The least worst of IVF

Lifeslurper has been experiencing the birthday blues particularly badly. Prior to IVF never did I fear the clicking over of another year. Signing up for ART at 42 my age was said to make a successful attempt at IVF unlikely. This week I turned 44.

All along advanced age has been suggested as the ultimate handicap to IVF. Yet logic tells me it can’t be. There are many other impediments in this infertility malarkey; they can be physical, emotional or financial to name just a few. I am merely experiencing one limitation (that I am currently aware of) of which there are countless more.

On any given day my fertility clinic peers are years (decades even!) younger. Some are even older. Many have gynaecological diseases, such as endometriosis, or important baby making equipment missing, such as an ovary or a fallopian tube (or two) due to reasons of hereditary or disease.  Others have experienced non-gynaecological disease, such as cancer, resulting in their fertility being affected. Women might also be given the label of ‘unexplained infertility’ which can’t be much of a diagnosis at all to those it is directed.

Then there are the men. They do not escape being tarred with the infertility brush. Methods of overcoming male infertility include surgical procedures or the use of donor sperm.

Within the great armies of hopeful baby makers attending fertility clinics around this planet are those who have previously been able to produce offspring unaided or with previous assistance from ART. For a whole host of reasons this feat proves a difficult one to repeat.

There are also those who have changed partners, lost partners, have a partner of the same sex, or don’t have or want a partner.

The myriad reasons for needing ART and your friendly local fertility clinic are endless. Often these reasons overlap, and any one person or couple can find themselves facing a smorgasbord of issues leading to the decision to turn to ART for some baby making assistance.

Would I prefer to be younger and facing any other possible reasons for IVF? I can’t say I would. Is there any way I could ever know if the 20 years younger Lifeslurper was ever fertile; is this truly age related, or was it there all the time? If there were more time, would further investigations potentially reveal disease or other issues I am currently unaware of?

Did I spend twenty years mourning the loving partner I had not known and feared would never show? I certainly did. Can I change that I finally found that love at a reproductively late age? No.

Are any of the above causes of infertility any less real or difficult to those experience them? Not in the least.

Point being infertility is hard no matter what your situation. Add the desire to have a baby in your life and infertility gets even more difficult. Introduce ART into the fray and you will find yourself in one of the most physically and emotionally fraught predicaments known to human experience.

Trouble is we have to embrace ART to potentially find a way out of infertility. So in the ultimate of ironies, in IVF and its many ART cousins, we have the chance to achieve that wondrous experience; the birth of a child.

Can infertility ever be ‘easy’ for anyone to experience? Is there a ‘least worst’ situation that would be preferable in this ART life? Or can there only ever be varying degrees of difficulty for those affected by infertility?

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