Sofia Benavides
(CNN) – When Jennifer Aniston recently spoke about her struggle with IVF treatments to try to start a family, she gave a voice to people who have gone through arduous fertility trials that ended up with no biological children.
In vitro fertilization, or in vitro fertilization, is a method of assisted reproduction which consists in extracting the eggs from the ovaries and fertilizing them outside the body. The resulting embryos are usually placed in a woman’s uterus in the hope that they will stimulate pregnancy.
The process is not cheap. Each cycle can cost between $12,000 and $17,000, according to one estimate, though it’s covered by insurance in some places.
CNN spoke to four women who have tried unsuccessful IVF. They described months of daily injections, ultrasounds and lab tests. They spoke of long waits, of hopes and disappointments. From financial stresses and painful questions from loved ones and strangers about why they haven’t had children.
“The current infertility narrative is dominated by success stories, because people seem more willing to talk about their experience after becoming parents,” says Katy Seppi, 40. “Those of us who end our trials without a baby are often met with unsolicited advice, reinforcing the narrative that we obviously gave up too soon.”
Jennifer Aniston.
Aniston’s story has helped put a face on those who cannot have children, a deeply personal struggle that many face in silence and in the shadows.
Here are their stories.
He plunged into grief after giving up his desire to have a child
Katy Seppi has been battling infertility for four years. In April 2017, she turned to IVF.
She chose baby names and a birthing center. She had a room ready for the baby in her Salt Lake City home. But after one round of IVF, her embryos proved to be non-viable.
The process worsened her fibroids (non-cancerous growths in the uterus) and her endometriosis, a condition in which the lining of the uterus grows out of it. Seppi decided not to proceed with a second cycle after being warned by her reproductive endocrinologist that she would likely lead to a similar result to her first, she says.
For Seppi, the detailed ovulation schedules, obsessive attempts to conceive, and the despair that came with negative pregnancy tests became unbearable. After weighing all of her concerns about her reproductive health, she decided to end her pregnancy process and have a hysterectomy in 2017, a decision that initially plunged her into what she described as a total pain.
“I’m one of the lucky few who had IVF coverage through my employer, so it wasn’t a financial sacrifice for me,” she says. “But I decided to leave it to protect my physical, emotional and mental health. My heart broke every month when my period hits and I didn’t know how long it could take.”
She started seeing a therapist who told her it was okay to put herself first and helped her process what not having a baby meant for her future.
“I stopped protecting my physical, emotional and mental health,” Katy Seppi, 40, says of her decision to end her IVF process.
“I’ve spent my whole life dreaming of motherhood… I stayed at work to get maternity leave; I had made room in my life for a child,” she says. “Through therapy, grief work, and connecting with other childless in my community, I slowly began to create a new vision for my life. I chose myself. and my well-being rather than clinging to the hope of a child”.
During her fertility process, Seppi says she hasn’t been able to find many resources for people who can’t have children. She has poured her energy into trying to change him. She started a blog and Instagram account dedicated to the childless and gradually started connecting with them.
He also founded Chasing Creation, an online community of people facing similar challenges that now hosts one online summit a year.
Seppi says she thinks Aniston’s candor about her IVF process helps validate the experiences of many people who are unable to have children.
“There’s a common belief that anyone can have a baby if they want it enough, hope it enough, and never give up,” she says. “It’s just not true, and that leads to a lot of misunderstandings and rejection of the pain that is left with you when you realize you have to let go of your dream of being a mother.”
She has been influenced by the many decisions related to the IVF process
When Sherrae Lachhu decided to have IVF, she bought a pregnancy diary, maternity clothes and egg retrieval T-shirts for herself and her husband.
The T-shirts were emblazoned with the words, “Legs up, lights out, time to get my eggs.”
Lachhu, who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, had a good feeling. She bought a dozen gray and white onesies and an extra pink pair, hoping she was a girl.
But her two rounds of IVF were unsuccessful. The first resulted in a positive pregnancy test in February and bleeding and miscarriage about six weeks later. The second was last month, around the time the first baby would have been born, and it wasn’t successful.
It takes immense strength to pursue a lifelong dream that comes with repeated disappointment, says Lachhu.
