Lucia … or a clinical case [1] 
 

Lucia was a charming adolescent when I visited her for the first time. She was 17 years old and it was her first visit to the gynecologist.

With her overwhelming spontaneity she would ask me many questions, showing her interest in taking care of her body and her genital apparatus in particular. She felt a mixture of curiosity, fear and joy since she had just started having sexual intercourse with a guy she liked a lot.

After seeing her a couple of times, I carried out a gynecological examination which showed that everything was fine.

 
We spoke a lot about contraceptive methods, I informed her about all the existing possibilities related to this topic, and the ones most suitable for her since she was a young lady without children. She chose the condoms because she wanted to be “relaxed” and not worried about learning how to use a diaphragm at that moment.

 
Some months later she consulted again. She was suffering from severe headaches which used to repeat themselves every time before menstruation. This had been happening for four months and she was also sad. I suggested a homeopathic treatment which made her get better and helped her get over the sadness and the headaches.

 
After a year, she came back to have her gynecological examination done. She was fine and we took up the topic of contraceptive methods again since she was dating somebody. Until then, she had been using condoms but as she was having a stable relationship she was willing to use a diaphragm this time. That’s what we did. Lucia learnt quickly how to recognize the neck of the uterus and to put the diaphragm in and out very easily.

 
Since then and for a couple of years I saw her every year or year and a half for her check- ups.
When she was 24 years old she was already married and wanted to have children. She stopped using contraceptive methods and with the same happiness as in the first consultations she commented she would “go for it”.

 
Months went by and she didn’t get pregnant.

 
After a year she started a homeopathic treatment and some very basic tests such as testing through the basal temperature whether there was ovulation, an analytic test to check her hormonal state, and a spermogram from her couple. Everything was ok on Lucia’s side but the spermogram showed a diminution of the spermatic production, which was corrected quite quickly with a homeopathic treatment.

 
As months went by, her anxiety, which had been there from the very beginning, became stronger. She wanted to have a child and couldn’t believe she wasn’t able to. She was going through a good moment with her couple: they loved each other, both of them were satisfied with their jobs…they were happy together and shared the project of starting a family.

 
After two years trying to get pregnant without any results and being much less anxious than before, she mentioned her decision of asking for help to Assisted Reproduction.

 
Both of them came that time, and I listened to how excited they were about the idea of being helped by science “which has advanced so much on this topic lately”. They asked me to orient them and give them specific information about what an artificial insemination and an in vitro fecundation were, how they were carried out, etc. And that was what I did.

 
The consultation lasted long, they left more informed but relaxed and keeping the same illusion they had come with.
 
I met Lucia again 20 months later.
 
I was highly surprised when I saw her coming, holding a three-month-old baby in her arms and with a huge smile on her face.
 
She explained that seven inseminations had been done and none of them had “worked”. Afterwards, the In Vitro fecundation was carried out and the very first one had been successful. At that moment I silently calculated that she had been stimulated with hormones month after month during eight cycles, seven to be inseminated and one for the IVF.
 
Ovarian stimulation is not harmless; or at least it hasn’t been proved to be so far. Time will tell what happens with the ovarian reserve of ovocytes in women stimulated “abusively”. And I say “abusively” because 8 stimulations in 10 months, as in Lucia’s case,…is outrageous!
 
It is thought that the young female donors of today who are hyper stimulated more than once, are the future receptors of tomorrow.
 
Coming back to Lucia, she had expressly requested an only embryo…no more than one fetus, that’s why she was implanted only one embryo.
 
The pregnancy was great, quiet and happy.
 
The birth was even better, easy and quite fast. As she finished saying that and with her daughter in her arms, her smile faded abruptly, she started to cry and said “six frozen embryos remained”
She was crying slowly, with deep grief and fear. I know Lucia’s look from the distance and I could see that something in her had shadowed.
 
She continued: “- when I left the clinic with the happiness of holding my daughter in my arms I thought: I will have the six of them!...But now I think that I don’t know if I want another one. I’m 26 years old and I wish to do many things in my life apart from being a mother”.
 
I accompanied her with my silence for a while because I knew that was the way to let her keep talking and get out those things she wasn’t likely to talk with anybody else. However, my silence also reflected the horror I was listening to which had to be processed by my mind.
 
“For me they are not only cells –she said – they are children and I can’t stand the idea of them being there…so far…but so close at the same time. What is going to happen? Are they going to be children of somebody else?...But they are ours and they can’t be destroyed. If we don’t want them we are obliged to donate them…but how can that be? I didn’t ask for it and got to know about it when they were already there. They didn’t tell us that this could happen…”
 
I wonder who and on behalf of what “science” does this. Why aren´t people informed beforehand about what can happen? We live in a country where the legislation allows these kinds of abuses. There is no limit in the number of ovules which can be firstly found and secondly fecundated. Besides, the Catholic Church prohibits the destruction of these embryos. After five years of being frozen, the biological parents lose the parental rights over them and embryos are sent to a donor bank. Then, only God knows the mercantilist destination of these embryos which will be used in other women.
 
If Assisted Reproduction Techniques are techniques of gynecological manipulation meant to help, modify or substitute processes which are supposed to occur spontaneously in the feminine genital apparatus, why is it that they are abusively used?
 
I believe couples must be very well informed so they can choose what to do and how far they want to get. They also deserve to be respected for their decisions.
 
Assisted Reproduction has been used for marketing purposes, where conceiving a child seems to be possible no matter how and, in many cases, without measuring the consequences.
 
I would recommend couples who come close to these techniques, to take the necessary time to get informed, but also and more importantly, to talk about it and to evaluate once they are informed enough what is it that they want and how far they want to get Look for the intervention of energetic medicines such as homeopathy, which will help both of them modify the reproductive function, considering, as we know, the emotional aspects which are always present and many times determine the result of the process.
 
The scientific progress in reproduction has marvelous aspects, but nature cannot be challenged that way. People who ask for help should respect it through their bodies and minds.
 
I would say to the professionals who are in charge of achieving so many “victories” in fertility: “yes…but not this way…”
  

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