Epitome Anatomy: IVF

In this very personal episode, Wish Peacocke explores the intricacies of in vitro fertilisation (IVF), sharing her unconventional experiences and insights. The conversation delves into the basics of IVF, the emotional and psychological aspects of the journey, the importance of counselling and regulations, and the expectations versus reality of the IVF process. Wish emphasises the need for a pragmatic (and scientific) mindset and the significance of understanding the journey as a shared experience with partners.

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Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (00:00.096)
What the heck is IVF, really? The acronym IVF is often dropped, much like the familiar brand Coca-Cola, and yet it is not what most people think it may be. I will impart some tidbits of my experience, so let's talk about it.

Welcome to Human Thesaurus Presents Epitome Anatomy My name is Wish and I talk about something, somehow, to dissect a word or a term relevant from my life to yours. Ready for the epitome of IVF? Let's go!

Our term for this episode is IVF. In vitro fertilization or IVF is the joining of a woman's egg and a man's sperm in a laboratory dish. In vitro means outside the body. Fertilization means the sperm has attached to and entered the egg. IVF is a form of assisted reproductive technology or ART.

This means special medical techniques are used to help a woman become pregnant, according to MedlinePlus.gov.

Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (01:41.27)
It's so funny because when I was young, even like in the late eighties, let's say people would always call some of my friends test tube babies. I didn't really understand that growing up what that's supposed to mean. when they say it's a miracle baby, it's a test tube baby, but apparently it just stuck with most of us saying.

test tube, baby, because I think everybody has this common misconception that this procedure IVF, you know, had all of these happen in a test tube, or maybe it is. So you need to go and check that out. Just to put this out of the way, this will be my ramblings of someone who's been through this, but I can't delve much on the technical portions of it.

So if you're thinking of having IVF with your partner, you have to research this properly and thoroughly and of course, mindfully without bias. Coming into this for myself, I really don't know much on the technical on how it's going to happen. I just know that there are injections, for example, and I don't know much about it. It's just that.

I know that there are some things in life that we have to research thoroughly and find the right experts to hold our hands and let us go through something that we really don't know and that is not our expertise and that's fine. So it's a matter of making your own call because it's your own body that you're going to use and it's going to really involve you and your partner.

Or even like if you're just raising your eggs or you're a same-sex partner, et cetera. So different kind of variations when it comes to individuals or partners who would go through this. Yeah, so just to include everyone of different situations. But in my situation, coming into this, I just knew that we needed some assistance because of my age.

Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (04:00.31)
When we thought of having children, we were already 38, 39. And then the real thing happened. Pandemic came in the middle of like those zero cases that were able to kind of go out. At this time, at this point in time, we were already in Mornington Peninsula. We were living there at that time. That's in Victoria, close to Melbourne in Australia. We just, I just.

thought, okay, let me go through all the medical and health tests and even like making sure that I, you know, I don't have cancer whatsoever because of our family genetics, et cetera. And let's have some assistance because if it's not happening naturally, there must be something wrong with either me or my partner. We went through this with that thought. So we were like, okay, we don't know.

what's going to happen, but these are the experts. So we kind of compared which one will be good for us, closer to where we are because there are still restrictions at that time in Australia where we started this journey. So all of these. So we were like, okay, let's go with the flow. So before all of this happened for us, I think it's not the technical things that we don't know.

But what we're sure about is that we're sure to try this out. And we're sure that we're gonna do this for each other, me and my husband. I expressed all of my fears coming into this. If it happens or whatever may happen, at the end of that conversation with my husband, I was very confident that I'm able to do this with him without any regrets. And during that conversation with my husband,

We also made sure for each other that we're going to approach this pragmatically. This is something that is nice to have for us. If we are successful to have children this way, great. If not, we tried. So for us in our minds, from the beginning, we have the right mindset for ourselves. This is what fits us. Because for us, nobody really would pressure us into having children.

Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (06:22.282)
Ultimately, our belief is the biggest pressure that anyone would put would be for ourselves, not externally. And luckily, everybody's just supportive for us, we're going to have children or we're childless or we're going to have children. But nobody's taunting us to be, why don't you have children? Like maybe a part of it because I told some people to shut the fuck up because again, it's not their choice.

It's your own choice whether you're going to do this or not. So for us, before going through the technical or scientific portion or the medical portion of this, our mindset is set. Our mindset is firm that we're going to approach this pragmatically. I already asked for my husband's pre-forgiveness. In any case that this, the treatments will affect me psychologically.

Because you wouldn't know how hormones or all of these whatever medications that will be pumped into your body, how will it affect your emotions. Women have to go through a lot of emotions in month, know, according to our cycle. So I don't know if I'm gonna go full on psycho bitch during this moment, during my treatment. So I really honestly don't know what to expect.

So I told my husband, please just, need you, I need your support, I need you by my side because this is yours and this is a team. And what helped us as well after that, I respect so much that Australia's got proper rules and regulation, like standardized rules and regulations before you go through something like this for IVF. So you cannot do it without clearing.

or going through an IVF counseling. You have to go through counseling. You have to schedule with IVF counselor where you and your partner would talk it through the counselor. Like, why are you doing this? How you're doing this? What are your expectations? And coming from their side, they also lay out the questions that you never think about. For me, what was really like a moment for me when

Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (08:45.036)
there are laws country per country. And in Australia, one of the counselors' question is, have you thought about what are you going to do with your embryos? For example, you were successful and you still have frozen embryos left. What are you going to do with that? When you're finished trying, like, okay, this is twin is enough, for example, what are you going to do with those? And then there are options. So you're either,

donate that to the medical community for them to study more about reproductive health and all of these, or you have them destroyed completely. And you're like, my God, that's a massive undertaking. Really. Another question, the counselor post was about in the event that you separate, for example, if you divorce or if you separate from your partner, both of you are

by law owners of that embryo or embryos. So what do you want to do with those embryos? Because you need each other's consent if you're gonna destroy it or if you're going to donate it to the medical community. I was like, whoa, that's so loaded. And then of course, other things such as financials. It's like, okay, this is not cheap.

Are you able to support each other when it comes to these expenses? And then they will explain to you one by one so that again, there are no surprises. So what's good about this, having the counseling first and they clear you first by having the counseling is that apart from them clearing you to be fit to do it, at the same time, you also, you and your partner would also clear yourself that, okay, this is the right way to go. I'm comfortable enough to.

move forward because at end of the day, this entire process is brutal in some ways. Brutal is such a maybe, well, it's an accurate word if you've been through it, but I'm on the light side of brutal only because of my own experience. So it really depends, but yeah, it's something that I value so much that there's a proper framework in Australia for it. And then when we moved to Singapore,

Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (11:03.554)
They also have sets of rules, not as stringent enough as Australia, but the standards are also very high. You know, there's still counseling and medical examinations and all of these. In retrospect, I did not have to go through that again because we went through that process in Australia and we were just recommended by our doctors there when we moved here.

He's given me a couple of doctors that he worked with before or recommended by their community before. So full disclosure at the beginning, didn't really know much to what extent are the rules or the regulations. When it comes to contracts, the paperwork that you read, it's quite strict and there are really sets of rules and regulations and framework.

the Singapore Health Ministries also. So they do have their own set. Yeah, so that's the extent of how we broached this journey to begin with. It's all paperwork and tests and some of them are quite intrusive, like painful, but you have to go through them to make sure that also they needed to get to the bottom of why are you having difficulties having it naturally?

Sometimes it just doesn't. There's no medical. Unfortunately, at this point in time in our lives, I've found that there are still what we called unexplained infertility. It's like everything is good on the male side. Everything is good on the female side. Everything is healthy. Lots of good swimmers. my God, TMI.

