IVF: The Ultimate Blind Faith…Shattered

September 16th, 2009. By AbiK

Usually religion and the belief in a higher power is what comes to mind when you think about blind faith (or maybe some classic rock, thank you E.C.). But if you’ve been through IVF, you know what blind faith is. And Katharine Aschero surely knows it, too. According to the National Law Journal, she and her husband recently filed a lawsuit for a botched in vitro fertilization procedure.

How botched? Well, imagine learning that an “error” had occured in which your eggs, after extraction, had been fertilized with the wrong man’s sperm. Now imagine that before you knew that, you found out that “your” embryos had been destroyed without your consent. It’s one of the most heart-wrenching things any parents-to-be can endure.

I don’t think you can understand the insanity of it all unless you understand what it takes to go through certain IVF procedures. My own situation may differ from many out there, but let me just say the checks and balances that were put in place to allow me to go through IVF were astounding…

• Screening for STDs
• Screening for AIDS
• Psychological testing
• Screening for STDs for my husband
• Screening for AIDS for my husband
• Psychological testing for my husband
• Financial “fitness” assessment
• Parental preparedness assessment
• Countless blood tests
• Tests to establish I could not conceive (my personal fave)

And the list goes on…

I figured, hey, I was checked out through and through and I fulfilled my part of the bargain. So you assume that, given the high-stakes involved in an IVF procedure, that the lab and medical facility involved in the procedure would be able to hold up their end of the bargain. So when you feel the anesthesia start flowing into your body for the extraction and you say nighty-night to the OR staff, well, from that point on you’re living on blind faith baby—and a lot of it. And I’m sure that’s how Mrs. Aschero felt, too.

Suffice to say, if you’re a control freak, IVF most likely ain’t for you. You simply have to turn over all control to a lab technician who you’re trusting has everything labelled correctly and very, very carefully does what he has to in that petri dish. Oh, and then pray that what’s in that petri dish is a) viable and b) returned to its righful owner.

Interestingly, the Aschero’s case is not a medical malpractice one. It alleges breach of contract and common law negligence, seeking $80k in actual damages, plus damages for emotional distress and punitive damages.

For my money, $80k is low; I know what I paid for my procedures. And just about no amount of money can make up for the knowledge that you’ve lost some potential real-live babies to…the trash.  

Tags: IVF

This was posted on Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 at 3:50 pm and is filed under Emerging Issues . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.