Dream Children – Battling Infertility

This Dream Children series aims to shed light on the emotional and complex experiences couples and individuals face when they battle infertility. It seeks to raise awareness of the numerous difficult and conflicting decisions people encounter.

DREAM CHILDREN – Battling Infertility

It took me five long years to get pregnant. My partner and I endured countless tests, exams, and treatments, exploring a multitude of options in our journey to become parents. It felt like an endless emotional rollercoaster—full of highs and lows. You say goodbye to the future you've imagined, you grieve, and move on. You search for a new path, or perhaps a new explanation that makes sense.

Today, approximately one in six people struggles with infertility, yet it's a topic many are reluctant to discuss. Even less talked about are the challenges of IVF. As highlighted in a July 2023 article from The Economist, "Most courses of treatment fail. That subjects women and couples to cycles of dreaming and dejection—and gives the fertility industry an incentive to sell false hope… Many women go through round after round of hormone injections, sometimes moving from one clinic to the next.

This series aims to shed light on the emotional and complex experiences that couples and individuals face during their fertility journeys. It seeks to raise awareness of the numerous difficult and conflicting decisions encountered along the way, such as undergoing another round of hormone treatments, seeking a donor, or making the difficult choice to stop trying.

The work features couples and individuals at different stages of their journey—those still pursuing parenthood, those who have realized their dream of having a child or children, and those who have chosen to stop and close that chapter. While infertility is often perceived as primarily a women’s health issue, male factors contribute to approximately half of infertility cases in heterosexual couples. Additionally, this work highlights the unique challenges faced by same-sex couples and single individuals seeking parenthood, who often confront even greater hurdles in many countries.