But lots of these, everything is cleared, you're very healthy to have this, but you just can't. And it does happen to a lot of partners. It does. It's quite interesting because yeah, it's unexplained. I don't really like saying this, that it is what it is, but in this context, it is what it is. That's why you have to go through a journey such as this. There are different paths, but this is a scientific

Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (13:23.842)
path that we've taken. So yes, that was my first kind of introduction for myself on what the heck is IVF. And this is just at the beginning. There's no treatments yet. These are all like signed paperwork and question about the embryos, which is for me, it's like, wow, it's a massive undertaking really. I still can't get over that question, but yes, we answered it in the best way we knew what's best for us.

IVF expectations in your mind of what you hear from pop culture, from TV, from growing up, from your friends' experiences. It's quite different when you're going through it unless you have a best friend or someone who could give you the run through it with more details because there are lots of details when you're going through it. My mindset going through it is like, luckily, I'm not scared of injections. I'm not scared of needles. Number two, I was like, okay.

This will be my job in the next, you know, however. And then number three, I was like, I'm also learning by experience. I'm working with the nurses, our fertility doctor. When I don't understand something, apart from just like reading on the internet, I really have good questions with my doctor. I think one of the most stressful things about me is about me.

being a woman is going through pap smear and all of these reproductive health regular checks. After going through a pap smear, trust me, I feel depleted the entire day. And it's just a quick procedure, isn't it? But I felt so, it's so intrusive. It's just so intrusive that I feel like my entire emotions got sucked out of me. You open your legs there with a stranger and...

they have a swab or whatever and it's just, I don't know, I just feel depleted after that kind of experience. But going through IVF, I have to switch my mindset because I cannot allow myself to always feel depleted going through this. I have to go through this with just like, like full on, like a warrior. Say I'm going to go through this. And so the mindset that I adopted is that I'm donating my body to science. That's it. So that completely.

Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (15:48.91)
clicked on me. So I was like, okay, I'm just a creature of science right now. So I should not think of everything intrusive. Like this is just part of the process for us to have children. And that changed a lot for me. Language does change a lot when it comes to mindset. So when it comes to your expectations versus the reality of it, I think we kind of muster that a little bit.

that it doesn't weigh upon us, weigh heavily upon us because sometimes you expect you badly wanted to have a child, badly badly wanted, and then it never happens. It will be devastating for sure. Again, another disclosure, to be honest with you, I was super hesitant talking about this, talking about my experience because a lot of people have what aboutism.

What about her? What about me? What about... No, this is my experience and I have a positive one, most of it. And then some people would argue, well, you have a positive experience. Everybody has to know that too. I didn't think so before because from what I've been reading a lot is just grief with a loss and with unsuccessful treatments. But on the light side, my approach was very different.

Again, me and my husband took this pragmatically. In my mind, I'm doing a job. I'm doing a job that would probably and hopefully be fruitful in the end. If not, then I will resign. That's how I thought about it really. Because at my age, one of the things that your doctor will always tell you in full disclosure, and this is part of the paperwork that you're signing for,

that your chances are slim and then it shows you how many percentage year per year. Like my doctor would say, oh, 41 years old is better than trying at 42, for example. And I was like, okay, fair enough. My expectations here is like, we're going to try, we're going to try full on again and again and again. And then my mentor, who was my guest in my previous seasons, told me,

Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (18:10.88)
you should know when to stop. Whoa, that's another thing that I have never expected. It's like, yeah, because you know, I would keep on going because my mind can't handle it. And most especially, you know, like what I said, most of my journey is a positive one. Why is it positive? Well, I'm going to tell you for another episode. That will be another story for you.

So for now, what are your experiences versus your expectation going through your IVF journeys? This applies to both males and females. I mean, it takes... I think it still takes a village to raise a child or to even create a child. It does. I would love to hear what your experiences are. Until next time, ciao.

Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (19:09.996)
Human Thesaurus podcast is produced by me and my brother, Jeremiah Ronquillo. All rights reserved via Wishblizz Media.