Rhinebeck Revisited: Fewer Sheep, Less Wool

It's been four years since I last posted about the annual New York Sheep and Wool Festival, known succinctly as "Rhinebeck" in the knitting world for its venue, the Dutchess County Fairgrounds in Rhinebeck, NY. If you haven't yet read my first post about it, start there.

Rhinebeck has been my favourite event for the dozen or so years I have been privileged to know it. The first year I attended, I took the bus from WEBS. This had its advantages, from the cider donuts, raffles, and festive atmosphere on the bus, to the fiber-y camaraderie. The what-are-you-knitting conversations on the way down shifting to a show-and-tell of what everyone purchased on the journey home. I even made a new friend on that bus ride (hi Rena!). The not having to drive part was also appealing but I have opted to drive myself every year since. I need the control of getting there early and staying until the bitter end, as well as the opportunity to enjoy the fall foliage along the Taconic State Parkway, a route the bus cannot take. Not to mention the extreme level of motion sickness I suffer every time I ride a bus puts somewhat of a damper on the day.

In the years since my first Rhinebeck pilgrimage, I have taken one knitting friend to yarn mecca (hi SJ!), as well as my father, who for several years planned his annual visits around Rhinebeck weekend. He is not a knitter, but he appreciates fine craftsmanship and he enjoyed browsing the booths of the many woodworking vendors, who sell beautiful wooden tools for all the fibre arts, from spinning wheels and looms to handmade crochet hooks, as well as spoons and other kitchen tools, and carved animals (I was tempted by the hedgehogs and had to remind myself that I am not a dust-catching-tchotchke person).

The four-hour round trip drive gives me enough time to listen to my favourite recording of my favourite opera, so that has become something of a Rhinebeck tradition as well. Others include ordering a pizza when I am about 20 minutes from home on the return journey. Pizza is a treat that fits the celebratory atmosphere of the day, but also serves the practical purpose of providing dinner when I am too exhausted to cook. A shower, a glass of wine, and pawing my Rhinebeck purchases without getting pizza grease on them is the limit of my energy level at that point.

I would like to indoctrinate introduce my partner and his daughter to Rhinebeck, but the stars have not yet aligned to make that feasible with his work schedule. It is also possible that I have scared them a bit by describing the methodical way I approach the day, which comes across as more akin to a secular praying of the rosary through the stations of the cross than a fun day out at the fair, munching on cider donuts as the colourful leaves drift down around you and the sheepdogs bark joyfully as they run to catch frisbees.

Yes, I am severely OCD, but I am not alone in my devotional approach to Rhinebeck. Sagacious knitting wit Franklin Habit, who recently moved to Paris, marked the occasion this year by posting "Happy Rhinebeck to all who observe."

Speaking of those cider donuts, I have marvelled that the consistently longest of the ridiculously long food queues at Rhinebeck, rivalled only by the lamb sandwich line, is the cider donut queue. Living in the heart of New England, you can't swing a skein around my town from Labor Day through Thanksgiving without hitting a place that sells cider donuts (and, even better, pumpkin donuts). I have the obligatory sacramental cider donut each fall—this year during an apple picking outing, fittingly—but I confess to taking them for granted now that I live in New England. The online buzz about Rhinebeck this year, after its pandemic-related cancellation in 2020, included much anticipation of cider donut consumption, often tucked in posts and comments advising first-time Rhinebeckers on what not to miss. All the donut talk reminded me that many knitters come to Rhinebeck from the Sun Belt, the Rust Belt, the Bible Belt, and other places outside the Cider Donut Belt. The women behind me in line to get in the gate were from Georgia. They were talking, as I could not help hearing, about the difficulty of finding a bra that fits properly and is comfortable, without underwires digging into underarms, underboobs, and underribs. I did not join the conversation as they were not wearing masks but I silently echoed their awed exclamations when one of the women mentioned that she works in a lingerie store that carries bras from a 28A to a 48O and they paused to attempt to imagine the formidable rack on the customer needing a size O bra. (Yeah, I know you just Googled. Take as long as you need. I did too.)

After missing a year of Rhinebeck, my anticipation was verging on desperation. This was little-kid-on-Xmas-Eve level excitement. I could hardly sleep or focus on any task for at least a week prior. Ironically, between my day job, freelancing, and taking care of family, I had no time to actually knit, but I was thinking of little else, even as I endeavoured to be present in other areas of my life. I started listening to a new-to-me knitting podcast on my morning jog, and perused knitting patterns on Ravelry instead of politics on Twitter in the loo.

But I had a nagging worry that the lingering pandemic, due to the anti-vaxxers/anti-maskers, was going to negatively affect this year's longed-for Rhinebeck experience. The omens of an abridged Rhinebeck multipled as the holy third weekend of October approached. First, neither the organisers nor the fairgrounds required masks or proof of vaccination to attend. Masks were requested, but not required, in buildings, for anyone vaccinated. But we know that the Venn diagram of people who refuse the vaccination and people who refuse to wear masks is nearly a circle, so such milque toast requests are worse than useless, they are a capitulation to the selfish, homicidal Covidiots who wish to prolong the pandemic at all costs, even their own preventable deaths and Darwin Awards (which cannot come fast enough to please me, but that's another blog post). None of my knitting friends was going, fearing that it just was not safe yet.

