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Single Mothers-to-Be Face Bias, Race Ticking Clock
06/18/04 By Molly M. Ginty
WeNews correspondent
A growing number of
single women are seeking fertility treatments and
finding that persistent problems block their path to
parenthood.
(WOMENSENEWS)--All
Melinda Millsaps ever wanted was to have a child of her
own. During her 20 years as a neonatal nurse in
Gainesville, Fla., she helped deliver thousands of
babies. After hours and in her spare time, she met
scores of eligible men.
But at age 39, with no
Mr. Right and no pregnancy on her horizon, Millsaps
decided to take matters into her own hands and seek
artificial insemination. She was shocked--then
horrified--when the very hospital for which she
worked refused to grant her treatment. Her employer, the
Shands HealthCare and Faculty Group Practice in
Gainesville, Fla., only reserved donor sperm for married
heterosexual couples.
After six years of
battling her employer in federal court, Millsaps, now
45, has lost both her legal case (which was decided
earlier this year) and her hopes of having a biological
child. When Shands refused to offer her care, she sought
treatment at other clinics and discovered that her eggs
are no longer viable. "If I had just brought a man with
me to the clinic six years ago, I would have received
treatment," she says. "But I didn't want to have to lie
to get health care and I don't think millions of other
single women should, either."
Though health agencies
have yet to compile solid statistics on the subject,
medical experts say a growing number of single women are
seeking artificial insemination and other fertility
treatments. While women elsewhere in the world are
fighting for basic health care, women in the United
States are fighting for the technology that will enable
them to become parents when and if they so choose.
Whether they are among the 6.1 million U.S. women who
are infertile--or whether their reproductive systems are
fully functioning--these women face discrimination,
prohibitive costs and biological clocks that are running
out of time.
Some Fertility Clinics
Reluctant to Treat Single Women
The Atlanta-based
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that
16 percent of reproductive health care providers in the
United States routinely refuse to offer treatment to
single women. Because there are no laws in the United
States that require physicians to treat fertility
patients, doctors may turn away single women if they
believe children should be raised within the context of
a heterosexual marriage.
"When I met doctors who
were reluctant to treat me, I argued that I had a stable
job and a strong support network," says Millsaps. "I
argued that 50 percent of marriages end in divorce,
anyway. Even so, Shands and five other clinics flat-out
refused to offer me care."
Shands is affiliated
with the University of Florida based in Gainesville. All
obstetricians and gynecologists who work at Shands are
University of Florida personnel.
"However UF physicians
will not perform artificial insemination if the patient
doesn't suffer from a medical condition, but
fertilization/impregnation is not possible solely due to
the absences of a male partner," the University of
Florida said in a faxed statement to Women's eNews.
In response to
discrimination like this, a small but growing number of
fertility clinics are marketing themselves to straight
single women and lesbians. These include Fenway
Community Health in Boston, The Sperm Bank of California
in Berkeley and Maia Midwifery and Preconception
Services in Orinda, Calif.
Fertility Treatments
Can Cost Up to $100,000
For single women who do
find doctors willing to help them, the cost of assisted
reproduction can be prohibitively expensive. Artificial
insemination, in which a woman uses donor sperm to get
pregnant, can cost $500 to $5,000. In vitro
fertilization, in which a woman's eggs are harvested
from her body, fertilized with sperm, then implanted
back in her uterus, costs $25,000 to $75,000.
Gestational surrogacy, where the embryo resulting from
in vitro fertilization is implanted in the womb of a
surrogate carrier, costs $50,000 to $100,000.
"Fertility treatments
are expensive because the technology involved is very
elaborate," says Alina Salganicoff, the director of
Women's Health Policy for the Kaiser Family Foundation,
a health care policy organization based in Menlo Park,
Calif. "And typically, patients must pay for everything
out-of-pocket. Health insurers only cover treatments
that they consider medically necessary, and they don't
define having a child as a medical necessity."
The Washington-based
Institute for Women's Policy Research reports that women
still earn only 76 cents for every dollar earned by men,
a figure that has barely changed since the 1970s.
According to the U.S. Census, the median income for
women in the United States is $20,000 (compared to
$30,500 for men). Due to this financial discrepancy,
fertility treatments are often out of reach for women
who don't have financial support from a partner. To pay
for their treatments, single women may take out loans or
second mortgages. They may borrow thousands from friends
or family members or rack up credit card bills that they
have no hope of repaying.
Preserving Eggs for
Later
According to the most
recent U.S. Census, more women than ever are electing to
remain single (24 percent) and those who do have
children are having them later than ever (at the median
age of 25.1, versus 21.4 in 1970). Because more women
are postponing marriage and children as they focus their
careers, many are finding themselves without a partner
just as their reproductive capacity is waning.
"If you want to
conceive a child on your own, you need to seek treatment
as early as possible," says Dr. David Adamson, a board
member for the American Society of Reproductive
Medicine, a coalition of reproductive doctors based in
Birmingham, Ala. "Since fertility declines markedly
after the age of 35, you need to act quickly in order to
increase your chances of success."
Determined to have
children while there is still time, some single women
are taking the preventative measure of having their eggs
frozen while they are still viable. Called
cryopreservation, this treatment is offered at a handful
of clinics in the United States and costs an average
$9,000.
"Having this procedure
gave me a tremendous sense of relief," says Deana
Tanner, a 38-year-old single woman from Georgia who had
19 of her eggs frozen at the Florida Institute for
Reproductive Medicine in Jacksonville in February. "It
has helped me relax and slow down and not worry so much
about dating or my reproductive future."
Though they may be
racing the clock, single women seeking fertility
treatment can take heart in recent medical
breakthroughs. For decades, biologists assumed that men
make millions of sperm every day, while women are born
with all the eggs they'll ever have. But in March,
researchers at Harvard University in Boston discovered
that stem cells in the ovaries of female mice keep
generating new "egg seeds" long into adulthood. Experts
suspect that the same may be true of stem cells in adult
human females and that science may some day make it
possible for women grow extra eggs for their own
fertility treatment.
Until this technology
and other advances become a reality, single women
seeking assisted reproduction must cope with the unique
stresses they face. Many are joining support groups run
by RESOLVE, an education and advocacy organization for
the infertile that is based in Somerville, Mass. Others
are reaching out to friends and family members for
comfort.
"Trying and failing to
get pregnant makes you feel like your heart is falling
out," says Sonya Austin, a 22-year-old single mom in
Minneapolis, Minn., who conceived her infant son with
help from a sperm donor. "If you have a partner, you
have someone to share your obsession and help you
through the disappointments. I'm just lucky that I had
my friends and family supporting me the whole way."
For single women who
have yet to successfully achieve pregnancy, persistence
remains the best and only hope.
"Reproduction is a
biological drive--the greatest drive of any organism,"
says Millsaps. "Even though I've had no luck with
fertility treatment, I still can't imagine life without
a child. I want a baby so much that I will continue
doing anything I can to have one."
Molly M. Ginty is a
freelance writer based in New York City.
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