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Bailey Sarian
One of my friends is having a baby. So we've been talking about a lot of baby stuff and of course I feel like my phone is listening, you know? So now my TikTok feed is filled with all these baby videos or baby related videos. Usually I just scroll past them, but the other day, one of them caught my eye. It was a viral video all about how this girl got pregnant because she took Mucinex, you know, that medicine for chest congestion, sinus related issues. I know. I was like, what? Huh? I thought this was a fake video. But as I did more research, it turns out thousands of people have tried this and tons of them swear by it. And apparently the logic is that this active ingredient in Mucinex, it's called Guaifenesin, it thins mucus, right? Not just the mucus in your lungs or whatever, but also down there in that area. I guess it makes things a little bit easier for sperm to like swim through. Some studies kind of, they actually kind of back this up. But mostly it's one of those things where people swear it worked for them and now it's on the Internet and therefore it's true. But here's the thing. This is nothing new. Since the dawn of time, humans have been trying desperately to multiply. People have been drinking strange potions, performing controversial rituals, and even worshiping a metal penis for centuries. When it comes to making babies, people will try anything. So today we're diving into the weird, wild, and sometimes terrifying dark history of fertility. From urine cocktails to pussy demons. Buckle up, it's gonna be a ride. Hi friends, how are you today? I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. My name is Bailey Sarian and I'd like to welcome you to my podcast, Dark History. Here we believe history does not have to be boring. It might be tragic, sometimes it's happy. But either way, it's our dark history. Before we get into it. Don't forget to like and subscribe. I'm always here posting new content and let me know what you think down below in the comment section. Did you know at the end of the videos we read comments? Ah, eh. Anywho, now let's get into it. Okay, so if you're googling and goggling, it's pretty much impossible to trace, like the first ever fertility ritual. But it's safe to say it's been top of mind ever since first major civilizations think like ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Pretty much every culture has had their own version of what to do. If you're trying to get knocked up. For example, in ancient Hindu beliefs, they believed that the Kama Sutra was a fertility guide. Yeah, it's not about being flexible and having some hot, steamy, flexible sexual relations. It was actually there to help you get pregnant. But ancient Hindu beliefs tied specific foods and rituals and even, you know, sexual positions to getting pregnant. Makes sense, right? Some temples were even covered in carvings of people having sex because they believed it was a sacred act that encouraged the gods to bless them with children. Like most of my favorite things. Tattoos, perfume, makeup, medicine. You know, some of the oldest recorded fertility rituals started in ancient Egypt. Okay, listen, you're living in ancient Egypt, you're sitting in a temple doing a prayer, when all of a sudden, boom. Someone flashes the gods ass. Out. Puss. Out. Just out. Today you might get arrested for this kind of behavior, but back then, this was actually a fertility ritual. It was called anasurma. According to legend, one day the sun God Ra was in a terrible mood. So the goddess Hathor, who was all about love, motherhood, and joy, lifted up her robe and essentially flashed Ra, you know, to cheer him up. Eh, apparently it worked, and Ra was excited about life again. So the point of anasurma wasn't just shock value. People truly believed that if you lifted up your skirt and you showed your lower regions to the gods, it would encourage fertility and abundance. And this wasn't just the Egyptians either. In many ancient cultures, like Greece, there were lots of fertility rituals that involved doing scandalous things in public. Do you ever start a new job and suddenly realize your personal phone is now your business phone too? I know. One minute I'm texting Joan about Ronald Reagan, the next, a stranger is calling about a collaboration. It's like 10pm on a Tuesday, and I'm like, what the. How'd you get my number? But also, if you miss that call, I mean, it could cost you money. And that customer is gone. And in this economy, ah, we can't be doing that. But OpenPhone changes all of that. OpenPhone is the number one business phone system that helps you stay connected without the chaos. It works right through an app on your phone or computer. So you don't have to carry around two phones like you are. You don't have to carry around two phones or, like, deal with a landline like it's 1994. But I kind of dream of that. I miss a landline, huh? Uh, I dream. Okay. Personally, I used to think, oh, oh, I'll just like, keep