The organisers were implementing some changes to limit transmission of the coronavirus and forestall a super-spreader event, but they sounded more likely to abridge the experience without much increasing safety. Vendors were to be limited to every other booth space, no double booths, and some vendors were moved outside. All workshops and speakers and indoor demos were cancelled or moved online. All children's events were cancelled, although that seemed like a good precaution, to be fair. (And, to be blunt, Rhinebeck is not very kid friendly anyway. Few knitters bring their children to Rhinebeck, if they can avoid it, because kids' limited patience precludes the parent from perusing the yarn. It is not that they don't love their kids, they just can't shop with them in tow. Of course, if dad is there, he can take the kids to watch the sheep herding and pet the llamas whilst mom herds skeins and pets yarn, but two-parent families are rare these days.)

I was simultaneously worried that vendors would stay away but crowds would be worse due to pent-up demand. Attendance turned out to be much lighter than usual, great for me albeit not for the sellers, but my fears about the dearth of vendors were more than realised. The every other booth arrangement did not lead to the rest of the vendors simply being moved outside. There was a smattering of tents but most of the vendors I look forward to browsing and buying from simply weren't there. All vendors noted that they had brought much less stock than usual, and the larger vendors, who normally use two adjacent booth spaces, were unrecognisable in single booths with limited stock. The vendor who makes the felted cat toys that I replenish each year was there, but no cat toys. The same sad scene was repeated, with the notable exception of soap. For some reason, soap vendors have been multiplying like rabbits at Rhinebeck in recent years, and, in lieu of yarn, I somehow came home with about 15 bars of soap. I'm strict about soap scents being seasonal, so one bright spot in a disappointing Rhinebeck year was stocking up on autumn and winter soap. I am definitely covered until Rhinebeck next year, and possibly for several years beyond that.

Cider donuts excepted, the food was different this year too, or perhaps I'm different: I look forward each year to a certain chocolate chip cookie vendor who sells cookies in the shape of a bar. They're egregiously expensive, but worth it as an annual treat, along with a hot cup of coffee to ward off the autumn chill. I was afraid the cookies might be a casualty of the pandemic, but they were sold by a vendor attached to the fairgrounds, i.e., in a permanent location, that vends at every event held there, not just Sheep & Wool, so I lived in hope.  Maybe the cliche of nothing living up to our inflated expectations applies, or perhaps it's my habit of making my own cookies with greatly reduced sugar content, but I found the cookie to be both bland and sickly sweet. And the hot coffee? It was 76F, nearly a Rhinebeck record. As someone who freezes when it gets below 75F/25C, I have been enjoying the unusually warm autumn, as have my peppers and tomatoes, which are still producing fruit in mid-October, but even I admit this warm weather is somewhat inappropriate for a knitting festival.

One of the many initially-informal-but-now-codified traditions that has arisen around Rhinebeck is the making and wearing of the Rhinebeck sweater. This is a garment knit for the express purpose of showing it off at Rhinebeck to an appreciative audience. No Rhinebeck is complete without tapping a few strangers on the shoulder to exclaim, "I love your [jumper, cardigan, hat, shawl, cowl, whatever hand knit item they are wearing to elicit this response]!" It typically takes about two years to knit a sweater but, since the organisers cottoned on to this tradition, an official Rhinebeck sweater pattern has been promulgated, giving knitters a year to complete it for next year's festival. This tradition in turn has given rise to t-shirts, bags, and buttons that say "No rest [sleep, in some versions] til Rhinebeck!" Any knitter who sees this in the wild knows exactly what it means. This year, most fairgoers abandoned the wearing of their hand knits in favour of tank tops and flip-flops, but a few stubbornly wore their (beautiful, it should be noted) Rhinebeck sweaters. She moved through the fair, drenched in sweat.

Another inviolable Rhinebeck tradition is the (increasingly overpriced) lamb sandwich. It is, ironically, the only line this militant vegetarian is willing to stand in—yes, hypocrisy duly acknowledged. I don't normally eat lamb, or any meat, but the juxtaposition of the lamb sandwich, its lamb sliced like pastrami and served on a kaiser roll with onions and mustard, with supporting the use of sheep as fibre animals has struck me as complementary. There is not enough money in raising sheep just to shear them for wool, and some, usually males, as in the dairy and egg industries, are killed for food and skins. I do not approve but I understand the economics of the situation for farmers, many of whom are engaged in preventing heritage breeds from becoming extinct. Finally, the culinary designation 'lamb' refers to meat from sheep under a year old, by which time they are long since fully grown. They are still cute, but not the adorable baby lambkins gambolling around playfully that I, for one, could not imagine anyone being so heartless as to murder, even if starving to death were the only other option. So, hypocritical, perhaps, but this is my rationalisation for my once-a-year-at-a-sheep-and-wool-festival lamb sandwich, which I have not actually had in four years, as I got the soup two years ago, and they were sold out three years ago. The lamb sandwich vendor also sold lamb sausage and lamb and barley soup. The soup, with carrots and spices, is delicious, and warming on a cold autumn day. But this year, the part of the menu sign listing the sandwiches and sausage was covered over, replaced with a handwritten menu offering lamb shank ($22) or lamb riblets ($20). No lamb sandwiches this year, although they still had the soup. It was, though, as I mentioned above, 76 degrees, so for the first time, there was no queue, and with good  reason. I managed to find a vendor selling pumpkin mac & cheese, which indulged my autumn food fetish adequately, but the lack of lamb sandwiches was odd and disappointing. 

