Thanksgiving Reflections: The Family I Have

As another Thanksgiving passes, I am thankful for so many things. At the top of my list, of course, is family.

Sometimes I have to pinch myself when I think about how easily our family came together. My husband and I dated only briefly before marrying; Ryder joined us just about 9 months after our wedding, and Reid was perfectly timed two years later, almost to the day (I actually had the same due date for both boys! How crazy is that?).

It’s true; we’ve been very blessed. Often, when the boys are driving me up the wall (which is usually every 34 minutes or so) I have to remind myself how lucky I am that they’re here. They’re alive, vital, full of mischievous energy and waiting to take on the world… one LEGO piece at a time. How I adore them!

As another Thanksgiving passes, I think of the couples who are waiting for a family of their own.

If you’re an avid reader of my blog, you’ll know that I am a huge supporter of OHIP for IVF. And you may be wondering, why the heck does she talk about it so much? Well, simply put – I do have a blog, and I have an audience. So why not talk about the stuff I believe in? I can chat about makeup, clothes and mommy moments until I’m blue in the face, but sometimes, I like to talk about relevant issues that have affected friends, family, co-workers and others near and dear to me.

So if you’ll lend me your ear for a moment, I’d love to remind you why it’s such a hot topic.

Now I’m sure you all will agree that infertility is an emotionally painful experience. But did you know that it impacts 1 in 6 Ontarians? That’s more than 15% of our society, suffering with the inability to conceive.

Did you know that IVF was once fully funded in Ontario? That’s right. Up until the mid 90′s, our government put families first. But right around the time that Bob Rae passed the hot potato to Mike Harris, the government severely restricted infertility funding. Hence, couples were left to incur the hefty costs of IVF should they choose to seek assistance in realizing their dreams of starting a family.

We can change that. We know that Quebec has introduced funding for up to three cycles of IVF to help create families. In turn, this helped reduce the number of multiple pregnancies in that province from 27.2% to 5.2% in just 6 months. And Quebec is now on track to save hundreds of millions of dollars as the number of twins and triplets in neonatal intensive care units is expected to drop significantly.

Furthermore, it’s estimated that Ontario could realize similar savings by providing OHIP coverage for IVF – between $400-$550 million in savings over 10 years, actually. And if you’re following my train of thought, you’d see that these savings could offset the cost of providing IVF and other “Assisted Reproductive Technologies” to patients who require treatment to start their families. Making babies and saving money in the long run? Yes please.

Conceivable Dreams, the OHIP for IVF Coalition, is the provincial voice for thousands of infertility sufferers and their supporters across Ontario. Their goal is to have OHIP coverage of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) reinstated by the Ontario government.

Let’s make our local candidates earn our votes; if you’re with me on this incredibly worthwhile initiative, please ask them where they stand on public funding of IVF.

And for more information, please follow @OHIP4IVF on Twiter or the hashtag #OHIP4IVF.

I am a valued member of the Conceivable Dreams blog team. The opinions on this blog are my own, and I happen to wholeheartedly support publicly funded IVF.