The Ruth Effect

This isn’t a real thing, more so a jokey thing I’ve had happen on several occasions!
The definition of ‘The Ruth Effect’ is an unexpected pregnancy after either speaking to or planning fertility treatment with Ruth, but BEFORE you start it.

This has happened at various times over the years and happened again recently when I got a message from a patient that her period had not started so she hadn’t been able to start her medications. She tested and this crazy faint line came up. They sat in shock for quite some time and then contacted me on Sunday morning for help and advice as to what they should do. They were trying to be realistic as to whether this pregnancy will follow through or not but no matter what the outcome, we are going to take the positive aspect that her body WANTS to be pregnant and can be pregnant! I have said that I will, of course, take the credit for this pregnancy and we laughed that talking and planning with me has made all the difference.

Why does this happen? It’s not because of me, obviously! It is because the patient or couple in this case have been proactive in their fertility journey, got the information necessary to figure out what they want to move forward in their journey and made a plan. Sometimes it is just having had that first consultation with me; sometimes, the consultation with me is their Plan B and Plan A works instead, and sometimes we have planned everything, egg donor agreed, flights and hotel booked and then that line comes up on a stick. This happens because they have taken that deep, cleansing breath and told the universe that they are ready, bring it on and something clicks and what they want most comes their way.

It does, in most cases, mean I have done myself out of some work, but hey, we have the result that we all want, which is a baby. I’ll take it!