IVF Worked For Them - AOL Health

by Catherine Donaldson-Evans

AOL Health
June 1, 2010

Suzanne Gastineau got pregnant with her first baby so easily, it never occurred to her that a few years later, she would be trying to conceive her second for a year-and-a-half with no results.

The St. Louis-area resident and IT specialist was 38 years old when she had her son Kyle, now 6. At age 41, she was trying to get pregnant again, but nothing happened. After going to her ob/gyn and finding that the only thing affecting her was her poor quality eggs because of her age, she was put in the care of an infertility specialist and decided to undergo a special type of in vitro fertilization that works well for older women.

After two rounds of what her doctor and others refer to as "mini-IVF" -- a cheaper, toned-down form of the procedure involving fewer drugs with lower dosages yielding fewer but better quality embryos, or fertilized eggs -- Gastineau got pregnant with her second child despite the fact that she had only one viable embryo. Little Alex was born last August, when his mom was 43 years old.

"I ended up with a gorgeous baby boy," she told AOL Health. "He's a little miracle patient. Personally, I'm a believer in IVF."

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