Traffic in the buildings was designated to be one way, another pandemic precaution, but there were some flaws in the execution. One doorway (all doors were kept wide open this year for air circulation) had "entrance" signs, the opposite doorway had "exit" signs. There were arrows on the floor backing up this traffic flow instruction, but someone had accidentally (presumably, unless they were having a laugh), put the arrows on the floor in the wrong direction, so they were pointing toward the designated entrance, leading everyone to ignore the whole mess and just browse around in every direction as usual, like squirrels who have eaten some coffee beans.

Much lighter crowds this year

Hearing snippets of conversation is unavoidable, and there is usually one Rhinebeck gem. This year, in the Ewetopia booth, I overheard a man retort to his companion, "You're the earth tones. I'm not. I'm Jew tones."

The kangaroos and lemurs were there as usual

So were the sheep, albeit far fewer than usual

Yet another tradition is to photograph one's Rhinebeck haul and post it on social media. This year, I bought far less than normal, and most of it was gifts for my partner and his daughter rather than additions to my yarn stash. There was (much!) less to buy, but I also felt constrained by my lack of time for knitting, something I am determined to remedy this year. I still have enough yarn in my stash to circle the globe several times over, so I feel guilty buying more until I have used it. I also seem to have acquired a future, and that has altered my perspective. (Yes, that first clause was stolen not-quite-shamelessly from Possession.) Back when I was under- or unemployed, broke, heavily in debt, barely scraping by living on my credit cards, throwing money down the toilet in interest, and feeling little hope of ever improving my financial situation, shopping for yarn once a year seemed to be a small indulgence to make a life on the financial and professional fringes bearable. A lot has been written on the mystery of why poor people waste money on small indulgences, such as coffee drinks, rather than living as ascetically and frugally as monks and saving every penny. The answer, obvious in retrospect, turned out to be that the poor have no hope of socio-economic mobility. Giving up small indulgences like a $5 coffee are not going to lead to enough money to buy a house or invest or otherwise climb out of poverty and the disdain heaped upon them by the rich reflects a breathtakingly myopic selfishness, a lack of understanding that pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps and trickle-down economics are a myth and a self-serving lie, an excuse for perpetuating a system that rewards rich people for being rich and punishes poor people continuously, in every area of life, from conception until death and beyond, for being poor. Now, I have a full-time job. True, it does not pay enough, but I augment it with freelance work, minimise my living expenses, and have a partner who has just moved in and started sharing rent and utilities. I have paid off two of my three credit cards and I can see what I never believed possible before: A life where I am not flushing money down the toilet in interest every month, and can start, for the first time in my life, building a savings account for emergencies. A house is probably still unrealistic. The Boomers were the last generation to be able to afford to own property, but living debt free, and having a cushion for emergencies, even accounting for the inevitable future bouts of unemployment due to the lack of job security in any field these days, is something I can see on the horizon now. I no longer buy anything I cannot pay off at the end of the month. No more accumulating credit card debt because it is my only option to live a little. Knowing I would have to pay off whatever I purchased by the end of the month effectively stopped me from buying much at Rhinebeck this year.

One vendor from whom I did make a small yarn purchase hailed from Irasburg, Vermont. I love the Northeast Kingdom and have a special affection for Irasburg, thanks to the Kingdom Run, so I was moved to support this seller in particular.

Trumpublicans? I didn't ask, but they show the Covidiot signs

Even before the pandemic, I never wanted to support vendors whose values I deplore, but unless they advertise their politics, I have no way of knowing how they vote. The pandemic made that more obvious. I decided that I was not going to buy from any vendors who were not wearing masks as that clearly identifies them as Trumpublicans, anti-mask, anti-vaccine zealots who are responsible for prolonging the pandemic. One booth had three sour-faced sellers, no masks, one wearing a cowboy hat, with an American flag on the wall behind them. I tried to get a photo of them as a textbook example for this blog post, but they were glaring at me, so I retreated across the aisle and was not able to get a clear photo through the crowd. I was horrified to see one of my favourite soup vendors maskless and quickly asked what their stance was, hoping I would not have to forego buying some of their lilac soap. They explained that they were vaccinated, and had been masked all morning, but their position near the wide open, breezy doorway had led them to feel safe removing their masks. I don't think that was wise, given their exposure to so many people, but at least they weren't virulent anti-mask/-vaxxers.

Another vendor that pissed me off this year was Bumblebee Yarns. They had a Harry Potter line in 2019 and I was looking forward to shopping it again this year but they said they had discontinued it due to the Rowling transphobia controversy. Jesus Fucking Christ, for the millionth time, Rowling is NOT transphobic. That is a wilful misinterpretation of her words and her views.

