On Ravelry, someone posted a link to this really wonderful blog post by Havi Brooks: Bolivia. It is a metaphor about the complexities around wanting, getting, the drive, and what it all means to either building a family or not. 

Bolivia is one of the most insightful essays I have ever read in regards to this issue that touches so many in so many different ways.

I recommend that everyone go read it – no matter where on the family-building, or not, stage you are at. 

Roundup’s inert ingredients can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells… [Link]

How many pregnancies ended due to residual toxins – lower than are used in fertilizer – from Roundup?

I know that I was exposed to many of these chemicals growing up. I also lived in a rural community and worked at an extension university. My parents both grew up in farming and mining communities. Scientists still don’t know how long those chemicals stay in our systems. We have no way of knowing if this is killing our mitochondrial DNA as well.

More research needs to be done on the long-term effects of all the chemicals we have been putting into our environment. We need to stop throwing things into our environment without thinking about what we are doing to our future – if we end up having one.

This is just another plank in the ever growing list of things we have been doing to destroy ourselves. When will we wake up? When will we think about how our actions create effects for the future.

Let’s start with the body shame women of all types experience for not being perfect. No one can doubt that Jillian Michaels has dealt with this. She was a “fat kid.”

Now add in a culture that worships perfection in all its forms.

Don’t forget to add the obsession with celebrity pregnancies and babies.

Add the continuing trend of piss poor reporting through out the traditional media.

Very few people understand just how exhausting a 3 hour interview is for both the interviewer and the interviewee. Ms. Michaels stated that she hedged when asked about pregnancy at the end of her interview with Women’s Health Magazine because of “a lot of shame about the answer.”

What was she ashamed of? PCOS and endometriosis.

Jillian Michaels repeatedly referred to being “panicked” and “ashamed.” She considered this topic private. She was shocked at the question. Being tired gave her the opportunity to put her foot in her mouth and inadvertently offend millions of women.

Ms. Michaels states that the reporter used the word “aversion” in regards to pregnancy. Perhaps Ms. Michaels had used the word “aversion” in reference to hormones and surgery. I can totally understand someone being adverse to both.

There is a great deal we still don’t know about the reproductive system and how it works. Both endometriosis and PCOS are mystery diseases for many physicians for whom they should not be. Is it all that hard to believe that someone involved in the health industry may not be comfortable with putting her body through that when she already has to do things to manage those diseases?

What I found most disturbing were the comments – including from women who suffered from one or both of the diseases that Jillian Michaels has revealed. One commenter on an AOL board accused her of lying because the commenter was able to have kids with endometriosis so saying endometriosis causes infertility is bunk. Endometriosis is a very varied disease with all kinds of outcomes. PCOS, from what I have read, is the same way.

I saw some of the same hostility on Momlogic from a few posters.

When even the women who have suffered from endometriosis, PCOS, and infertility can’t find empathy for someone who has suffered a variety of body image issues – with which pregnancy does fit as one – is it any wonder infertility brings feelings of unfounded shame?