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Hello! This post was written by a fertility nurse Robyn Nazar who approached me about featuring this article. Today, I am sharing it with you.

The Crisis of Failed IVF

by Robyn Nazar, RN BSN

When talking about IVF most people talk about the “success rate” of this infertility treatment. Rarely do you hear one talk about the failure rate, which – in all honestly – may be what really matters.

As most know, the majority of IVF treatments fail. The average IVF success rate in the United States is around 30%, but drops dramatically with every year of age. Unfortunately by 41 the likelihood of having a live birth after an IVF treatment lingers somewhere around 12%.

However, despite the diminishing chances with each IVF cycle, many women go back again and again – clinging to
the thread of hope that one day the statistics will finally be on their side.

In a very moving essay featured in the Wall Street Journal last July titled, “My Fertility Crisis” the 42 year-old author Holly Finn gave a very real account of her own experiences with failed IVF treatments. After multiple failed IVF treatments she asked “Would a sane person bother trying again?”

Her question is a very real reflection of the conflict and brokenness that couples feel after trying – and failing – at  IVF. She wrote,

“IVF brings you to your knees and dares you to stagger to your feet again. Even as you steel yourself for more shots and setbacks, it forces you to remember the gentleness in you and the true reasons you want to bring another human into this world…”

“…In the end, infertility can make you feel less human. As cultivated as we are, we hold on to a deep-rooted belief that our worth is tied to how well, and how much, we reproduce. I’ve seen women and men shrink like salted slugs during IVF treatment. I’ve done it myself, disappearing even as the hormones start to puff me up. The whole process makes you feel unlovable.”

Her heartbreaking essay is an excerpt from her book “The Baby Chase” in which she details her every thought and emotion experienced through her walk though infertility. It is stories like hers that would send any couple considering IVF running for the hills.

However, as a fertility nurse, the resounding hopelessness of her story breaks my heart. Miracles can happen and there are many wonderful infertility specialists and physicians out there who are dedicating their lives to helping women just like Ms. Finn.

Take Dr. Norbert Gleicher, for example. As specialist in infertility of “older women”, Dr. Gleicher was riveted by Ms. Finn’s essay – so much so that he sat down and wrote a four-page response.

“What struck me in reading Ms. Finn’s essay was that she did not reflect the anger our profession often faces in publications describing failed IVF and infertility treatment experiences,” wrote Gleicher.

“Instead, she projects a degree of hopelessness and sadness in her message, which is almost harder to take. What she is really telling us in her piece is that as a medical specialty, it is high time to recognize that we, to a large degree, are failing a rapidly growing patient population [of older infertile women] which urgently needs our help.”

He goes on to say that it is women like Finn that he is working with every day to help realize a dream of a child – and then counters her defeat with messages of hope,

“It is essential to recognize that even “older” women left without ovarian function of their own still have options… Women today are no longer limited by their own reproductive lifespan (i.e. their ovaries’ ability to produce viable eggs) because egg donation has become widely available. In the United States, egg donation now represents the most rapidly growing fertility treatment within IVF.”

Furthermore, he mentions other treatments such as DHEA, which are evolving as alternative ways for older women to become pregnant by using their own eggs.

I was really encouraged by Dr. Gleicher’s thoughtfulness to respond to Ms. Finn’s article because I think that her personal experiences could come across as alarming to those new (and optimistic) to IVF. Although, an “eyes wide open” approach is essential when embarking on the TTC journey, thereality is that reproductive medicine is a fast-growing medical field which continues to defy the odds time and time again.

However, it should also be acknowledged that most couples don’t have such limitlessness resources to support repetitive infertility treatments. Those unfamiliar realities of infertility may callously suggest that those last precious dollars should be spent on an adoption – not on a risk.

But until one is in that vulnerable moment of seeking child of your own making – one never knows what extreme lengths may be taken to make it possible.

So if you are in a fertility crisis try and take stories, like Ms. Finn’s, with a grain of salt. Disappointment is a very real part of the TTC and IVF process, but don’t be disheartened. A small chance is still a chance and thanks
to wonderful infertility specialists, like Dr. Gleicher, we are reminded that hope does still exit.

Thanks so much for sharing this Robyn. I agree that hope does exist. And it doesn’t hurt to be reminded.

Thank  you!