This year's tiny Rhinebeck haul

As the sun shone and the queue for ice cream eclipsed the donut line, the forecast rainstorm looked to be delayed. But 30 minutes before closing, the wind picked up and a bank of clouds approached and overtook the sunny day with cinematic drama. Fairgoers scattered like cockroaches when you turn on the lights in a city apartment kitchen. Food vendors rolled down their steel shutters, yarn vendors packed up and abandoned their booths, and the festival informally and abruptly closed early. I got to my car just as the wind-driven prickles of rain changed to fat drops. The rain was traveling west to east, and so was I, so I faced a white-knuckled drive home trying to outrun the storm whilst going about 30mph on the Interstate in a blinding downpour.

The clouds roll in, vendors shutter, crowd scatters

When I got home, I discovered that my local organic pizza haven, due to the pandemic, now closes at the absurdly early time of 7pm. My partner found alternative pizza, but the main pizza joint in a college town closing at 7pm on a Saturday night, really?

Still, I showered and had that glass of wine, and petted my (small) yarn haul. Tonight, we knit.

Until next year, baaah.

Post-Pandemic, Expect a Swift Return to Status Quo Ante

This pandemic should be a wake-up call to decrease economic inequality. Instead it will exacerbate it.

If every country had locked down sooner, the spread of the virus could have been arrested.

If the Chinese had recognised its pandemic potential sooner and prevented people from travelling abroad, it could have been contained within China.

If China had caught it even earlier, it might even have been contained within Hubei, the province where it originated.

If factory farms and consumption of wild animals had been eliminated after previous pandemics, we’d have fewer zoonotic viruses to fight.

If the virus hadn’t struck near the time of the Chinese New Year festivities, when Chinese emigrants travel home to celebrate then fly back to the countries into which they have immigrated (e.g. northern Italy), then the spread would have been slower, with more time for countries to react.

If governments at all levels had learned from previous pandemics to have a plan in place in anticipation of the (inevitable) next one, it could have been activated in a dispassionate, nonpartisan manner without time-consuming bickering about the appropriate response.

If supplies of PPE had been stockpiled against future need, demand would be less likely to exceed supply in a crisis.

If people practiced social distancing, with or without government guidance, the number of infections would be considerably less.

If tests weren’t withheld to keep infection numbers artificially low, we’d have a better estimate of actual cases.

If death certificates weren’t fudged with other causes of death to hide COVID-19 fatalities, we’d have a much more accurate tally of how many deaths are attributable to this virus.

If, if, if. As the human and economic toll mounts daily, we are justifiably wracked with self-recrimination for not doing more, sooner, to contain the virus. Will ‘we’, speaking broadly for humanity, both citizens and government officials, learn from our COVID-19 mistakes and act with more alacrity the next time a novel virus is suspected in a patient? I doubt it. I’m finding it hard to be optimistic. Rather than “buck stops here” mea culpas from elected officials, we are getting blame-shifting and denial. Rather than increasing international coordination and cooperation, we are seeing a free-for-all fight for PPE and medical equipment, and a refusal to accept aid by countries that need it, such as Iran and North Korea, based on pride and propaganda rather than public health considerations. Many countries are limiting testing for COVID-19 to keep numbers low. Federal officials in some countries, such as Brazil, Mexico, and the United States, have been locked in often vitriolic opposition to state and local officials over the question of whether to shut down businesses, with citizens caught in the middle, sometimes taking it upon themselves to self-isolate and expressing frustration and disgust with their political leaders.

This depressing pattern does not hold true for every country. Some affluent European and Asian countries, such as Denmark and South Korea, managed to take steps to save both lives and businesses. But they are outliers, with smaller, and more homogeneous, populations who have higher levels of trust in their governments. The delayed and mixed response of most of the world is disheartening. Even when national and subnational governments get their act together to enforce social distancing, people resist and defy directives that have been issued solely to protect them. Except for totalitarian governments who exert control over citizens to preserve their own power and enforce their ideology, governments are now making a trade-off between public health and the economy that has the potential to get them booted from power. Electorates reward incumbents in good times and punish them in bad times, regardless of their actual responsibility for economic conditions, which don’t usually correspond to election cycles in any case. A government who saves its citizens lives but sends the country into a recession is setting itself up for electoral vengeance, however undeserved.

What will the “if only” self-recriminations, electoral punishments, and economic fallout mean for the future? Ed Yong, in his March 25 piece for The Atlantic, opines:

“Veterans of past epidemics have long warned that American society is trapped in a cycle of panic and neglect. After every crisis—anthrax, SARS, flu, Ebola—attention is paid and investments are made. But after short periods of peacetime, memories fade and budgets dwindle. This trend transcends red and blue administrations. When a new normal sets in, the abnormal once again becomes unimaginable. But there is reason to think that COVID-19 might be a disaster that leads to more radical and lasting change.”

I don’t agree; once social distancing directives are removed, I predict a swift return to status quo ante.  That is an empirical prediction, not a normative wish. We should use this as a learning opportunity, to address global health, economic inequality, authoritarian regimes, lack of education, the idiocy of religious belief. Last year a troubling statistic went viral in the United States: 40% of Americans could not scrounge up $400 in an emergency. The support for pseudo-populists like Trump and Johnson and Bolsonaro around the world, and genuine populists like Bernie Sanders, the anti-immigrant sentiments, the rise in racism and sexism, are a direct result of growing economic inequality. We are returning to a feudal society of a wealthy 1% and a peasant population dependent upon the crumbs the rich deign to bestow in wages, benefits, a social safety net. There has been an undercurrent of rage that has been simmering for years as the middle class has shrunk and younger generations are unable to achieve the standard of living of their elders. Between the financial insecurity of the gig economy and never-ending student loan payments, hallmarks of adulthood like savings and home ownership are increasingly out of reach for even college graduates, hence the alarming statistic about nearly half the population being unable to find $400 in a pinch.

