros. The problem is that normally in vitro they work at 25% and you have to try it more than once. One thing is to pay 8,000 euros and another 24,000 because you do it three times, “he says.
Donors receive about 1,000 euros for their eggs: “The check was given to me when everything ended, without income tax or VAT, 1,000 euros”, a donor acknowledges in the book when talking about one of the clinics.
A box of Menopur, the drug that makes it easier for follicles to grow before insemination, costs 340 euros and lasts three or four days. Most women need to take it for a week. Add and follow.
“Unfair”
The testimonies of women who have participated in the process reveal a much harsher and more unfair reality than people may think. “The first thing I thought is how unfair to donors, they don’t even talk about them. But the truth is that the whole dynamic is perfidious because women sometimes just can’t be mothers at one point and then it may be too late for the body. And that also seemed very unfair to me“, explains this journalist and writer.
The price of being a mother it is a book, basically, for women. For those who are thinking of donating an egg. For those who are thinking of receiving them. For those who do not want to be mothers yet. For those who already are. Because it does speak of a process that always has women in the eye of the hurricane.
“You play with the feeling of motherhood. What most caught my attention were the advertisements. Advertising greatly abuses the dream of motherhood. That same concept of motherhood as something sacred, but they mix it with that you can do it however you want, whenever you want, whatever you are and deadlines. Marketing is like this, the problem is that it is a different topic: not the same selling shoes as selling the possibility of being a mother“, he insists.
It is true that even if they sell you that you can do it whenever you want, you cannot choose everything. In Spain it is forbidden to choose the sex of the child and the color of the eyes. However, the legislation in our country is more flexible than in other European countries which has generated an “insemination tourism” to be cheaper, easier and safer, thanks to our health.
“The law allows up to 6 babies born from a single donor but the system is anonymous and records are not even shared at the national level. So, what control is there?” Asks Júlia Bacardit.
In fact, Almost half of the eggs donated throughout Europe are made in Spain, thanks to an anonymity system that does not facilitate its regulation and that means that there are many more donors since “it is not the same to give eggs knowing that no one is going to claim you, than to give them and think that they will locate you anyway”. A practice that clinics and some donors take advantage of.
“If you are a good donor, because it turns out that they have given you hormones and have taken many eggs, they will call you again. And they can call you up to three times. One of the interviewees is a 23-year-old girl who explained that she had done it out of altruism. She had a pretty precarious job and put a lot of emphasis on the empathic part, but they called her three times! “, The writer admits to Store.
Also, if you happen to need more money, a donor could go to another clinic in another community and donate again without anyone noticing. “It is difficult to determine the six children. Because you could donate and have six children in one go, it is very difficult but it is not impossible.”
The first girl who was born in Spain by in vitro fertilization technique was in Barcelona in 1984. It was the fourth in Europe and the sixth in the world and marked a milestone in was a milestone for science. But 36 years later and with more than 300 clinics throughout Spain, the price of maternity is no longer so scientific.
“It was a case of physical infertility and it was sold as progress, helping someone do something they couldn’t before. But as it has progressed, the potential that it has beyond diseases has been seen and it becomes a medicine of desire, do it because you can“.
Dangers of donating
Júlia Bacardit admits that she started writing this book because she also thought about donating. His mother, a doctor by profession, went crazy and his gynecologist preferred not to comment: “I thought I was more conservative and that I thought there would be a child in the world, which is not your son, but he does have your genetics. But beyond that, he told me that is dangerous. And why then is so much done?“.
Bacardit warns that “The dangers of getting hormones come because they are quite an important kick”. Not so much because of the pain of being pricked, but there are risks of ovarian hyperstimulation, “What is it that your ovaries swell with water” and also with torsion, which is more complicated but it is there. “That is short term, but in the long term not much is known about the consequences because there has not been time to study them. Nor is it the same to donate once than several, “he clarifies.
And he gives an example of clomiphene that was previously one of the substances that was taken for ovarian stimulation and it has been shown to increase the chances of suffering from cancer of the breast or female reproductive system. “In the end you are altering your body.”
Further, not always all clinics monitor their health or treat them properly: “Many donors have felt quite mistreated in that sense. That the clinic takes great care of them in the first session and makes it easy for them to be donors because they are desperate, they need eggs, but when you have a problem or it gets complicated. .. “.
As she explains, “only one donor told me that they did call her after a few days and then after a year. She was surprised to think what could have happened to her in that year so that they would call her to make sure“.
To be a donor in Spain you have to pass a psychological test, but many of the women who have spoken with the author They have made it clear that you almost answer what you answer, you approve: “Some told me that when they were asked if they heard voices or had had peculiar experiences, they answered yes and went ahead.”
It is difficult to separate where the social good, science, and business exist. “People expect many things before becoming a mother and that is what clinics live on. But to what extent do we have to nurture that artifice, especially without thinking it over before because there are many ethical implications that it would be good to talk about as a society. I focus on Spain and Catalonia, but it is a problem that happens all over the world “.
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