When Nature's Not Enough: Personal Journey's Through In Vitro Fertilization

 

Diana Olick, like many modern women, delayed starting a family for the sake of her career. Like many women, Ms Olick thought it was a simple matter of tossing out her preferred method of birth control, and letting nature run it’s course. Those of us who had sex ed in high school were led to believe that it’s really that simple. “Use a condom or you’ll get pregnant!” we were told. We all know someone who had an unplanned pregnancy, and that only reinforced the belief that it’s a simple as not using a condom. Diana Olick, and her husband Scott, tried, and tried, and tried. Then they tried some more. After a few years, they went to the doctor, and found out the bad news. The bad news was, trying wasn’t going to be enough.They needed help. When Nature’s Not Enough is the story of their journey to parenthood, and the journey of other couples who chose in vitro fertilization, or I.V.F., when lots of unprotected sex just wasn’t enough.

I admit, Ms Olick lost some credibility with me, when she explained in the introduction that ” ‘In vitro’ is Italian for ‘in glass’.” It may very well be true that in Italian, “in glass” is “in vitro”, and that would not surprise me in the least. Like most medical and scientific terms, “in vitro” is Latin. Shame on Ms Olick for doing all that research and not knowing that. She gets some of her credibility back when she concludes the introduction with the caveat that she is not a doctor, and she was not writing a medical resource. When Nature is Not Enough is about people and their stories. It’s about not being alone. It’s about the stigma, and the stresses of infertility.

Ms Olick’s husband, Scott, didn’t want to tell anyone that his  few swimmers couldn’t swim. Alexandra and Peter, both journalists, couldn’t conceive because Alexandra had an ovulatory disorder. Anne and Michael are both in politics in Washington D.C. and to this day, they aren’t certain why they couldn’t conceive naturally. Tim and Kathy both work in television, and they both come from large, Catholic families. They tried for four years before getting tests done, and they still don’t know why they couldn’t conceive naturally. Carol is a musician, she plays the organ at their church, her husband Mike is a tax accountant. A severe beating while he served in Vietnam caused their infertility. His epididymus was completely blocked by scar tissue. Chris, a firefighter, met Kate, a teacher, at a bar where she was celebrating a friend’s bachelorette party. Kate knew there was something wrong with her, and it took a year to convince her doctor to run tests. One of her fallopian tubes was so badly infected that it had to be removed surgically. Then she had an ectopic pregnancy.

All of these couples elected to try IVF, but not all of them succeeded. When Nature is Not Enough is the story of what these couples went through, when they found out they needed modern science to have a family. Each couple decided differently how many cycles to try, how many embryos to implant, what to do with the remaining embryos, whether to try donor sperm, and whether or not to adopt. They are all very personal choices.

What each of these couples had to say about their journey to parenthood, is heart wrenching. The realization that they may be able to have children, the realization that they cannot afford to continue fertility treatments, the realization that continuing fertility treatments would mean they won’t be able to afford adopting. That’s not a choice I would wish on anyone.