everything on one phone. Like, it'll be totally fine. But turns out. It's a mess. It's a mess. My voicemail was a disaster. I kept missing important calls because I was like, oh, that's a spam call. Turns out it wasn't a spam call. And also, I had, like, zero boundaries with OpenPhone. They helped me separate my business life from my personal life now without spamming, sacrificing anything. So now when I get a text at midnight, it's from my boyfriend and not someone trying to, like, sell me some Mary Kay or something. No offense or anything, but people do that. Yeah. And right now, OpenPhone is offering my listeners 20% off your first six months at openphone.com darkhistory that's Open Phone O P E N P-H-O-N-E.com darkhistory and if you have existing numbers with another service, OpenPhone will port them over at no extra charge. OpenPhone. No missed calls, no missed customers. According to the logic of ancient Egypt, another sure way to, like, get some answers about a person's fertility was by peeing outside. I mean. Okay, go on. Well, people back then were asking a lot of, like, the same questions. Am I pregnant? Can I even get pregnant? And without labs or OB GYNs, Egyptians turned to what they did have. Urine and crops. It went like this. A person who thought they might be pregnant or was, like, trying to figure out if they were, like, fertile would pee on a handful of wheat and barley seeds. The seeds were left to soak and sprout for a few days. If the wheat sprouted, then they said it was a girl. If the barley sprouted, then it was a boy. And if nothing happened, well, it was believed that you probably weren't pregnant, you know, and unfortunately may not be able to get pregnant at all. Yeah. So if you don't want to go buy a pregnancy test, just go outside and pee and see what happens. This little test was also used for men. So even back then, like, people knew that infertility could be an issue for men just as much as as for women. So when there was difficulty conceiving, it was normal for husbands to test their quote, unquote, fertility waters, end quote. So they'd pee, same thing, you know, and if nothing grew from his sample, then the problem might be on his end. It sounds a little weird, you know? Okay. But modern scientists actually tested this out, and there's some truth to it. When a woman gets pregnant, her body surges with hormones, especially the hormone estrogen. And estrogen can actually cause grains to sprout faster. Now, ain't that something? Ancient Egypt, they were doing some shit, right? So this wasn't just ancient like superstition. It was like early biochemical testing. So if you find yourself in a wheat field, I guess you can just pee on the wheat or the grains or the soil instead of buying a pregnancy test. They are kind of pricey and bad for the environment. So an option, step one, find a wheat field. Okay, but listen, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Ancient Rome, they were very big on fertility. So they even had like a fertility festival. And we talked about it in our Valentine's Day episode. It's called Lubricalia. Go check out that episode if you want. We get into it. But listen, this was like the earliest version of Valentine's Day. But instead of, you know, roses and chocolate and whatever, guys were just kind of running around the streets whipping naked ladies with goat skins for fertility. Makes a lot of sense. Does it? No, but it kind of. No, it doesn't. It doesn't make sense. But they did. So follow me on a journey here. In the year 77 AD, a famous writer named Pliny the Elder published an encyclopedia with some crazy thoughts and suggestions. It was called Naturalis Historia and it was basically the Wikipedia of ancient Rome. If you read it now, if you google it. Oh man, the weird stuff that he said in there, wow. But listen, back then this was like the book about everything you needed to know about the world. Pliny wrote about medicine, botany, astronomy, animals, literally everything. But people took his advice like very seriously. And he even had a few ideas about fertility. In the middle of this book, things get kind of. It's kind of all a little weird, but whatever. See, Pliny was all about urine. He didn't see it as like some sort of filter system. Instead he writes about how urine can be used as medicine and even be life saving. Yeah, he even wrote that if anyone was struggling to get pregnant, all they had to do was drink a little urine. But not just any urine. Nay, nay, special urine. Urine from a eunuch. Yeah, we did a eunuchs episode. Shout out to that if you wanna watch it. That's also crazy. We've done a lot of episodes here, huh? You guys proud of us? Pliny was like such a well respected source when it came to everything. So again, people took his advice seriously. Which meant women in ancient Rome were absolutely finding eunuchs and drinking their pee. It's how the yellow Gatorade came to be. You know, I love the yellow Gatorade. It is my favorite. I know so it got me thinking. I know, I wonder if the eunuchs were