IVF journeys in Singapore: Stories of hope, struggle and determination
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SINGAPORE - The Republic’s total fertility rate dipped below 1 for the first time in its history in 2023, continuing a decline from 1.04 in 2022 and 1.12 in 2021.
Amid this concerning trend, KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital highlighted a 40 per cent increase in couples seeking fertility treatment at its IVF centre between 2014 and 2023.
Here’s a closer look at the struggle of couples wanting to conceive, one compounded by the high cost of treatment, the emotional strain involved, and the looming uncertainty they face.
Family and fertility: Is IVF the magic bullet?
ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
Among the first patients Ms Amy Lee Shaw Ni met when she was cutting her teeth as a junior embryologist at Singapore General Hospital (SGH) years ago was a young couple from Hong Kong hoping to get pregnant.
Their in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment at the hospital’s Centre for Assisted Reproduction (Care) started in August 1993, around the same time the King of Pop Michael Jackson was performing in Singapore.
The procedure required the wife to regularly inject herself with follicle stimulating hormone to boost the production of multiple eggs. Not wanting to miss watching the music legend and his moonwalk, the wife took the stimulation drug in a cooler bag to the concert and injected herself during the interval, Ms Lee recalls.
‘Our doctor never gave up on us, and we never gave up on ourselves’
PHOTO: COURTESY OF TINA PADIA
For many couples, the emotional toll of fertility treatments often outweighs the financial strain.
Former digital marketer Tina Padia, 44, moved to Singapore from London to begin a new chapter of life with her husband Mayur Padia, 43, after they got married in 2016. They tried to get pregnant naturally for eight months with no success, so they decided on some routine checks “to see if everything was okay”.
Ms Padia remembers: “We didn’t suspect anything. But when we got the tests done, we received the bad news that my husband has cryptozoospermia or an extremely low sperm count. The chances of conceiving naturally would be low.”
‘Till today, we still don’t know why we couldn’t conceive naturally once more’
ST PHOTO: GIN TAY
Infertility can be a baffling experience for couples who have had an older child through natural conception. Ms Jacylene Tiew, 39, and her husband Mr Eric Yim, 47, know what that feels like.
Keen to expand their family after the birth of their first child in 2011, the couple spent over four years actively trying to conceive, without success.
“We did everything, from traditional Chinese medicine to following advice from YouTube videos on post-coital positioning. It just didn’t help at all.” says Ms Tiew, a Ministry of Education instructor.
‘It wasn’t how I imagined having children – clinical, painful, and cold’
Growing up as an only child, psychotherapist Qi Zhai-McCartney, 43, knew that she wanted to have a large family.
The lack of a sibling felt especially acute while she was a young college graduate living and working in the United States. It was challenging managing her studies, a nascent career, and caring for her parents back in her hometown in Harbin, China.
So when she wanted to start a family after getting married at 34, she decided she had to give herself the best odds, given the long hours and frequent travel demanded by her job with a global asset management firm.
‘IVF is like a twisted mix of Monopoly and Snakes and Ladders’
PHOTO: COURTESY OF MS SOPHIE SANDERS
When yoga teacher and fertility support specialist Sophie Sanders tied the knot in 2018 at the age of 41, she thought IVF would be the fastest and least stressful route to getting pregnant.
But as she and her husband learnt that it was no miracle remedy. It felt more like a numbers game, where the odds of success rose with the number of attempts.
Things started promisingly. With a healthy number of eggs retrieved and developing into embryos suitable for implantation, Ms Sanders harboured hopes of being among the lucky few to conceive on the first try. The couple’s optimism was shattered by a blighted ovum – a fertilised egg implanted in Ms Sanders failed to progress into a foetus.
‘The best decision we’ve made, though we didn’t get the results we wanted’
PHOTO: COURTESY OF MS SHER LOH
When Sher Loh, 45 and Jeff Teay, 44, got married in 2012, they had hoped to start a family naturally since they were both then in their early 30s.
But after a year of active trying with no success, they decided to consult a fertility expert. Tests showed that Mr Teay, who works in the marine industry, has low motile sperm.
The couple were recommended intrauterine insemination (IUI), which involves collecting the man’s semen and preparing it in the lab to concentrate the sperm, which is then deposited directly into the woman’s uterus so they find their way to the egg naturally.
