At a recent toddler birthday party, I struck up a conversation with another parent as our children played. “They’re having so much fun together!” my new friend exclaimed, followed by “Are you going to try for another one, to give your son someone to play with?” Feeling the sense of dread build up in the pit of my stomach, I responded with something noncommittal like: “Oh … yeah … we’ll see.” Nobody was aware that I was, at that point, recovering from an early miscarriage post-IVF – part of my secondary infertility.
Infertility is defined as the failure to achieve pregnancy after at least 12 months of trying to become pregnant. Around 15% of couples will experience infertility and the most common underlying causes of female infertility are ovulatory disorder (failure to ovulate) and age. At around the age of 35, there is a dramatic drop in fertility for females due to the number and quality of eggs. Despite this, the rate of first-time parents older than 35 years is at 17% of the population, up from 5% in 1991.