Each stage of her process involved numerous decisions, including whether to test an embryo and how many to implant, she says.
“The hardest thing was the decision-making process. There are a lot of decisions you have to make, starting with whether to embark on this journey even when you are in old age, like I am,” says Lachhu, 45, an entrepreneur who owns a virtual coaching and therapy studio.
Sherrae Lachhu, 45 years old.
“Then there are the decisions about the doctor, which protocol might work best in each case, the myriad supplements the community encourages you to take, the decision to continue eating and drinking as you normally would or stay clean for months or years. For someone like me with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), decision fatigue has been overwhelming at times.
Lachhu has three stepchildren during her marriage, but says she has moments of sadness when she thinks of what she has lost. She says she and her husband hope to continue trying for a child, but their financial options are limited. Her husband’s job paid for two rounds of IVF, but they’ve already run out of those opportunities.
To try again, she says, her husband would have to find another job that provides those benefits again. Or they should raise their own funds.
Lachhu says people sometimes ask him if he has chosen not to have children of his own.
“It probably doesn’t occur to most of them that infertility is far more common than they realize, and that not all women get pregnant and experience a successful birth simply because they want kids.”
Her embryos did not survive, but she was $17,000 in debt.
Meaghan Hamm, 35, went through the egg retrieval and fertilization process in August.
Doctors harvested seven mature eggs and, after fertilization, she ended up with five embryos. But none of them survived.
It was an emotional and financial blow to Hamm, a customer service agent for a bank in Ontario, Canada. She had paid for the trial by not going on holiday with her husband and asking her family for money.
“The hardest part was feeling like we were accomplishing something by having five embryos and then ending up with no real chance,” she says. “It was a huge blow financially as we still had to pay for everything.”
The egg recovery cost nearly $12,000 and the drug about $5,000. The embryo tests would have cost another $5,000, but the couple didn’t have to pay for them since they haven’t made it to that stage.
“Many people are not educated about infertility issues and believe IVF will solve the problem,” says Meaghan Hamm, 35.
In Ontario, the provincial government pays for a round of egg retrieval, but there’s a nearly two-year waiting list to enter it, she says. She and her husband paid out of pocket, though their names are still on the waiting list.
Hamm says stories of failed IVF procedures are underreported, and as a result, most people don’t understand what the process involves and how difficult it can be. Aniston’s story sheds light on these struggles and can help lessen the stigma of people who feel judged for not having children, Hamm says.
“Many people are not educated about infertility issues and believe IVF will fix it,” she says. “The concept of IVF to solve infertility has to end. People who share their IVF failure stories will help others understand that it’s not their fault. It can help others not feel so alone.”
He felt like a failure when his IVF didn’t work
April Barsby, 32, had an IVF cycle in September of last year. Her only mature egg was rated a C, she says, but it was the only one she had and she hoped it would help her achieve her dream of becoming a mother.
Barsby, who lives in Norman, Oklahoma, has been battling endometriosis and low egg counts, so she pinned all her hopes on an egg.
“The hardest part was that all my hopes finally fell apart, as my sweet egg didn’t stick and my period failed,” she says. “I only had one mature egg after my retirement and I had put all my hope and enthusiasm into it.”
Barsby doesn’t have a job. Her friends and family donated some items that she later sold at garage sales to help fund the procedure.
The process drained her and her husband’s finances and left her struggling to accept her body. For now, the couple has decided to put the IVF process on hold, and Barsby says she’s not sure how to proceed from now on.
April Barsby, 32 years old.
“My husband is my biggest support and it hasn’t affected our marriage in any way,” she says. “For months, I had a really hard time feeling like a woman because of the sense of failure in my body.”
Barsby says she grew up watching Aniston in “Friends” and that it was nice to realize the celeb had been through something similar to hers. She believes Aniston’s story will raise awareness about the downsides of IVF and what triggers expectant parents who go through the unsuccessful process.
“Not having a baby can ultimately be extremely disheartening and destructive to a person’s mental health,” she says. “I’m not sure there’s a right way to normalize infertility, but talking about it and letting women and men share their stories is a good start.”
Barsby says he’s better a year later. But she still grieves for what she could have been.
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