Something I have been thinking about as I read through infertility blogs & remarks on Facebook, which I think needs to be clarified and clearly understood by all fertility patients. There is a general misconception that In Vitro Fertilization, or IVF, is the "be all" fertility treatment. It is the ultimate "magical" treatment that will get everyone or anyone pregnant. This could not be further from the truth. IVF CANNOT make you pregnant. It can only give you the OPPORTUNITY to become pregnant, by making and placing embryos into the "womb". From that point on, it is in God's or Nature's hands. IVF also CANNOT give you a baby. That is propaganda that has been propagated by SART and the CDC through the use of their "delivery rate" statistic.
Yes, our goal is for you to have a baby. That is what we and you want. But to think that we have an ability to make that happen, and to use that as a measure of IVF success is misleading. We, as infertility specialists, and IVF as a treatment, have absolutely no control over the pregnancy, its course, its complications or its outcome. That too is in God's or Nature's hands. Any pregnancy, whether it is a chemical pregnancy, miscarriage or continuing pregnancy, is an IVF success because the limit of IVF is to give you the chance to get pregnant. Getting a positive pregnancy test and losing the pregnancy is a sad outcome, but at the same time should give you hope. It showed that the IVF worked, and if it can work once, it can work again and hopefully, result in a baby the next time! Perseverance will get you the baby that you want, although the pathway to that dream may sometimes take you in a different direction from your original intended route.
Edward Ramirez, MD, FACOG
Monterey Bay IVF
www.montereybayivf.com
