“Infertility treatments will kill you!” my mother exclaimed. She was not taking the proud to be a grandmother stance that I had hoped. Instead she was focusing on cancer. My mother was convinced that the IVF hormones would be a breeding ground for tumors. “Victoria, your grandmother died of melanoma now you’ll be dead too!” I disregarded my mother’s dire prophecies and proceeded with five IVF treatments with my own eggs. When those failed, I decided to try IVF again with donor eggs. My beautiful baby that beckoned at the end was worth fighting for. However, I knew that my mother was just being melodramatic when she claimed that I’d be dying for a baby as well. Except that my mother was proven right. A recent New York Times article found that IVF increases the risk of ovarian cancer fourfold. Now I’d have to beat the odds to get pregnant and to not get a malignancy.
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