1. Birthing stories: what government-funded IVF treatment means for one Ontario woman
“It’s a medical problem. It’s not a lifestyle problem,” says Sonal Champsee, a 38-year-
old woman who has been receiving medical treatment for infertility since she was 36.
“There’s nothing I did in my life that resulted in this. It’s just something that I was born
with, or developed — it’s impossible to know. We fund childbirth. We fund care for
miscarriage. Ontario has always funded diagnostic testing for infertility. We don’t fund
treatment — until now.”
On October 1, 2015, Eric Hoskins, Ontario’s health minister, announced the province
will fund in-vitro fertilization for women under 43. “Infertility is a serious medical
issue,” Hoskins said.
Sonal is sharing her story because while we talk about the science of medical
interventions to treat infertility as most are relatively new — the first IVF baby was born
in 1978 — there’s a dearth of personal narratives about something “immensely
important and immensely worrying” in the lives of those being treated.
“Even if you try to put it out of your mind, there are periods where I’m going in for
doctor’s appointments every single day… I needed to make this a normal part of my
life… When I started talking about as if it was like having braces and you have to get
them tightened every week, it became easier,” Sonal says.
Sonal has premature ovarian failure — “essentially, I’m going into menopause
unusually early,” she explains — but her story isn’t so unusual.
“When we got married, I was 35… That’s just the time in my life when I met someone I
wanted to be a partner with.” Friends were having children, so it seemed “plausible”
that she and her husband could, too.
“We started trying when I was 36… We tried naturally for a number of months… It’s
actually really difficult to get pregnant… Knowing what I know now about how unlikely it
is I am amazed any of us exist at all. Pregnancy, life, is so improbable in so many
ways.”
While Sonal knows the reason for her infertility, 30 per cent of infertile couples receive
a diagnosis of “undetermined”.
“What do you do with that,” Sonal asks.
IVF can be diagnostic, when other tests are not. Those whose infertility is unexplained
often go through IVF because doctors can see what might be going wrong.

2. “IVF is replicating the same process that happens naturally; it’s just doing it in a dish,”
Sonal says.
While the specifics haven’t been announced, the Wynne government is expected to
fund one IVF cycle, and the number of viable transfers that result.
“It’s not much,” Sonal says. “Most couples probably have to go through three rounds
of IVF before they can say if this going to work well or not.”
Regular cycle fees average $7000. Medications increase the per-cycle cost by $3000
– $5000. Intracytoplasmic sperm injections (ICSI), in which the sperm is injected
directly into the egg, add $1000. Freezing embryos is another grand.
“I’m in the fortunate position that I can keep going,” Sonal says. “A lot of people have
to stop because they just run out of money.”
“People don’t quite know what it’s like or what you have to go through, and how it
changes [you] to lose choices. I think to myself, well, I’m pro-choice, but it’s like you
only have a choice over one thing. You only have the choice not to have children.”
“Part of it is psychological,” she observes. “When you can’t have something, you want
it more — but part of it is that it clarifies things.”
What’s clear to Sonal after choosing to share her experience of infertility and IVF: “It’s
almost like telling the story is transcendent. It takes it from morass of experiences, and
turns it into something meaningful.”