Going through IVF in South Korea

I have been trying to edit this video for over a year. Every time I’d look at the footage I would end up crying and all those emotions would come back. I can’t emphasis enough how emotional it is going through IVF…

I also wish I’d filmed more of what we went through but at the time I didn’t want the camera anywhere near me.

We did end up vlogging the IVF process because we wanted to document what we went through, and also share our story with others. We would meet people who didn’t know what IVF was, or people who’d heard of it but didn’t know much. Even for those that have friends going through it, it’s hard to understand what it’s really like. I hope documenting it and talking about it helps others understand. Many people are going through this all the time, but people just don’t realise it. As we said in the video, it is hard to always be explaining it to people.

We are lucky to be living in Korea. The main reason why we moved to Seoul was to do IVF. Now we have many reasons to be in Seoul, but that was the initial motivation to move. When we went through IVF the Korean government paid for half of it, and we’ve heard now that the government will pay for 70% of it! This is probably to do with Korea’s declining birth rate and they are throwing money at anything to make people have more babies. But in many other countries IVF can be extremely expensive.

Everyone has a different experience of IVF. Things may be done differently in other countries, or the drugs may not affect someone the same way they affect others. And the saddest reason for a different experience may be when people have the opposite outcome of us…

I can be pretty blunt in the video about what people shouldn’t say to couples struggling with infertility and I wasn’t sure if I was going to leave that in. I asked people in a similar situation if I should leave those bits in and they said yes. They want others to know this.

I did cut out a part where I talked about how it can be hard to maintain friendships with friends who already have kids. I totally understand how bitter some people with infertility can get and feel they have to break off those friendships. We have tried to maintain positivity and the knowledge that we will have a happy life together even if we don’t have kids. But I also don’t know what my feelings would have been several years down the track. Even now, after having Yul, I still can have anger and bitterness towards women who can easily get pregnant. I try not to spiral down with that negativity like that, but as we approach the topic of having another baby and what we will have to go through to achieve that, it’s hard not to see others easily conceive and feel bitterness. It’s hard when other couples can get pregnant by doing a loving act one time, while others struggle for years going through fertility treatments.

Yul really is a miracle baby. After the first round of IVF I really thought it would be so many more tries, but I’m so thankful I became pregnant then. We are so happy to be parents.

Already there are so many lovely comments on the video over on YouTube, thank you everyone for being so supportive.

I also have my comic series about endometriosis, infertility and IVF here. New episodes coming next year.