like charging for their urine. It could have been like a really good side hustle, really. But in case, like urine from a eunuch wasn't available, Pliny had some alternatives. He wrote that horse, bull and boar urine were also great beverages to improve sexual arousal in the bedroom. So go find a bowl. Geez. I know. Again, I had more questions. I was like, am I drinking it warm on ice? How am I drinking it? Cause honestly, with some ice on a hot summer day, maybe. Well, people did this and they seemed to be getting like great results. It's not clear exactly how much urine Pliny was instructing people to drink or for how long, but he did. And what I'm really getting at is that every culture had their own version of a fertility hack. Over in China, they weren't drinking eunuch pee. Instead they were turning towards something that's been called the caviar of the East. This is a delicacy that costs more, more than, you know, more than rent, more than, more than a lot of things. I can't think of things. But it was expensive, very expensive and sought after. It was bird spit. Ah yes, bird spit. Bailey, what do you mean bird spit? Listen, go to a bird, say spit in my mouth. No, I'm just kidding. I don't know what's more weird though. The bird spit or drinking urine from a bull or a eunuch, which one would you do? So it's not just any bird. This was a special little creature called a swiftlet, like the Swiffer sweeper swiftlet, but it's a tiny bird that doesn't use twigs or leaves to build its nest. It's actually incredible. It builds its nest out of its own saliva, wild. Like the bird, it spits, right, spits its spit, and then the spit, it hardens and it keeps spitting until it builds a full nest wild. The swiftlets build their nests specifically on cliffs and in caves. So if you're trying to get it, it's not like an easy place to get it, you know. But ever since the 1500s, people have been obsessed with getting ahold of these nests. But they weren't collecting them for fun. Instead, people would eat the nest. That's because these swiftlet nests are edible bird nests. And there's an acronym for it, ebn Edible Bird's Nest. I mean, if you really think about it, isn't anything edible? So Edible bird's nest was like a very high end health potion for the Chinese El, you Know, we got, we still have that thing today. Like remember when wheatgrass shots were like all the rage? Or like if you go to that bougie air one place and get one of those like Hailey Bieber smoothies, it's like that crap. Sorry, it's not crap. It was believed if you ate these EBNs, it was believed that they made you look younger, boosted your immune system, cured coughs and colds and, and improved fertility. In traditional Chinese medicine, swiftlet nests were believed to nourish the yin, AKA your feminine energy. And yin was linked to fertility, menstruation and childbirth. So women who were trying to conceive would eat bird's nest soup to prepare their bodies for pregnancy. Some even continued eating it during pregnancy to help their baby grow strong and healthy. People used to collect these nests from cliff ledges and like caves. But you know, the sad thing was like they weren't really looking in the nests before grabbing it. So like many eggs and baby swiftlets, they didn't survive. Nowadays there are actual like bird spit farms and they're designed like in giant concrete buildings to attract the swiftlets so that they'll build their nests indoors, you know, Cause like people didn't want to climb to the top of a cliff or whatever. It wasn't very safe. So after harvesting, the nests have to be soaked, cleaned and de feathered by hand, which can take hours. And all of this gets baked into the cost. So expensive. And even to this day you can find EBN and all kinds of things. Like I saw some EBN face masks for sale. Yeah, still, still using it. But traditionally it's the main ingredient in bird's nest soup. Edible bird's nest costs anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000. And for that price you would hope that it tasted good, right? But people say it tastes pretty bland, kind of like gelatin. But I don't think that's the point. They're just trying to get pregnant or look young or whatever, you know. But it's usually served in like a sweet broth and sometimes with sugar or ginseng, kind of like a watery jello pudding. At the end of the day, it's not about the taste, you know, the idea is that this bowl of soup could make you look younger, feel better, and get pregnant faster or get pregnant period. So it makes sense that bird's nests were very popular among the royals all the way into the 20th century. It was said that one empress ate bird's nests all the time. Her name was Empress Siqi and she was a major fan of luxury and traditional Chinese medicine. According to court records, Siqi ate bird's nest soup a lot, Mostly because she believed it would preserve her youth, boost her health, and keep her just looking radiant. Yes. Okay. Honestly, it kind of worked. Cassiqi lived into her 70s, which was a big deal