Confessions of a Three

When 44-year-old Mari Wyatt, a free-lance editor, decided to have a third child, she had no idea what she was getting into, except that a woman her age had a success rate of less than 5% without help. Undaunted, she wanted to take advantage of her state's insurance mandate requiring large companies that offered pregnancy benefits to also cover infertility treatments (including three cycles of in vitro fertilization). With an undergraduate degree from Princeton and a master's degree from Stanford, she worked for two years as a grocery bagger for a large supermarket chain. As she waited for insurance eligibility, she interviewed dozens of younger, usually marginal women who were willing to sell their eggs in order to pay their rent. Pregnant at last, she endured months then years of ill-effects, risks to her health and even her life. She met other couples who suffered even worse setbacks and unimaginable tragedies. With infertility on the rise, stories such as Mari's will resonate with others facing similar challenges. Hopefully, they will find inspiration to continue on this expensive and exhausting journey, for which there are no guarantees but, as any parent will tell you, is definitely worth the risk.