Unusual Infertility Stories

Recently, Dr. Gleicher, CHR's founder, decided to put some of the more unusual patient stories he had encountered to paper. His principal motivation was to show, even difficult to treat patients, that there was almost always hope - a light at the end of an often very long, and very dark, treatment tunnel.

Patient confidentiality required, however, that the various case descriptions not disclose who the affected patients were. This, in turn, required a rather generous fictionalization of all case histories.

The individual stories, printed in this section, are, therefore, medically true. The infertility histories described and their respective treatments have all, in fact, occurred. The overall environment into which Dr. Gleicher placed them is, however, complete fiction and does by no means reflect factual patient experiences.

CHR offers these short stories as yet another educational tool which, we hope, will help to familiarize yourself with, often rather complicated, treatment options offered at CHR. In addition, we hope, you will simply enjoy their literary value.

Unusual Stories (Short Stories) Foreword

The treatment of infertility is different from any other field in medicine. On the one hand, it is outright science, - and in many ways amongst the most advanced scientific fields in medicine and, yet, it is, at the same time, also an area of deep psychological relevance, an area where daily basic human needs and psychological conflicts have to be faced, - if the patient is to receive complete care, and not only treatment for his or her physical ills.

Standard medical textbooks can reflect the science of infertility very well. Descriptive tests also allow us to communicate this science to our patients if we succeed in losing our scientific lingo in favor of a more commonly understandable language. Neither format can, however, succeed in reflecting the daily human struggle that accompanies the almost limitless desire for reproduction.

In my career as a physician, teacher and scientist, I have written hundreds of scientific papers and book chapters and have edited a very large number of texts and textbooks. I never, however, was given the opportunity to try to share not only my scientific knowledge but also my psychological insights into the treatment of patients.

When I finally decided that this was what I had to attempt, I quickly recognized that only fiction would allow me to achieve this goal.

And so, "Unusual Stories" was born as an ongoing series of short stories. They all are fictitious, in that none of them has happened as described. At the same time, they all have happened, though not necessarily to one person, in the sequence they are described or in the geographic location they have been placed.

Patients are, of course, entitled to absolute confidentiality. Their cases should not be reported in a way that would lead to the loss of anonymity. However, confidentiality could be maintained without resorting to the kind of fictitious treatment I have chosen here. The motivation for this format is, first and foremost, my desire to communicate that fertility treatment is not "just given."

The desire to reproduce is at the very core of our existence as human beings. We expect to be able to satisfy this desire without complications. When this is not the case, we face not only surprise, anger or a feeling of loss. The effects can be life-changing.

It is this fact - only rarely discussed - which I am trying to communicate in these stories.

Norbert Gleicher

These stories are dedicated to the most important people in my life:
My father (deceased)
My mother
My brother and his family
My daughters Anja and Daliah
Because there is nothing like family!

Please click on the hyperlink to view:

• Mary and Her Mother
  (egg donation, IVF, surrogacy)
• Victor Goldblum
  (alternate life styles, IVF, embryo freezing)
• Being HIV-Positive: A Love Story
  (HIV positive, tubal infertility)
• Carmen and Andrea
  (alternative life styles, IVF, sperm donation)
• Mary Kay
  (single mother, sperm donation, IVF, advanced female age)
• Kosher Child
  (sex selection)