INFERTILITY: MOTHER KNOWS BEST

“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.