That there are so many things that doctors can try now has made [in vitro fertilization] feel somewhat limitless. Andrea Braverman, a health psychologist who has been working with infertility patients since the 1980s, says it’s one of the most significant changes she’s seen in all her years working with this patient population. “When I first started in the field, there were points where doctors would say, ‘We’re done. There’s nothing more I can do for you.’ That’s not the case anymore,” said Braverman, who was previously a chairperson for the Mental Health Professional Group of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. “Now it’s: ‘You don’t have eggs? We can give you eggs. You don’t have sperm? We can give you sperm. You don’t have a uterus? We can give you a uterus.’ ” (Couples may also turn to surrogacy, which is a godsend, but can cost upward of $100,000.)
“You know, there is no end point,” she continued. “I think that’s the big difference over the last few decades—now it really falls on the individual to sort of say ‘Enough.’ ”
The problem is that the patient usually doesn’t have the expertise to make this call. Couples going through IVF run up against the uncertainty of medicine, the subjectivity that plays into deciding what protocol to try next, and the fact that IVF is a business. …
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