In Vitro Fertility Goddess

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How Many IVFs Are Too Many?

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And while we're there, how long is a piece of string? Or maybe you'd best ask Australia's former Federal Health Minister, Tony Abbott. He thinks the answer is ‘more than three' if you're 42 or over, and ‘more than three a year' if you're under 42.

How a man who's never experienced a follicle-stimulating cycle came up with these figures is unclear. So I must say that I'm happy to see his political career limited to no more than three cycles.

The point is, it's our fertility he's talking about and governments should not have a right to meddle with it.

Nobody from the government tells a woman on a sole parent pension who's had, say, six children to different fathers that she's reached her tax payer funded limit because it's clear any future ones will be no-hopers, therefore their prison bills will provide a budget blow-out. They wouldn't dare, yet they want to limit the ability of a fertility challenged woman to reproduce due to the resultant blowout of health costs and a small chance that a healthy child and therefore functional member of society will result.

I know a woman who finally gave birth to a son after twenty IVF treatments. Can we look back and say, that was too many, given that it took that many for a child to be born? Incidentally, as far as this woman was concerned, it was her last try.

After I had my first child with the help of IVF I undertook three more attempts before I gave up. It was a personal choice, which I only arrived at after the third try. At that point I decided that I could no longer ride the rollercoaster and would just concentrate on the child I have.

The point is, for everyone it's an individual thing. You just know when you can't give it another try, when you make a decision to focus on the child/ren you've got or search another avenue like adoption.

Yet perhaps there is such a thing as too much IVF. Perhaps it can be defined as the point when you've had to sell your house, your spouse has left and you're wandering the streets wearing ten hats, pushing a full shopping trolley and shouting randomly at passersby.

In which case maybe Tony Abbott is really just trying to look after us after all. It's what caring politicians do, don't they?

Jodi Panayotov author of In Vitro Fertility Goddess »

Reader Feedback:

"Just wanted to say how much I agree with your article about the number of ivf cycles - I have had 4 cycles with an ectopic (lost my right fallopian tube) and then a miscarriage and have two frozen embryos stored.

I am 42 and have been made to feel like there's no real hope and I brought it on myself (especially by my doctor as I've had no success yet, and am constantly reminded that my EGGS ARE 42!!!). I just wish people would be kind to those of us that took a long time to find a good bloke or are brave enough to go it alone - for me to miss out on motherhood is not an option so I'll proceed, but for some they need more support from as many areas of the community as possible.

Keep writing, shouting and doing anything to make people aware of the great sadness and despair that is felt by those of us trying to conceive."

Julie-Ann, Sydney