The most compelling lesson of this pandemic has nothing to do with viruses, public health, political leadership, or culture. There are fascinating and important lessons to be gleaned from all those facets but they pale in comparison to the simple fact that most of the world’s population, even in the wealthiest developed countries, still lives hand to mouth and is one paycheque away from not being able to pay current bills. Measures to delay rent and mortgage payments, prevent utilities from being disconnected, temporarily pause student loan payments, and halt evictions are only necessary because so many people are unable to survive for even a week without pay. The wealthy have tried their usual avocado toast blame game, but no-one is buying it this time. It’s impossible to deny that the reason so many people don’t have even a month’s cushion in savings is not because of too many lattes but because they—we, I should say, as I am part of this cohort—are not earning enough to save. It’s not self-indulgence stopping us from saving and investing; it’s a lack of jobs that pay a living wage.

If nothing else changes, post-COVID-19, this glaring problem should be addressed. Imagine the situation today if every individual and business had 6 months of savings to draw on. The damage to the economy, the need for taxpayer-funded relief packages, the failure of businesses and looming homelessness and crushing debt for so many Americans would disappear.

But it won’t. Nothing will change. The wealthy will turn this crisis to their advantage, squeezing even more money out of the poor in interest and penalties for every bill paid late. I am sure the credit card companies are salivating at the prospect of all the interest and penalties they will be able to charge.  Expect creditors to raise interest rates. Expect employers to lower wages, cut benefits, and not hire back much of their laid-off workforce, using the shutdown as an excuse to retool their businesses to lower overhead and increase profits. We were living in a world that catered to the very rich at the expense of everyone else. That world hasn’t changed because a few hundred thousand mostly elderly people have died of a virus. The rich will continue to get richer and the poor will get poorer. This pandemic should be a wake-up call to decrease economic inequality. Instead it will exacerbate it.

The Price of Hope

I received some disappointing fertility news last night.  The way I deal with things is to explain them to (mostly unwilling) people (who are trying valiantly to be polite) so, as my reluctant captive audience, you might want to pause here to get a drink and make yourself comfortable.

I’ll start with the general and move to the specific.

The first IVF (so-called “test tube” although conception actually takes place in a Petri dish, much more romantic) baby, Louise Brown, was born in Manchester in 1978.  The second was born in India, which, frankly, surprises me, as the last thing India needs is help increasing its population.  Oddly, the third was born in Glasgow and the fourth in Melbourne, which makes the British Empire IVF pioneers.  The sun never sets on British fertility?

The original purpose of IVF was to help couples in their 20s and 30s who could not conceive the old-fashioned way.  Brown’s mother had blocked tubes, and other early adopters of the procedure had low sperm count.  IVF was emphatically not established to address age-related infertility.  In fact, as its commercialisation spread (over 5 million IVF babies had been born worldwide by 2012), most clinics had a cut-off age of mid-30s.

But age at first birth has been rising, with women delaying motherhood to pursue higher education, careers, financial stability, and to find an appropriate partner.  Also, some women who had children young are remarrying and wanting to have a child with their new partner.  (There is much that could be said about the economic and relationship factors that push women to delay childbearing, not least a discussion of student loans, parental leave, cost of childcare, and the career penalty of the “mommy track”, but I’ll leave that for another post.)

IVF clinics are in the business of making money, and they make loads of it (get it, loads…never mind). A single IVF cycle can cost upwards of $25K in the U.S., and it’s typical for women to endure up to 7 cycles before getting pregnant or (more likely) giving up.  Clinics have responded to the demand for services by women in their 40s by raising their age limits.  But, since they rely on success rates to lure new clients, and IVF success over age 42 is unlikely, they face a conundrum:  Do they take people’s money, when they know the chances of a live birth are essentially zero, and lower their stats, or turn away potentially lucrative clients who will ignore the statistics in their desperation to have a baby? In some cases, regulators have stepped in, with some countries setting an age limit on IVF.  Insurance will not cover it over a certain age, usually somewhere between 39-42.  But the main solution clinics have found is the use of donor eggs (and, in cases where male infertility is a factor, or the woman is single or gay, donor embryos).

Age is no barrier when eggs from younger women are utilized.  Assuming she is otherwise healthy enough to sustain a pregnancy and give birth, an 80-year-old woman could bear a donor-egg child.  IVF success rates with OE (own egg) drop dramatically over age 35, and become essentially zero after age 42, but there is no decrease in success rates with DE (donor eggs).

For women who choose to use donor eggs, and who have no fertility issues besides egg quality, success is virtually guaranteed.  But some women don't want to use donor eggs.  These women are on the cutting edge of IVF, pushing doctors and clinics to use their own eggs despite the odds.  So far, success has been elusive.  Egg quality is the problem.

It’s ALL about the egg.