at the time. You know, most people live to be about 20 or 30 years old, and she lived in her 70s, so she's like, bird soup, bitch. Spit on my mouth, bird. Even in Cicci's later years, people noted her smooth skin and commanding presence. It was like free PR for ebn. But even after trying the bird's nest soup, many people, you know, still struggled with infertility. And for some, it seemed like nothing really ever worked. And obviously this is before science had explanations as to, like, why. So people jumped to their own conclusions and explanations, and that's what led them to one of the most controversial fertility theories out there. I'm talking about the pussy demon. Okay, so the other night, I was up scrolling on my phone like a dummy, and I'm spiraling. Not about conspiracies or true crime, about a weird spot that I had on my stomach area that I meant I've been meaning to get it checked out. Normally, I'm pretty up to date on, like, getting my moles checked, but it had been a while since I had gotten this one checked, so I was like, you know what? I need to make an appointment. But every time I make an appointment, it turns into this whole blah. It's like you got a call during business hours, but, like, their business hours are the same as your business hours. And it's like, I'm working, so how am I supposed to get ahold of you? Or you get on the phone and you get transferred or put on hold and they have that crappy music just to be told, like, yeah, our next availability is in six months. Does that work for you? And you're like, I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow. So sure, sure, okay. But you know what? It doesn't have to be like that. That's because we have Zocdoc. Yeah, I love Zocdoc. If you don't know. ZocDoc is a free app and website where you can search and compare high quality in network doctors and click to instantly book an appointment. You can filter by doctors who take your insurance, who are nearby, who have openings soon, like the next day, the next week, whatever. And you can even find ones who speak your language or Match whatever other preferences you have. It used to feel like scheduling doctor's appointments were a just a chore, right? But with Zocdoc, they make it so easy. You have there's no excuse. You just search, you click, boom, you are booked. And I highly recommend it. I just went and I got this molecular. You wanna see? I got this mole checked out. It looks all red and scabby because guess what? They had to remove it. So I'm glad I got it checked. True story. They cut her off. I had to say goodbye, but it was needed. It was important. Get your moles checked. So stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to Zocdoc.com darkhistory to find and instantly book a top rated doctor today. That's Zocdoc.com DarkHistory Z O C-O C.com DarkHistory Zocdoc.com DarkHistory so imagine this. It's hundreds of years ago in Japan. And there's a sweet, young, innocent woman just out there living or trying to live her best life. There's no recorded name for this woman because the story I'm about to tell you was passed down orally for hundreds and hundreds years of of years. So according to the legend, this woman, she falls in love and she gets married. Everything seems great. I'm in love, you know, Yay. Except for one little problem. She could not get pregnant. According to legend, this was because this poor woman was cursed. And not just like any curse, this woman was cursed with a demon who lived inside her vagina. I know. I was like, oh, I saw this movie, it's called Teeth. Remember anyone else? It was a good movie. When she and her husband tried to, you know, consummate the marriage. I guess this pussy demon bit his penis right off. I told you, it's teeth. I've thought about this a lot. The movie Teeth. Like I thought, listen, if I had teeth in my hoo ha, I would use it for good, like Batman. But not like I would go after all the bad guys, make them want to have relations with me, then chomp that wiener right off. For the greater good. It would be a lonely life, but that's a sacrifice I would be willing to make to save the world. I would love a pussy demon. Oh, I would ruin so many lives. But for the greater good. Okay, anyways, back to this story. So a few years later, this woman falls in love with another man. They waited to have relations until they were married. So, you know, they get married, then they're making Sweet love. And then chop. Penis gone. Severed, dismissed, removed, cut right off. So after this happened twice, she realized this woman, she needed help. She needed help with this man eating pussy demon situation. So she consults with a blacksmith. And I was like, oh, interesting. But it kind of makes sense. Cause maybe she's thinking she has like a guillotine in her area. And I'm pretty sure blacksmith would make that. No, that's what I was thinking. Okay, I could see the logic. Maybe. Well, it turns out this guy was smart and he came up with a very brilliant plan. A little insane, but she was willing to try. So he