I was reading a post today on a board over on WebMD about a gal who was questioning the size of her stomach. She had just had an IUI done two weeks prior. She said that her doctors were concerned about her hyper stimulating, but her post didn't mention if they were concerned about the 10 follicles that were mature when they triggered.
Oh my goodness! I think I'd be more worried about having that many mature follies than of being overstimulated! What were those doctors thinking?? What's going to happen if God forbid all 10 of those follicles release eggs AND they fertilize and implant? Women just weren't made to carry that many children at one time.
Why would a doctor allow a woman with that many mature follicles to trigger? I just don't get it. Do they not care about the resulting babies? Or do they just want to get their patients pregnant, and damned the consequences of a high order multiples (HOM) birth.
I just recently read an article by a Ph.D. who was questioning the validity of what he called megamultiples (what most of us would call high order multiples). How too often when women carry more than triplets (and sometimes even triplets), the chances of their being delivered too soon are almost guaranteed, with lots of time spent in the NICU, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus many times, one or more of the babies do not survive past their first month of life.
The article really was a jab at the media who makes these HOM births out to be all roses and daisies, yet they downplay the risks involved to both the mom (preeclampsia, heart failure, gestational diabetes, death) and babies (mental retardation, physical disabilities, death). How many of us remember seeing the lady in Minnesota who gave birth to six babies last year? But did you ever hear that she lost three of the babies within months of their birth?
I think that most women and their partners go into infertility treatments knowing the risks. However, we rely on our doctors to keep us well informed, and sometimes even discourage our continued treatments, if the risks are too high. I just wonder what happened in this case.