Whereas men are continually producing sperm (always a good excuse to get out of housework, “Sorry, honey, busy making sperm right now.  I can paint the garage or we can have a baby, your choice.”), a woman is born with all the eggs she will ever have.  Yes, it sounds somewhat ironic, that we are making all of our eggs when we ourselves are still foetuses.  Female fertility commences at puberty, when hormones stimulate the follicles in which those eggs reside to begin maturing.  Fertility declines as that reserve of eggs dies (follicular atresia) and some get used up via ovulation.  Of the 1-2 million eggs present at birth, about 90% will have died off by age 30. By age 50, most women are nearly out of eggs.

Why does it matter that so many die off?  We have plenty to spare:  Since a woman ovulates one egg per month for about 40 years, she uses less than 500 of that million-egg stash.  The issue is egg quality.  Even if a woman ovulates religiously every month into her 50s, her chances of a viable pregnancy decline rapidly after age 30 and precipitously after age 40.  The reason for this drastic decline in fertility is an increase in chromosomal abnormalities in the eggs.  In your 20s, one out of 10 eggs that you ovulate will be chromosomally abnormal.  In your 40s, all 10 will be abnormal.

These DNA hiccups don’t always prevent conception from occurring but, in the days following conception, as the aneuploid blastocyst divides, it is nonviable.  An aneuploid blastocyst either fails to implant or fails so soon after implantation that the woman gets her period as normal and has no idea that conception occurred.  This very early pregnancy failure happens in about 70% of all pregnancies, even in young women, but is usually invisible.  With the invention of super-sensitive home pregnancy tests that can detect the weakest rise in hCG, impatient women who are desperately hoping to conceive obsessively test early, get a positive result, and then are gutted when they get their period.  It's smart to wait until your period is late rather than test early and be disappointed by these extremely common early failures.  But most women whose biological clocks are ticking loudly and thus are desperate that this has to be the month don't have that kind of patience and take advantage of the new early tests only to be let down when their period arrives on schedule despite a positive pregnancy test.

Cruelly, some chromosomal abnormalities take longer to manifest.  The woman misses her period, celebrates a positive pregnancy test, perhaps even tells her partner or announces it to the world, and the early pregnancy progresses normally, but then the aneuploid (abnormal) embryo reaches a point in foetal development where it fails.  This causes a miscarriage usually within the first 5-12 weeks of pregnancy.  Later miscarriages, and stillbirths, are also caused by these chromosomal abnormalities. A 49-year-old woman who conceived naturally has a 99% chance of miscarriage in the first trimester.  That percentage goes down only slightly in the second, with the chances of stillbirth so high in the third that there is overall a less than 1% chance of a woman who conceived naturally at 49 having a live birth.

In some cases, the chromosomal abnormalities are not incompatible with life and are discovered via in utero testing.  So, the few women who don’t miscarry end up needing abortions when abnormalities are detected in utero.  (Some women choose not to get tested, or to carry to term even when tests have shown that their foetus is abnormal.  I find that unconscionable but that is a subject for another post.)

Conventional wisdom says that these abnormalities occur because the eggs are “old”.  But that’s a misleading view.  Men have the same problem:  Male fertility declines slightly in the 30s and dramatically in the 40s and 50s due to chromosomal abnormalities in sperm.  A miscarriage in a woman in her 40s is just as likely to be a result of an abnormality in her partner’s sperm as in her egg, unless he is considerably younger. Since sperm are made fresh every day, it isn’t the age of the sperm themselves that is the problem.  It is not known why abnormalities in both sperm and eggs increase with time but it’s the same with all the cells of our bodies, and may be due to environmental, lifestyle, nutrition, or other factors we haven’t discovered yet.  The point is errors in meiosis increase with age and, whilst they may not prevent conception, they prevent viable pregnancy.  If you get pregnant over 40, you are almost guaranteed to have a miscarriage, not a live baby, at the end of it.

IVF could change all that. In a normal cycle, one egg matures and is released at ovulation.  If it’s a dud, you have to wait a month for another go.  The IVF process involves hyper-stimulating the ovaries with drugs to mature multiple eggs at once, the more the merrier.  I don't want to do it; it’s gruelling, disruptive, and risky:  the woman must inject hormones into her abdomen daily, which have both unpleasant and potentially dangerous side effects, and endure repeated invasive and undignified procedures, including surgical retrieval of however many eggs she has succeeded in maturing.  (The male role in all this is to watch some porn and jerk off in a cup, but no-one said life was fair).

Once the eggs are fertilized in the aforementioned Petri dish (most labs play Ravel’s “Bolero”, but some have reported higher success rates with Prince), they can be genetically tested before implantation.  The more embryos you have to test, the higher the chance that one will be chromosomally normal (euploid).