gets together all his blacksmith supplies and creates an iron penis. The blacksmith told the woman to use the iron penis like a dildo. I don't know if this blacksmith was a scientist or just like winging it, but according to the story, the plan worked. Now, when inserted, the demon went for its usual bite and broke its teeth on the metal. Finally, the pussy demon was defeated. And moral of the story is, I guess you know, it never tried to bite a wiener off again. So once this demon was gone, the woman was finally free to live happily ever after and have babies without accidentally castrating anyone. Now, apparently the villagers were so impressed by this demon banishing strategy that they put the iron penis in a local shrine. Iron penis. This shrine became known as the Kanama shrine and it was dedicated to fertility. Now here's where things get interesting. The town where this legend took place was called Kawasaki. And people started coming here from all over to pray for fertility, easy childbirth and marital harmony. So tons of women were coming to their shrine and paying tribute to this ancient legend. Over time, the shrine became the center of Kanamara Matsuri, AKA the festival of the iron penis. Yeah. Oh, I was looking this up. I was like, what? Tell me more. Festival Iron Penis. What? They still have this celebration in Japan today. It's every first Sunday of April. Based off the images I saw, it looks like a really good time. There are giant like penis floats parading through the streets. You can buy all these fun penis shaped foods and souvenirs. Yeah, it just looks like fun. I don't know, but have you been. Let me know and if you end up going, you can actually visit the iron penis. So I looked up the iron penis and I was like, first of all, it's huge. It's humongous. And I'm like, that isn't the same one right? From the story or is that the same one? Because like, she would get. You would get wrecked. I hope she's okay. But, yeah, it's there. You can visit it and, like, you know, and. Yep. Sorry. I was gonna say pray to it, but, like, you don't pray to the shrine, right? I don't know. Do you rub it? It's okay. Well, you can see it, and that's something. Yeah. Of course, as time went on, science advanced. People started to wonder if there could be something more, like, scientific than obviously, like, an iron dildo to cure infertility. And then it happened. In the 1950s, the future of fertility completely changed. And. And it's all thanks to a few mice and 30,000 liters of non pee. Okay, let's be honest. Bras, huh? Ugh. They just ruin my day sometimes. Like, why is something that's so close to my body so uncomfortable? Right? And I have to wear it all day, every day, blah, blah, blah. 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And it kind of feels like it was custom made. I surprisingly forget that I even have it on. That's like. That's magic to me. Shop my favorite bras and underwear@skims.com and after you place your order, be sure to let them know I sent you. Select podcast in the survey and choose my show from the dropdown menu that follows. Trust me, your boobs and your butt. But. Well, thank you. Yes, none pee is what I said. We're talking about urine again, Sorry. But it does play a big. It's consistent in the story. The history of fertility urine. It's the 1950s in Italy at the time There was an endocrinologist named Bruno Lunenfeld. An endocrinologist is a doctor who specializes in diagnosing and treating hormone related disorders, including conditions involving like the thyroid, pancreas, adrenal glands, and reproductive hormones. So that was this guy. And Dr. Bruno had one mission. Figure out why some women just couldn't get pregnant. But along the way, he accidentally stumbled on a hormone that turned out to be the key to not only fertility, but also birth control. It all started when Dr. Bruno was studying postmenopausal women who were dealing with hot flashes, mood swings, and, like, all the stuff you hear about when it comes to, like, menopause. But he wasn't just taking notes. Dr. Bruno was very hands on. He was also collecting their urine. He had a feeling that as these women were going through menopause, they, like, had to be losing certain hormones, maybe like, through their urine idea. So he would take urine samples that he collected from these women, and then he would inject them into young female mice. Look, he tried a lot of things. He didn't just, like, come up with this on day one, okay? And then the craziest thing happened to these little mice. After he injected them, their ovaries went into overdrive. These mice were just super fertile party. They just were ready, primed and ready to go. So Dr. Bruno was like, hmm, you know what's in this urine? Interesting. I should drink it. No, I'm just kidding. He didn't. But, like, he was wondering, what's in this urine? Turns out the urine of postmenopausal women was full of something called human menopausal gonadotropin, or hmg. So this is a hormone that can literally jumpstart ovulation. Ovulation