I wrote earlier this week about how Helen and I conceived our son. One of our many concerns was what we would do if we had twins or more. Not that this would have been the end of the world; many parents have survived this (and a few might even relish getting the whole labor thing over with all at once), but it wasn’t our preferred way to go. We spent a few anxious weeks hoping that we’d have only one, as indeed we did.
Our other anxiety was that we’d strike out after three IVF attempts, at which point our insurance wouldn’t cover the procedure, at about $20,000 per try (plus $300 each time for the sperm).
Now, scientists at the University of Adelaide say they have developed a new method of IVF that could double pregnancy rates and halve the incidence of serious complications. It might also allow doctors to implant only a single embryo.
Good news all around. It may be a while before this technology is available to humans, however; so far, it has only been tested on mice. It seems to involve putting the embryos in a new type of culture to help them “better survive their five days out of the womb, and help the foetus and placenta develop more normally.”
The question is, for both same-sex couples and opposite-sex ones with fertility problems, at what point in the testing of any new reproductive technology would you take a chance with it? Would your desire to create a healthy child spur you to volunteer just after the mouse stage, if you could, or are you the type who would wait until many other humans had used the method with success? What if your insurance would only cover three tries?
