On July 25, 1978, Louise Brown of the U.K. became the first person born through in vitro fertilization (IVF). Twenty-five years later, my spouse Helen and I welcomed our own son, born via IVF. Now, our son is among eight million babies born through IVF, so let’s all wish Louise Brown a very happy birthday as she turns 40.
Brown wrote yesterday in the Independent that “Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards, the two men who came up with the technique, suggested my middle name be Joy. They said my birth would bring joy to so many people.” Indeed it has. Helen and I bear a personal debt to her, her parents Lesley and John Brown (who died in 2012 and 2007, respectively), and their doctors for enabling us to have our family in the way we envisioned, using my egg and Helen’s womb. (If you are interested in further details on our particular story, please read my “Injections, Eggs, and Attorneys: How We Conceived.”)
Brown even notes in her article that “IVF is playing a huge role in the changing shape of families, with same-sex couples now able to be parents.” She’s right in that IVF is one of several family creation options open to us—but let’s remember that same-sex couples were parents long before IVF, with the first generation of out queer parents having had children in previous, different-sex relationships (as I explained in a piece on the dangers of crediting science alone with creating queer families).
Not all same-sex couples use IVF even today. That procedure only refers to insemination done outside the gestational carrier’s body (hence Brown’s moniker of “test tube baby,” even though a petri dish is really the vessel of choice). Many queer people with uteruses go for simple assisted insemination (the “turkey baster” method of putting sperm into cervix or uterus, though again, this is a misnomer; it’s usually a syringe). Others opt for the traditional unassisted approach. And not all who use IVF take the reciprocal approach Helen and I did; some use the same person’s egg and womb, but need IVF to overcome fertility challenges.
Nevertheless, IVF has become a key part of family making for many LGBTQ folks, not only couples doing the reciprocal thing like Helen and me, but also people using a surrogate (since the surrogate usually doesn’t use their own egg). It remains a vital family creation option, too, for anyone—LGBTQ and not—faced with fertility issues.
In 2010, Dr. Edwards received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on IVF. (Steptoe had died in 1988.) But as the New York Times explained, the 30-year delay between his discovery and his prize was particularly long, attesting to the controversial nature of the procedure. Many felt it was an “unnatural intervention”; the Catholic Church still opposes it.
As Brown writes, however, “Once I was the only one in the world. Now, there are millions of us and we can no longer be ignored.”
IVF is far from a cure-all, though, as this fascinating article by Tracey Loughran on the history of treating infertility explains. Loughran notes, too, that “Because IVF is a technology that intervenes on women’s bodies, it also reinforces the focus on how women’s reproductive systems might ‘fail.'” She suggests, however, that “Maybe putting their own stories in historical perspective could help infertile women now. The ability to research and to understand the many different reasons for infertility, and the different options open to those who are unable to conceive, helps couples to exert control over a situation that makes them feel powerless.”
If you want to start such research, read Loughran’s article and then check out Resolve: The National Infertility Association. And whether you’re faced with fertility challenges or simply want to explore IVF as a family creation option (as Helen and I did), a Google search of “lgbtq fertility” will list many facilities (though you should always do your own evaluation of them), and they often have extensive information on their websites.
In the end, though, the methods by which we create our families are not nearly as important as the methods by which we raise our children. Still, here’s to the science that made parenthood possible for many of us, and to Louise Brown, who had an unasked-for spotlight thrust upon her when she was born, but who has become an outspoken advocate for IVF as an important option for modern family creation.