is the. The window of time when a woman can get pregnant. You can get pregnant anytime, but when you're ovulating, that's the best time you can get pregnant. You know what I'm saying? So just like that, Dr. Bruno had discovered the golden ingredient for the first fertility drug in modern medicine. But getting this hormone wasn't exactly easy. In fact, it took an entire day's worth of urine from 10 women just to make, like, a single dose. So he's thinking to himself, you know, where can I find a ton of women who are definitely not pregnant and are willing to donate their urine for science? Hmm. And that's when he comes up with nuns. So Dr. Bruno and his team decided to work with postmenopausal Catholic nuns, because their celibate lifestyle guaranteed there would be zero risk of contaminated. I mean, pure, steady hormone. Machines were these women. And these nuns were very generous. In the first year working with Dr. Bruno, over 100 nuns donated their urine, which came out to a whopping 30,000 liters of urine. So he used all of that. Holy pea. To create 9,000 vials of this new fertility drug called Perganal. And the impact was huge. Perganal helped lead to the very first in vitro fertilization, or ivf, pregnancy in the United States. And it's been used in countless fertility treatments worldwide ever since. But at the same time, this wasn't just about babies. Dr. Bruno and his team were working right after World War II had ended, and people were mourning for the millions of lives that were lost. And part of rebuilding meant repopulating. You know, a little mouse experiment that Dr. Bruno had started was actually coming at, like, kind of the perfect time. Even the Pope gave his blessing. The Vatican was officially down for the non urine fertility program. So the next time you hear someone talking about hormone therapy or ivf, you know, think about all the non urine that went into that. It's pretty wild, huh? Miracle baby. All from non urine. You know, when you open your closet and you stare at it and you're like, wow, I have clothes, but I have nothing to wear, you know, and there's a reason. I have 18 black tank tops, but for every one, I could be like, mm, that one's stretched out. I don't like the crop on that one. That one doesn't fit my boobs right. That one just doesn't look good. But I won't get rid of them because I'm like, I spent more money on them. And it's just like. Or maybe you have items from that phase, you know, where you went and bought, like, a bunch of vintage jackets and stuff. 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And also you have your clothes cause you're in your own closet or something, you know, so it's like maybe you can like start putting it, see it with other stuff, you know, it's nice. Honestly, Stitch Fix has saved me so much time, money and stress. So get started today@stitch fix.com darkhistory to get $20 off your first order and they'll waive your styling fee. That's stitchfix.com darkhistory so we've got nuns donating 30,000 liters of urine in the 50s to help develop Perganal. And this turns out to be the breakthrough fertility drug. I mean, even the Pope is blessing all of this. Perganal basically kickstarted modern fertility treatments, including the treatments used in IVF. Cut to the 70s just 20 years later. Even though we have this like miracle breakthrough in medicine, there's still technically no exact cure for infertility at this time. Infertility was still like super stigmatized. If you couldn't have kids, people just kind of whispered about it behind your back, like, oh, she can't get pregnant. You know, and there weren't, there weren't a lot of options. Just kind of like thoughts and prayers. But then a gynecologist named Dr. Patrick Steptoe and a scientist from Cambridge named Dr. Robert Edwards, they teamed up to find a new solution to infertility. So these two men were on a mission to help, you know, people get pregnant using like a totally untested and very like, controversial method. They were all about fertilizing an egg outside the human body. So Dr. Patrick and Dr. Robert, they met their very first patient, a woman named Leslie Brown. So Leslie was having issues conceiving and had been trying for nine years. And at this point, she and her husband John were just about like ready to try anything. So they agreed to become part of Dr. Patrick and Dr. Robert's controversial experiment. But here's what they did. Step one, collect Leslie's egg. Step two, mix it with John's sperm in a petri dish. Step three, let it fertilize outside her body. And then step four, they implanted the tiny embryo back into her uterus. Now, back then in the 70s, this was like alien science. Before this, people believed everything fertility related had to happen internally. So when people heard about this method, I mean, minds were completely blown. So the moment the fertilized egg was implanted back into Leslie's womb, the doctors just thoughts and prayers, they held their breath. You know, the fate of this one embryo could make their 10 years