Reproductive technology has reached a point where there are many options available to help you become parents. These options have given couples a lot of freedom, opened doors to wonderful new possibilities, and created many families.
When you are considering using reproductive technologies to help you become a family, there are a lot of points to weigh and a lot of information to gather.
Understanding Your Condition
If you are considering assisted reproduction, it is important that you come to the process with a good understanding of why natural conception is not working for you and what conditions or problems have brought you here. Understand what your doctor thinks is realistic for you and your partner and what the odds are for you with the different types of treatment. Many times, doctors cannot give you a complete answer as to why you cannot conceive without assistance, but it is important to arm yourself with whatever knowledge is available.
In general, it is best to try the least invasive procedures first, if they provide real hope for you. Many fertility treatments involve input from other people, but many couples are able to conceive using their own genetic material. There are many good treatments that are non-invasive, including drug therapies. Be sure to explore all of the options available to you and understand what could or could not work before progressing to more invasive and complicated treatments.
What Technology Can Do For You
Technology can help you or your partner become pregnant; provide you with genetic material to create a baby if your body cannot do so itself; or, allow you to work with another woman to gestate your pregnancy. These options can seem staggering. Most people begin at the bottom of the totem pole with the least expensive and least invasive options and work their way up to more expensive and complicated procedures.
What Technology Cannot Do For You
While technology can offer you new ways to become parents, it cannot change the basic facts of your circumstance. It cannot help you cope with the emotional effects of being unable to conceive on your own. Technology cannot erase basic biological facts. Technology can provide you with a baby, but it cannot always provide you with a baby that is genetically linked to both you and your partner. This can be a big stumbling block for many couples.
For many couples, it is possible to have a child that is a biological child of one of the parents, while using donor material for the other. This raises the issue of whether you and your partner are comfortable with all this implies---having a child who will resemble one of you but not the other, having a child who has an unknown or unidentified parent; and, the inevitable emotional fallout as you process these facts and live with them in the years to come.
Undertstanding Terminology
The assisted reproductive field is filled with acronyms for different types of procedures. Here are some definitions of frequently used terms:
ART: assisted reproductive treatment. This is the medical assistance you receive as you try to conceive.
GIFT: gamete intrafallopian transfer. Eggs (either belonging to the intended mother or obtained through donations) are retrieved from the ovaries and placed in the fallopian tubes with the sperm. Conception occurs in a natural location, but allows physicians to carefully choose the genetic material available.
ICSI: intracytoplasmic sperm injection. A single sperm is injected into an egg and the egg is implanted into the intended mother.
IVF: in vitro fertilization. Eggs are fertilized with sperm outside of the mother and embryos are implanted into her uterus.
IUI: intrauterine insemination. Ovulation is induced in the woman and sperm is inserted into the uterus.
ZIFT: zygote intrafallopian transfer. Eggs are retrieved from the mother or donor and are inseminated. The zygote or young embryo is then implanted into the fallopian tube.
Other terms you may come across include the following:
Gamete. This refers to sperm or eggs---the building blocks of a baby.
Induced cycle. Ovulation that is induced by medication.
Natural cycle. Ovulation that occurs without medication or medical intervention.
Oocytes. An egg before maturation.
© 2005, Brette McWhorter Sember
from The Infertility Answer Book, Sourcebooks, Inc., 2005