Archive of Our Own ^beta

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A brief guide to IVF from some who went through it eight times.

One of my pet peeves with The X Files is how they take huge liberties with infertility and that can create myth around a topic that affects about 1 in 5 women. Out there in the real world, many women - and men - can be easily triggered about misinformation. This summary might be helpful for any writers who want to correct the IVF myth arc in a sensitive way.

In no order some useful things.

I’m not a scientist or embryologist but you can find real life stories online about IVF and do read the ones where brave women speak about IVF failing.

Eggs or ova are produced throughout a woman’s fertile life. I have no idea how a body can have one egg left. Mulder has some super magnetic sperm going on. To get Scully pregnant means she has working ovaries or IVF works. Or En Ami gets very very sinister.

IVF is 72% likely to fail this days, so it not working is more often than you might assume and in the 1990s it was still new science (Louise Brown, the first IVF baby was born in 1978). It’s good to put triggers on stories that feature it, have miracle babies or mention miscarriage.

20% of women may conceive naturally (but with 1 in 20 going through IVF, it’s not many women so it’s therefore not a regular event!

Eggs can’t survive in Mulder’s coat pocket. They need to be stored in dry ice canisters; I moved my embryos and it’s a huge object. There is a time limit on how long they can be out of the main storage. You can’t keep them in a domestic freezer or fridge.

Depending on the type of IVF, women will have to give their own injections. It’s really painful and screws up hormones. Women can look pregnant before they are if it’s for egg retrieval as the medication (a combination of tablets and injections) cause ovaries to swell. Scully would not have had this if she had no eggs left but she would have had injections and medication prior to and after transfer to prepare the womb lining.

Scully is technically sterile if CC's confused logic is to be understood at the start but he means infertility later on, which is not the same as sterility, where there is no possibility of conception (up to 15% of couples can be infertile, but only 1 to 2% of those are sterile and 50% of infertile couples who seek help, eventually conceive, either naturally or with medical assistance - data from the USA but not necessarily applicable to all countries).

Transfer takes place in a hospital, assuming there are embryos that fertilised. Embroys may not defrost or not progress to blastocyst so the cycle may stop at this point. Not in a domestic bedroom. The woman legs are in stirrups and it’s agony on the back. It’s not sexy or romantic, it’s quietly devastating especially if it fails. The father is allowed to be there.

Sex is not recommended and neither are baths during the two week wait. It is two weeks and the results can be found by blood test or a pregnancy test. Usually the pregnancy test first and conformation at the clinic. Clinics do sometimes call with the news as well.

Women tend to feel physically awful regardless of the outcome. Their stomach will be very sore, very bruised from injections, likely headaches from the side effects of the hormone tablets. Their back might be sore as they will may have to had injections in the top of their buttocks (it hurts, it’s not a reason for Mulder to think about the doggy position). It is very unlikely that Scully would want to jump into bed with Mulder unless it was to cry a lot.

The mental anguish is awful. Unspeakable. Women often feel let down and there would have been very little dedicated mental health support. There is still isn’t enough.

50% of women who go through failed IVF have PTSD, to be honest only one of many reasons one might have PTSD in this show!

Mulder says to hope for miracles - he also lost the chance of being a father, be mindful of childless men.

One of the most awful things to say is adopt or surrogacy, it's human nature to fix but women who want to be mothers will have thought of all the ways. Adoption isn't a substitute for IVF or ICSI and has a risk of failure for different reasons and couples applying have to 'over' their IVF journey which is a difficult ask. The best friends simply listen.

The loss and grief is life long but childlessness isn't shameful. Women and men who aren't parents, not by choice are incredible and the biggest peeve I have is that it's not celebrated enough, goodness knows the parents in the X Files are largely terrible role models.

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Please think about the readers.

Yes, it might ‘ruin’ the storyline but a note before the start of a story or using warnings in the tags about miscarriage, loss or failed IVF, or any traumatic event around infertility makes a massive difference to readers who have been through this and prefer not to read about it. The American Psychological Association reported that 50% of women who went through failed IVF sufferered PTSD (and failed IVF is one of 50 ways and more in which women may not be parents not by choice, some apply to men too).

For our wellbeing, it’s a big but small gesture that can make the difference between a good day, really awful one or worse, a crisis. We can’t all begin to think of every reader but infertility is a big part of this fandom (and other traumatic themes) but as authors we can be respectful of subject matter and reader experiences. Most of all it provides the reader with a choice.

Most of all that couples can have impactful and fulfilled lives - Mulder and Scully have many more traits and interests to offer, fiction where they don’t have children can be celebrated and encouraged as good role models.