of research and 80 unsuccessful procedures finally count for something. Leslie goes home and she just carries on life as usual. But she knew something monumental was happening inside her. Then she got the news. Like her hormone levels were rising, the embryo had implanted, and against all odds, she was pregnant. What? Yeah. Wild. I mean, Leslie was stunned. She's grateful, she's terrified. She's like, what? Like, literally no one, like, knew what was going to happen next. Could this pregnancy go to term? Could a human baby really grow from a process that had never succeeded before? In the beginning, the entire operation was kept hush hush, like only a handful of people even knew Leslie had undergone this procedure. So the media was not in the loop during the early months of the pregnancy. So Dr. Patrick and Dr. Robert were very protective, not only of Leslie, but, like, the experiment itself, because if anything went wrong, they didn't want it in the public eye, you know. But as the pregnancy progressed, that's when word started to spread. By the time her due date approached, the press had caught wind of the story and went crazy. Reporters and photographers were camping outside the hospital. I mean, the secret was out and the world was watching. They were watching not just Leslie, but the birth of a new era in human reproduction. On July 25, 1978, 6 pound Louise Brown was born in Oldham, England, and she was the world's first IVF baby. Now headlines. They were calling her the test tube baby, which technically isn't even accurate because she was conceived in a. Technically in a petri dish, you know, like, there was no test tube whatever. But, you know, they're getting a little crazy. I mean, people freaked out. They were thinking this was somehow a sign of the end of the world. Yeah, it went a little extreme. There were like, wild rumors that IVF babies wouldn't have souls or they would come out with horns or that, like, Louise would grow up sterile, insane, or that she would literally glow in the dark. It's like, can't you just be positive and try and, like, be positive here? Jeez. And the Catholic Church, they seem to be like, the most upset out of everyone. All of a sudden they were like, wait a minute, what are you doing with that nun pee? Ivf? No, no, they believe that that was playing God. I mean, they were fine with letting nuns pee in buckets, you know, for, like, hormone injections, but not with ivf. According to the church, this was because IVF separated procreation from the quote unquote, sacred act of sex. On top of that, it was believed that IVF was destroying unused embryos, which to the church was the same thing as murder. When you're going through the process of ivf, sometimes multiple embryos are created, but only, like, one or two are used. The rest can either be donated, destroyed, or stored for a person to use later. But whether the church and the people liked it or not, the nuns and the pope at the time, they launched a medical revolution. I mean, they unlocked the tools needed for ivf. A few years later, the Catholic church condemned ivf, saying children should be conceived through natural marital intercourse. I think now I googled it really quick, and they were like, it's okay, kinda, maybe, I don't know, whatever. Anyway, all this panic led to a lot of, like, insane theories about how mislimited Louise Brown, the first IVF baby, would turn out as an adult. And spoiler, Louise grew up normal. She didn't have horns, she didn't glow in the dark. She had a soul. She would go on to live her life, have her own family, and to this day, she serves as an ambassador for IVF organizations. The downside of IVF is that the average treatment can cost between 15 and $30,000. And that's a lot. I'm pretty sure we all agree that's a lot of money. And if it doesn't work, if your treatment doesn't work, like, you don't get your money back. Yeah, and like, many people can't afford this, and it's not covered by, like, insurance policies for the most part. So people are definitely willing to try other treatments, tests, supplements, whatever they think will help them get pregnant. The fertility industry is actually having a major boom right now. I mean, now that we understand pregnancy better on a scientific level, there's all kinds of treatments available. I mean, now everywhere you look, there's something like, there's gummy bears filled with vitamins to allegedly help fertility. Urine tests that can tell you exactly when you're most fertile based on hormones. There's ovulation trackers, so you know when to have sex. There's at home insemination kits. There's Mucinex. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure everyone has their tricks, all that. If you eat certain foods, whatever, we still have it. That's just the tip of the iceberg, really, between IVF Fertility assessments, hormone treatments, medications, supplements. Some major money is being thrown around. In 2023, the global fertility services market was valued at approximately $42.23 billion. The fertility industry is projected to grow to over $70 billion by 2030. Because at the end of the day, we still, we still haven't found a magical pregnancy potion. We have come a long way from drinking eunuch pee and showing our hoo ha to ra. But that's history for you, you know, I mean, really, like nothing has changed. I mean, same pee, different era. We're still peeing on things kind of the same. Next time on Dark History. The other week I was invited to a baby shower. It feels like I'm getting invited to one every other month these days. And every time I open a baby registry, oh my God. I am shooketh at the amount of stuff a baby needs now. These days, it seems like they've thought of everything to keep babies safe and healthy. But that wasn't always the case. Baby products used to be about keeping babies cool, quiet, and out of the way of their parents, no matter the cost. I mean, entire companies were created around this idea and this led to the deaths of thousands of babies in history. Join us next week as we dive into the dark history of toxic baby products. By the way, we're dark next week so there won't be a new upload. But we'll be back on August 6th. I'd love to hear your guys reactions to today's story. So make sure to leave a comment below so I can see what you guys are saying. And your comment might even be featured in a future episode. Yeah. Now let's read a couple of comments. You guys have left me. Zelda boy left me a comment on our Amelia Earhart episode saying, fun fact, thanks to an orphanage fire Emelia is my cousin. What do you mean I need more? You can't just like drop this kind of comment and I'm just supposed to go along with it. What do you mean thanks to an an orphanage fire Emelia is my cousin. What? I have some follow ups here. Zelda boy. Thanks to an orphanage fire Emelia is my cousin. Cool. Okay, awesome. I think I kind of feel bad for that orphanage fire. Not gonna address that, but okay, cool. Thanks, Zelda boy. Shout out to Amelia. Thank you, Countess Entertainment 9051 left us a comment on our Joanie Awards video saying, we need Joan Merch Bailey. Listen, I would love to do Joan Merch. I love her. She's beautiful, she's gorgeous, she's Miss America. She's Miss United States. Yeah. I've actually been working with Joan. We're coming out with Birdside's clothing. Little T shirts and cardigans for your lovely bird birds at home to wear. Let me know if you're interested. We will be making bird shoes. Joan has pitched some great, like, little booties for the birds. Different little bedazzled, like, bird eyelashes. Cause, you know, girls gotta be glam. She's in our logo. Did you see that? Redid the logo. Techno left us an episode recommendation on Spotify saying, what about the dark history of cruises? Listen, do you watch my murder mystery makeup? One of my very first, like, murder mystery makeup episodes I did was actually about, like, the death or a murder that took place on a cruise ship and the legalities of that. Because when you're out on water, who is held responsible for that? Like, who would take over that murder case? Like, it was actually really interesting and terrifying at the same time. And then it sent me down a rabbit hole of, like, all these, like, murder cases that have happened on cruise ships and how they just kind of fall through the cracks because. No, like, what do you do? Who's taking it over? You know? Have you heard of that big cruise ship? What's it called? Concerta? It's not Concerta. I think that's an antidepressant. Concordia. Oh, I have been dying. I don't know why I haven't done this. I've been dying to do an episode on Concord, the Concordia cruise ship. And I was like, is that a murder mystery, or is that a dark history episode? But I became obsessed with that because that whole story. Do you know that story? Oh, my God. Let me tell you. This big, old fancy cruise ship that, like, this guy was having an affair. The captain was having an affair, and then he, like, crashed the cruise ship, and it went down. It was, like, billions of dollars. Some people died. And he was like, I don't know. And, like, he got big trouble. We should do that. Thanks for the suggestion. I'm on it. You don't got to give me a reason. I've been actually dying to tell the story. I just didn't know where it belonged. Anywho, thank you guys so much for watching. Keep on commenting, because maybe your comment will be featured in a future episode. Did you know? You can join me over on my YouTube where you can actually watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs. And while you're there, you can also catch my murder mystery and makeup. Hey, don't forget to subscribe. I'm telling you, I'm here for you. And hey, if you don't know, Dark history is an audioboom original. A special thank you to our expert, Dr. Mary Fessell, PhD, J. Mario Molina, professor of the history of medicine at John Hopkins University and author of Pushback. And I'm your host, Bailey Sarian. I hope you have a good day. You make good choices, and I'll be talking to you later. Goodbye.