So why are clinics steering women over 40 to egg donation?  Two reasons:

1)   It’s common in women over 40 for a retrieval of 10 eggs to result in 10 aneuploid embryos. It can take many exhausting and expensive IVF cycles to get even one euploid embryo, and then you have to factor in implantation success rates, which are quite low for all age groups.
2)   In order for the IVF drugs to stimulate multiple eggs to mature, a woman must have a reserve of eggs available.  Reproductive endocrinologists (REs) assess ovarian reserve in two ways:  By counting follicles during an ultrasound and by measuring the blood levels of a hormone called AMH (Anti-Müllerian Hormone—Attorney General Barr seems to produce an excess, but that’s another story…rimshot).  AMH is excreted by developing follicles.  It peaks at puberty and decreases until menopause, when there are no more developing follicles.  The desired level is 1.0-2.5.  Levels of 0.7-0.9 give you some chance, but levels below 0.6 are considered an indication that your ovaries are running out of eggs and have closed up shop.  At this AMH level, via ultrasound one can usually see them displaying little “retired, moved to The Algarve” signs.  Even the most aggressive IVF protocol won’t result in any mature eggs for retrieval in women with low AMH because there aren’t enough eggs left.

The pressure to use donor eggs is egregious.  Most REs refuse to treat any woman over 42 who wants to use her own eggs.  But that is changing.  A few years ago, one clinic in Illinois agreed to treat women up to age 45. Others have followed, with one infamous clinic in upstate NY treating women up to age 49.  Success rates have been low so far:  The oldest baby born to a woman using OE IVF was 47, a record achieved in 2018, beating the previous record of 45, set in 2014.  But success rates may be low in part because the number of women trying to use their own eggs is still low.  As more women delay childbearing, and more clinics become willing to let them try OE IVF, expect to see success rates rise.  Many women also go abroad, because foreign clinics are much less expensive and don’t care about success rates—they are eager to take desperate women’s money.  There is now a clinic in Cyprus that will do OE IVF up to age 50.  (They originally said 55 but the legal age limit is 47 and a crackdown made them lower it to 50.  They're allowed some wiggle room because of the money IVF tourism brings into the country.)

This is where we move from the general to the specific:  I want my own biological child, and I just turned 50 last Sunday.  I delayed trying to conceive until I turned 40, at which point the ticking of the biological clock trumped financial and relationship considerations.  I had one early miscarriage at 42 but no other conceptions (that I know of).  I don’t have the money for IVF but the existence of that clinic in Cyprus is tantalizing.  I realise they are peddling a fantasy: I am a social scientist; I understand statistics. But the desire for your own biological child pushes all realistic assessment of numbers from your mind.

A birthday is a time to assess where you are in life and make a plan for filling any gaps between where you are and where you want to be.  This includes one's health.  To that end, I've made appts for a variety of routine health screenings, including a fertility assessment.  There is only one RE in my (rural) area.  Luckily, he takes my insurance.  My last attempts to see an RE, at ages 42 and 46, went poorly when they flat-out refused to treat me based on my age alone.  I was a nervous wreck thinking this guy was going to laugh me out of his office. Yet, strangely, I also had a good feeling about him, and that was justified.  He listened to my story, my hopes about the clinic in Cyprus, and he didn’t waste my time belaboring statistics I already know or trying to convince me to go the DE route.  When he heard about my PSVT, he further impressed me by immediately referring me to a cardiologist he respects.  That’s not under his purview so he didn’t have to take an interest.

In the end we agreed to the following:  He would test my AMH levels that same day.  At my age, every month counts; you cannot waste even one cycle.  In two days, I would come back for a mid-cycle ultrasound.  IF my AMH was high enough and IF my ovarian reserve and everything else looked good, he’d take me on.  At this point, he leaned across the desk and declared that, if he did take me on, “it would make a full-court press look like a walk in the park”.  I liked his attitude but there is one thing I didn’t tell him:  If he were to initiate this aggressive egg priming protocol, I don’t have the money to go to Cyprus.  But perhaps I could freeze eggs for use years hence when I can afford it.

I initially thought the ultrasound went well:  The tech saw follicles, with a burst one indicating ovulation had occurred, and she said everything looked normal. But the RE had a totally different interpretation.  He saw only 3 total follicles (they like to see at least 10), at least two functional cysts (which are benign and common, occurring when the follicle that has ovulated reseals and fills with fluid; the problem is that a follicle can sometimes fill with fluid without releasing its egg first—the former type has no bearing on fertility, the latter type obviously does) and he found a birth defect known as a septate uterus, where a membrane that is supposed to disappear during foetal development still divides the uterus down the centre.  It is very common and often causes miscarriage; a woman usually cannot carry a pregnancy to term unless the membrane is cut—a procedure that would be routine in a younger woman planning to have children, but which has never been done in someone my age.  RE will likely be of the impression that I have no chance of pregnancy so no point in correcting the defect.  Since it's elective—there are no health implications; it is purely to restore fertility—I don't know if my insurance would cover it.

As for the AMH, late last night, after I was already in bed preparing to sleep, an email popped up from the lab:  My AMH results were in, and my level was an abysmal 0.3.  That is waaaaay below the minimum level for treatment.  I was shocked and disappointed.

But I am not giving up.  I have been reading about ways to improve AMH levels, and even induce the ovaries to make new eggs from stem cells.  I am going to propose that I try these methods for 4 months and re-test in Sept.  RE can’t say no to letting me re-test then, and maybe I’ll be in better financial shape.  But I can’t deny that this AMH lab result and ultrasound were a major disappointment.  I am NOT willing to forego having my own biological child; that is a crucial part of life.  I’ve been feeling as grim as our rainy weather today, and trying to keep my hope, and spirits, up.

