My wife and I waited too long to try IVF, and at that point, we had only one shot because we hadn't frozen more eggs sooner. (and our once chance was unsuccessful)
Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
381–390 of 770 posts
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
#382Earlier quoted context omitted.
The extraction process will gather something like 10 eggs (plus or minus a lot)... Isn't 10 minus "a lot", close to or equal to 0? Or is there something I'm missing with this phrasing?
Perhaps I was being overly flippant as I don't have the precise distribution. I'm sure it could be zero, I don't know how often that is though. A quick Google gives 10-20 on average: https://www.arcfertility.com/how-is-ivf-done-step-by-step/#:... .
Age can affect this. We didn't freeze my wife's until her late 30s; only 4 eggs were created.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
#383Wait, why is the advice to 'do something invasive, risky, and unnatural' when the actual advice should be 'have children when you're younger, not older.'
You shouldn't refrigerate your food. It's risky and unnatural. For the first 300,000 years of human history, people got along fine without refrigeration - why don't you just hunt and gather like you were intended to? IVF, egg and embryo freezing, and related technologies are modern miracles that allow people to live better lives by increasing their fertility options.
"Got along fine" with half of the life expectancy, or less.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
#384I agree completely with the premise that most people don't appreciate just how fleeting fertility can be, but I think rather than freezing eggs, the solution is for people to normalize having children at a younger age and designing work and home life around children existing and even being present in certain work contexts. Obviously freezing your eggs is something that you can do as individual without society's input…
It's clear that, on so many levels, the gradual deferral of child-bearing to the 30s (even 40s!) has been incredibly costly and destructive to society. We need to figure out a way to reconcile having children starting in the late teens and ending in the mid-20s (which is by far the safest, cheapest, and easiest time to do it) with the modern economy (which prioritizes slavishly focusing on school/work until your fert…
For a while I've been thinking about moving back in/near my parents so that if/when I decide to start a family, they can be around to help out so as dampen the career stunting effects of having children. I think this would especially be useful to my then wife, but of course such things sound great on paper but are much more difficult to execute in reality.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
>In the United States, it's economically difficult I doubt that until you pretend to have living conditions on par with these in Pakistan. I bet people simply are ambitious, and have way higher expectations regarding living standards, hence this feeling of struggling in pursuing the expected standards. > you need to fix things up from the material conditions Birth rates: Pakistan: 3.51 India: 2.22 US: 1.73 Denmark: 1…
OK, now show me the average percent of a person's income required to secure a roof over your head in Pakistan. We could also talk about the difference in availability of childcare in Pakistan, or any country where strong family ties and multi-generational households are common, vs higher-income countries without these features. We would also have to consider that in many high-income countries it is literally illegal…
> show me the average percent of a person's income required to secure a roof over your head in Pakistan
Very high. Avg US person spends 6.4% on food, while avg Pakistani spends 40%+. [1]
> We could also talk about the difference in availability of childcare in Pakistan, or any country where strong family ties
This is my point. People in the wealthy countries are way more focused on their careers and consumption (no negative implied). It's not that people can't have more childcare by, say, earlier retirement or one parent dedicating themself to babysitting at the expense of the lower living standards.
> We would also have to consider that in many high-income countries it is literally illegal to live below a certain standard of living without running the risk of having your children taken from you by the state.
Relevant maybe for lower few percents in the West, while you are talking about "young people" in general.
[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/this-map-shows-how-mu...
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
#386I agree completely with the premise that most people don't appreciate just how fleeting fertility can be, but I think rather than freezing eggs, the solution is for people to normalize having children at a younger age and designing work and home life around children existing and even being present in certain work contexts. Obviously freezing your eggs is something that you can do as individual without society's input…
> the solution is for people to normalize having children at a younger age and designing work and home life around children
100%
In ancient times mothers always worked with babys strapped to their stomachs. A baby needs a mother and it needs to be fed with nice milk constantly. I was really happy seeing a lady breastfeeding her child in the Australian parliament. An safe and sane environment where this is normality needs to be the goal.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
#387Your whole blog resonates deeply with me. All this corporate grifting and women's empowerment months will do jack shit until we figure out how to make workplaces and lives more equitable for mothers and allowing for gaps, breaks and destigmatizing time off for parents of both genders. Instead, we talk about how sexism is the biggest problem. Sure, sexism might be annoying, but in the west, it is hardly something that…
> When I mention it to someone that I want to take time off for a couple years to have children in silicon valley, they look at me as if I'm an alien. As if wanting to be pregnant and not working at the same time as being sleep deprived and wanting to spend time with my own baby when they are at their youngest is some strange outlandish fantasy. And this happens way more than people lead on and for the exact BS reaso…
I have a lot of friends in SF. At least in the tech industry, it seems that the main reason people live in SF despite the significant downsides is for career options and pay. So I'd guess that the SF dating pool is already strongly skewed to people who choose career over all else.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not clear what you're asking for exactly, but the solution is obvious: give whatever it is that you want to provide to EVERYONE, regardless of their gender, and whether or not they actually have children. Special treatment for everyone.
This is a nice sentiment, but doing so would have unintended consequences. For example, in most top universities, they give roughly the same leave to new fathers as new mothers. New mothers use this time to care for their baby, but many new fathers use this time as an extended sabbatical/research leave. Their wives take care of the baby for the most part, and they work on their next book. Then when it comes time for…
Similar where I work. A male colleague has taken a couple paternity leaves in the last few years and he said he just spent the time working on side projects and watching TV.
He did spend some time caring for his new children but if his case is representative then, for a male, having a child is like getting extra paid time off which is not fair to people who may not use paternity leave.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
#389I think women have largely been presented a false promise by progressives: value and purpose is derived from work, go do what men do to be their equal. It’s not necessarily anybody’s fault, we live in a society where money is valued. But I wish we could structure society in a way such that the value of raising children, homemaking, is clearly communicated and understood. Being a mother without a snazzy career is frow…
> I think women have largely been presented a false promise by progressives There's a lot of sneering and judgment by women, toward women who choose to be a stay at home mom and not have a career.
> There's a lot of sneering and judgment by women...
Do you think they would feel differently if the bar to owning a home was lowered to one-income household, 20% DTI, 20-year mortgage, no more than 3% interest, 10% down, no PMI? I suspect a lot of distortions come from a very misaligned house purchase requirements to income availability picture.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility
#390I think women have largely been presented a false promise by progressives: value and purpose is derived from work, go do what men do to be their equal. It’s not necessarily anybody’s fault, we live in a society where money is valued. But I wish we could structure society in a way such that the value of raising children, homemaking, is clearly communicated and understood. Being a mother without a snazzy career is frow…
I don't believe this is sexism at its core. The entire west society is built on the one axiom that work means value. Everything else is extra. That's even worse in the US. I'm in a similar situation where I'd love to be a parent full-time and be essentially free to live my life. But I could never do that even if my wife wanted to work and let me stay at home. With one person's salary, you can't really sustain a house…
If all companies decided to 4x all salaries tomorrow, the cost of all the things we pay for would rise drastically, offsetting whatever extra you're making.
The answer is not as simple as "companies should just pay more."