There are about 450 fertility clinics in the United States and 106 in the UK, hoping to bring joy to thousands of couples. The popular YouTube channel Real Families looks at what happens during the average day at a local fertility center.
Doctors, nurses, and scientists work long hours seeing highly distressed couples. They are given examinations to determine their reproductive health and what hurdles they need to overcome. Because of economic pressures, most couples cannot afford to have children until they are older and their fertility is waning.
The entire process of trying to get a woman to conceive is two months. It begins with the woman taking injections every day for five weeks in order to produce more eggs. She then has an ultrasound to determine when it’s best to collect her eggs. She usually produces six. Her eggs are collected and brought to a lab, where they are fertilized with the man’s sperm. If one of the eggs conceives, it is implanted back into the woman’s womb.
Workers at a fertility clinic meet a lot of different people, have to work with many types of technology, and deal with masses of paperwork. In the UK, the National Health plan pays for two tries at getting a baby. Afterwards, couples must pay for the procedure out of pocket, which costs well into the five figures.