I was one of the lucky ones: For my husband and me, IVF worked on the first embryo transfer. My son—a miracle, as all babies are—was born in 2016. After the first year and a half of motherhood, a happy blur of marveling at the incredible little person that science had helped us bring into the world, my husband and I were ready to try for our second. We eagerly went back to the clinic to transfer one of our three frozen embryos. The doctor assured us that this one looked great—just as high-quality as the one that became our son.
I was elated when the clinic called to tell me that the transfer had been successful. The pregnancy test was positive, and my hormone levels were rising at the proper rate. I couldn’t believe my luck: From a single egg retrieval, my son had been born, and now it looked like that same batch would produce my second and final child.
But at my first ultrasound, when I was supposed to be seven weeks pregnant, the reproductive endocrinologist frowned as she studied the screen. She was sorry, she told me, but there was no heartbeat.
I was gutted, but determined. So we tried again. And then we tried again after that. None of the remaining embryos took.
Those miscarriages were grueling, but for IVF patients, this heartbreak is not unusual. That’s because many embryos aren’t viable, so trial and error is inherent in the process. The creation of extra frozen embryos isn’t just a nice bonus—it’s an essential part of the process.
That’s why last week’s decision by an Alabama court—which prohibits IVF clinics from creating extra embryos—isn’t just an inconvenience, it’s a direct attack on the entire concept of IVF.
But it didn’t happen by accident. To many, the basic premise underlying the Alabama decision seemed contradictory: Don’t anti-abortion activists want people to have more babies? In theory, yes—yet paradoxically, the ruling was the result of a decades-long crusade against fertility treatments mounted by the same people who oppose access to abortion, as I write in a story published today.
Because of course abortion and IVF are two sides of the same coin: Both allow people like me some semblance of control over the momentous decision of how and when to expand our families.
There was a happy ending to our story eventually—just shy of three years after my son was born, through a slightly more complicated IVF process, we had our daughter. I remain deeply grateful to the clinics, doctors, and nurses who helped us. My heart aches for the Alabama IVF patients who won’t have the same opportunity we did to have the family that we had always wanted.
—Kiera Butler
