LEEP of Faith

Met a 44-year-old woman today, pregnant with her first child...though I don't know if we'll be in touch again, we have each other's email address, and I feel somehow protective of her, don't want to say too much about her. But I will mention just one thing, because it needs to be known that some doctors are like this.

She was scheduled to have a LEEP procedure done (LEEP stands for "Loop Electrosurgical Excision Procedure," and it's done to treat cervical dysplasia, which is the appearance of abnormal cells on the cervix--a pre-cancerous condition). Such a procedure can increase the possibility of problematic pregnancies or even cause miscarriages or infertility, so she asked her doctor if she should think about freezing some of her eggs. Her doctor's response: "You're too old to have a baby anyway." This, when she was only forty, not forty-four.

When I was around forty-one, and nearly giving up hope of ever having a child, a doctor did something much less cruel--but it was still disheartening enough. He showed me a table charting the rapidly decreasing likelihood of conceiving and carrying a healthy baby to term, once a woman hits forty. After forty-two, the success rate just plummets.

When he showed me this chart I just nodded my head, dutifully said I would think about it, and went home. What I should have said (in as calm a voice as possible): "What are you trying to tell me, that I should just throw up my hands and call it quits?" And perhaps what this woman should have said to her doctor: "What kind of crazy talk is that? Of course I'm not too old to have a baby!" The woman did leave that doctor and now has another one--which is perhaps the best response to his stupid statement.

I'm sure that many, many women in their early forties who are trying to conceive have heard some variant of "You're too old to have a baby," or "You should really think carefully about this." I don't know why some doctors feel compelled to discourage women in this way--especially nowadays, with all the tests that are available to make sure a pregnancy is progressing normally. Do they think we are excessively stupid and/or arrogant to have waited until this age to conceive? Or do they think we don't understand the improbability and the risks?

On the other hand--I also feel that a woman who conceives a baby after she turns forty should be required to take a CVS or an amniocentesis test. The risk of a problematic pregnancy is so high that women should not complain at that age about giving up, at least momentarily, a certain amount of freedom. This will become, no doubt, a more pressing issue in the not-too-distant future, as more and more women in their forties choose to become pregnant for the first time.