We hear a lot of stories about successful fertility treatments. But there are a lot of untold stories without such happy endings. Holly Finn, author of "The Baby Chase," talks about the emotional and financial toll of in vitro treatments, and the often heartbreaking outcome.
Usually it's only the people who come out beaming on the other side, with a baby on one hip, who speak up about in vitro fertilization. We never hear from those whom IVF has failed—it's too crushing to talk about. We don't hear from men and women in the middle of treatment, either. Our culture doesn't seem to know how to deal with people before we've figured out if they're successful or not. People like me.
In November 2008, I had my first IVF workup. In 2009, I had a laparoscopy, two egg retrievals and a canceled cycle. In 2010, three retrievals, two embryo transfers and a hysteroscopy. In 2011, two retrievals, and a transfer to come. That's eight times under general anesthesia in two and a half years.
Jason Madara for The Wall Street Journal
Holly Finn, pictured here. 'So how did I end up cruising a cryobank? Is this the punishment for romanticism: having to do the least romantic thing in the world?'
What next? Either a baby, or not.
* * *
For the IVF drugs to have a chance of working, I have to administer them at the same time each day. I've shot up furtively in my office, in restaurants and in my car. It makes me feel like a badly behaved chauffeur. More than two years into IVF treatments, I've grown accustomed to this stealth. It's become a fact of my life.
Here's another fact: I'm a single woman in my early 40s. The odds of getting pregnant are conspicuously slim. For a woman my age, according to the American Pregnancy Association, the chance of having a baby via IVF is between 6% and 10%. That number decreases with every failed attempt, so now my odds are even lower.
In the United States, infertility affects about 12% of the reproductive-age population. This includes 7.3 million women and their partners, or one in every seven or eight couples in the country. A third of infertility cases are related to the male, a third to the female, and another third to both partners (or unexplained). In any given month, with a man whose parts are in order, a healthy woman's chance of getting pregnant naturally is 20% to 25% if she's in her 20s, 10% to 15% in her 30s, and 5% in her 40s. Really, it's miraculous at any age.
Some four million babies have been born thanks to IVF since the first "test tube baby" was born on July 25, 1978. Many more have not. The overall IVF success rate sits at around 30% today.
The profession is advancing, but cases are getting trickier. I've been going to the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine, and the mean age of women walking through the door there has increased from 32 to 39 in the past two decades. That's a great leap in the wrong direction.
The clinic's founder and medical director, William Schoolcraft, says that about 65% of the female infertility he sees now is due primarily to the age of the eggs, which usually (though not always) correlates with the age of the woman. Freezing eggs (successful just 10% of the time a few years ago, 80% of the time now) and egg donation have revolutionized the business of infertility. But they can't solve everything.
When we were young, we were taught again and again that we shouldn't get pregnant. Now we can't.
I'm not that woman from the Roy Lichtenstein print who forgot to have children. I was never so wrapped up in my career that I didn't think about starting a family. But I'm not over 40 and childless for no reason. I was diagnosed with endometriosis, a condition that makes it hard, sometimes impossible, to conceive. I gave too much time to the wrong men. I smoked in my 20s. I preferred red wine to sparkling water. I ate too much milk chocolate. I liked limericks. I know all the wrong that I've done.
Jason Madara for The Wall Street Journal
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