I'm Baaahk from NY Sheep & Wool

Spotted Jacob sheep, a rare breed.

NY Sheep & Wool is like Xmas:  I look forward to it all year, and when it's over, it's such a let-down that I start looking forward to next year to cheer myself up.

Last year I wrote a blog post about it, which you should re-read because you have forgotten it by now.

A few points to stick in for this year:

1) The Taconic State Parkway is lovely & scenic & also the deer capitol of the known universe.  Not just the odd deer grazing by the side of the road at dusk, right as I am driving home, but dozens.  Each year I worry that this is going to be the year one of them leaps in front of my car.  But this year there were none.  I didn't see a single deer, alive or dead (there are usually several of the latter).  It was weird.  I had been wishing NY would reintroduce wolves.  Perhaps they did.

2) There are parking areas along the Taconic to facilitate admiring the majestic views of the Hudson River Valley.  Except that when I see signs for "parking area" I think of a place to make out.  Someday I hope to be able to drag a long-suffering boyfriend to NYS&W just for this purpose.  The snogging will make up for him having to look at fibre animals and yarn and eat fair food all day.

3) It's a tradition to knit a so-called "Rhinebeck sweater" to show off, or at least a Rhinebeck hat, scarf, shawl or similar item of outerwear.  People oooh and aaah all day, complimenting strangers on their skill.  I tapped one woman on the shoulder and gushed over her intricate cable scarf.  She told me the pattern name and it went straight into my Ravelry queue.  (For my non-knitting readers, Ravelry is a website that provides a database for you to input all of your yarn, needles, books, etc., and create a queue of patterns you want to knit.  There are also discussion groups, and online project 'notebooks' where you can add photographs, details of what yarn and needle sizes you used, and notes on projects.  These notes help other knitters who knit that same pattern in future, both as inspiration and to point out difficulties, customization, errors in the pattern, etc.  Basically, the people who invented Ravelry are gods in the knitting world.  They deserve to be canonized whilst they are still living.  It is the best website on the Internet, and I am including every porn site in that assessment.)

Anyway, back to the Rhinebeck sweater:  It has been a record warm October and it was 78F on Saturday.  Some people just sweated it out in their woolens, determined to show off their hard work, others said fuck it and stripped down to t-shirts and tank tops, an odd sight amongst the fall foliage.  The vendors selling hot cocoa and cider must have cursed the weather.  Me, I enjoyed not freezing.

4) Speaking of vendors, I decided not to waste an hour of precious yarn fondling time in line waiting for a lamb sandwich at lunchtime.  I held off until 4pm, by which time there was no line.  It was worth delaying lunch, despite the fact that the vendor, keenly aware of both its popularity and monopoly, had increased the price from $10 to $12 this year.

5) Each year I allow myself to purchase a few unique skeins, yarn I would not be able to find again if I did not buy it then, and take photos/notes on the rest.  I fantasy shop, looking with envy at everyone with their bulging bags (there are people who save up all year for a yarn buying orgy at Rhinebeck), each time thinking next year I will have money to buy whatever I want, even a custom-made spinning wheel and some Gotland sheep.  And next year comes and I still don't have any money.  It's depressing and this year I really should have bought nothing.  As restrained as I was, it was still extravagant to even spend the gas money and admission price.  I felt guilty buying anything at all, as well I should.

This year's tiny but pricey Rhinebeck haul. Yes, those are hand-dyed gradients.

One thing I said no to was the world's sexiest sweater.  I would have bought just the pattern, saving it until I could afford the yarn at some point in the future, but the vendor, rather unusually, was not selling the pattern separately.  You had to buy enough of their yarn to make the garment and the pattern came with it.  In this case, it would have taken 5 skeins at $30 apiece to make the sweater, so of course it wasn't an option for me.  But just look at this cardigan, one of the most flattering I have ever seen.

For my non-knitting readers, let me introduce you to the concept of "negative ease."  A garment that is tight and shows off your figure is said to have negative ease; conversely, a loose garment has positive ease.  Whether and how much of negative or positive ease you want is a matter of personal style and preference.  As someone with a pear-shaped figure, I need my clothes to fit like a second skin in order not to look like a hippopotamus.  In other words, beaucoup negative ease, like you see here.

The pumpkins are just for decoration; I grew them in my backyard.

6) The Vetricyn was a gift-with-purchase of the chicken book.  Wait, chickens at Rhinebeck?  Is someone making yarn out of chicken feathers?  No, poultry are not fibre animals but the book sellers often include some non-knitting books and this author had written the best guide to keeping chickens I have ever seen.  Due to the rising popularity of chicken husbandry, zillions of poorly-written how-to books have flooded the market but this author knows her shit.  My hairdresser recently bought a house and is planning to get chickens.  She has been asking me zillions of questions so I got this for her Xmas present.  It's perfect.

The wine?  There is an entire building of local food vendors, including the NY wineries.  This had the virtues of being both cheap and the most unusual wine I have ever had, to be saved for a special occasion.  The jams include blood orange (2), cranberry, and raspberry bourbon, and the peanut butter has dark chocolate in it.  Each year, I stock up on three tubs of the Gobs of Garlic spice mix, which is the 'secret' ingredient in just about everything I cook.  (Shhhhhh.)