As if fertility treatment isn’t hard enough.
A doctor has been criticised for making an insensitive comment to a woman about her fertility.
Taking to Reddit, the woman explained how she had chosen to undergo IVF, but was left mortified when her doctor told her she had “good eggs for an old lady”.
She had been at her very first session when he made the remark.
“I’m 39. Went for my first IVF appointment,” she said. “While the doc was examining my uterus, he said ‘I’ve got good eggs for an old lady’. Like wtf?”
She went on to say that he had “the hysteroscope in me, moving it around and examining my uterus” when it happened.
“I mean, I’m grateful that I don’t have more issues with conceiving other than age, but holy cow that was so insensitive?! I didn’t even know what to say at that point.
“He told me to cheer up, and that it looks like I’ve got good eggs. Thanks a lot.”
Other Reddit users were horrified and took to the comments to share their opinions.
“Like, yes your age means you’ll have a ‘geriatric’ pregnancy, which is already an unfortunate term, but there’s no need to call you an old lady. Insensitive,” one person wrote.
“How is ‘old lady’ either a medical term or an appropriate benevolent joke made by a medical professional in this situation? It’s just rude and nothing else,” a second added.
Some people defended the doctor, saying he had clearly meant it as a joke but that he probably should have known better.
“My guess is that he was trying, unsuccessfully, to be funny. Or, possibly even making fun of the whole geriatric pregnancy stereotype of old, bad eggs. I would have laughed if my doctor said that to me,” one person said.
Meanwhile, others discussed how ridiculous the term geriatric is anyway, with one person writing: “The term geriatric pregnancy is absolutely hilarious. They make it sound like some 99 year old ladies trying to have a baby. I can’t even believe they call it that for women in their 30s or 40s!”
