One in 32 births in 2023 [in the UK] were the result of in vitro fertilisation, up 34% from one in 43 in 2013, according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA)

I admit this sounds rather startling, but then, being a historian of reproductive health among other things, I think of the fact that though we sometimes think our poor ancestresses were popping out progeny pretty much nonstop until death or menopause arrived, in actuality, fertility and subfertility were A Thing, historically. (Let us consider certain famed historical examples and a plethora of folktales on this theme.)

I have remarked heretofore about the assumption that Wo Unto The Sperms of the Modern Man, They Are Weak and In Decline, when I cannot see that there is any sound baseline of what the average male's average sperm count was and whether the little swimmers were even in prime condition at that even a very few decades ago. One assumes that any samples preserved in sperm banks (if they are and supposing they have not themselves deteriorated over time) would have been prime stuff from healthy young specimens. (Though given some of the stories that have come out about dodgy fertility docs, perhaps not.)

So this is not necessarily a story of Wo Wo Fertility B Declining, with side-order of Wymmynz B selfishly waiting Too Long to progenate, but of a problem which used to exist and was at the very least Not At All Easy To Fix (hopes and prayers, mostly, and try to relax....) has some chance of being resolved.

Okay, some percentage is presumably LGBTQ+ couples/constellations forming families.

And some of it is Older Mothers though again, historically, women have gone on Havin Babbyz well into their 40s and (Journal of Anecdotes Told to Me By Committee Members of Reproductive Health Charities) these days a significant % of abortions in the UK involve women who have misleadingly supposed from media myth that At Their Advanced Age their ovaries have shrivelled up and their fertility fallen off a cliff.

Though this is interesting:

The number of women freezing their eggs also increased sharply, with cycles up from 4,700 in 2022 to 6,900 in 2023. Egg freezing increased most among women in their 30s, but the number using their stored frozen eggs remained low, the report said.

So, today I had a physio appointment at the far from eligible hour of 1 pm, what is this even, do these people not have lunch hours? also it was at the uphill all the way clinic.

Anyway, I got there in very good time, and was able to ascertain the bus stop that would actually take me in the right sort of direction for getting home.

(It was actually quite a nice walk past people's flowering gardens or council floral bits.)

And it was a very good and useful session, with a senior person as well as my usual physio, and I think we may be getting to some habit-changing things that might improve matters.

So after I had come out I went and caught the bus, which is one that goes across rather than up and down (so much of London Transport being designed on the principle of getting people into Central London and back out again) and it is a nice bus that goes past Highgate Cemetery, even if it is the newer bit, and the hospital, and okay, ends up at a slightly non-intuitive place behind Archway, but I was able eventually to locate the relevant stop for an onward bus.

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And in other news, I have whizzed off an application for the Fellowship I mentioned and have had several kind offers from FB friends to provide letters of recommendation.

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(I did not know about Gladys Knight and the Pips version of The Boy from Crosstown!)

On the possible academic library etc access thing, somebody has kindly pointed me at the Institute of Historical Research Non-Stipendiary Fellowships, which look fairly much the thing -

- except that the window for application closes on Friday, and besides getting an application together I need a letter of support testifying to my 'interest in research, good faith and behaviour' (at least, unlike the Bodleian, there is no cavil about naked flames).

So there's that.

In other, is this good or bad, had an email from person on committee of Society with which I have had associations in the past and published in their organ (hurhhurh) saying a) they have come across a piece I published in that organ and might I like to give a paper at their upcoming conference?

Well, I could possibly throw something together -

And b) the archives of this Society and a precursor organisation in which I am particularly interested have been deaccessioned by the Academic Institution where they were held (which has, I remark, form in this matter), and returned them to the Society.

I have, in what I hope was a reasonable tone, exhorted them to put them in another repository pronto, I recommend X, where they will be with archives of related org, also the vast and important collection previously unhomed by the Institution in question.

(*MUTED ARCHIVIST SCREAMING*)