For the remainder of this article, I will use IVF and in vitro fertilization interchangeably.
One of our prime directives as human beings is to “go forth and multiply”. This natural urge is built into the vast majority of us and is probably the main reason why many of us like sex so much. Our urge to procreate is a good thing because the human race would have died out eons ago without it. Anyhow, even though we humans are wired to procreate, we aren’t always successful at it for a variety of reasons. Among these reasons are: a loss of feminine fertility with increasing age, low sperm count, etc. As we’ve seen many times throughout the history of mankind, we aren’t very good at accepting our limitations and are thus prone to fighting like hell to overcome them. In the struggle to overcome the limitation of poor fertility, we discovered what is known as “in vitro fertilization” which is the central theme of this article.
So… what the heck does “in vitro fertilization” mean? Well “in vitro” is latin for “in glass” and back in the day, laboratory utensils and equipment were made of glass. So in vitro fertilization is the technical term for a procedure that allows for the fertilization of a human egg in a laboratory dish rather than in the female reproductive tract. Having read that, you might be thinking whoa! Really? I’m here to tell you yes… really. The next logical question that is probably bouncing around in your head is – so how does all this medical/scientific voodoo work? Fair question… grab a snack and a glass of wine (if you’re old enough) and let’s see if we can make sense of this in vitro fertilization thing. Continue reading In vitro fertilization (IVF) in plain english
