West Coast Families - Struggling to Conceive

By Rachel Sanders

Amanda and David Clegg only realized how desperately they wanted a child when they discovered they might not be able to have one.

Like many women of her generation, Amanda postponed thinking about having kids until she was in her mid-30s, wanting to finish school, establish a career and buy a home before starting a family.

“Once I got all those ducks in a row, I wanted that final piece of the puzzle,” she shares. But after trying for a year to conceive and undergoing a number of tests, their doctor diagnosed the Clegg’s with unexplained infertility.

“I realized at that point that a baby wasn’t the final piece of the puzzle, it was the only piece that mattered.” Clegg continues. “I suddenly knew that this was the only thing in life I wanted. And I had this awful fear it would never happen.”

Amanda and Dave’s experience is hardly unique. Dr. Al Yuzpe, co-director of Vancouver’s Genesis Fertility Centre, estimates that somewhere between one in six and one in seven couples have difficulty conceiving.

And for many of those couples, the thought of seeking infertility treatment is daunting and overwhelming.

“There were some studies done that showed a lot of couples don’t seek help at all because they don’t know how to go about getting it,” says Dr. Yuzpe. “They are frightened off by a lack of knowledgeabout what needs to be done to do an investigation, what the various treatments are, [the fact] that everything isn’t expensive and so on.”

Published June/July 2006

To view the rest of this print article in the
original format please see the attached file.