One of the biggest challenges of fertility treatment is the occurrence of multiple births.  I have twins, and I'm happy, but, multiple pregnancies are high risk pregnancies. And there is a hierarchy of risk. After the joyous realization that you're pregnant, you await the first of many ultrasounds. It will reveal whether the twins share one placenta or each have their own. Sharing is more high risk for the twins; vascular pressure can become unbalanced, damaging, even killing one twin. Or they can share one amniotic sack. This is very dangerous, because there is a high possibility of strangulation as the unborn twins move about in the long months of pregnancy. As this information comes to you from your doctor (if your doctor even knows this, and/or tells you), you feel like you are in a game of  "Russian roulette", and each complicating factor is like another bullet being slipped into the cylinder- nothing you can do about it, and each factor potentially lethal.

And for nine months you live with the risk, knowing that some tiny factor beyond your control, some small "butterfly effect" can end the life of one or both of the unborn children you have sacrificed so much, already, to be carrying. Unless you live in one of Canada's major cities, you will be travelling long distances often, to have your pregnancy monitored. In my case, every two weeks I travelled two and a half hours to Sudbury, had a half hour ultrasound, spent fifteen minutes with the OB (who was not a specialist), then drove two and a half hours back home. Later in the pregnancy, the trips were once a week  this is expensive and time consuming.

Like most couples in Ontario who have to pay for IVF, I chose to have multiple embryos transferred.  I had four embryos placed back into my uterus.  FOUR!  That's a lot.  I could've had quadruplets, or more.  But, I had twins.  Identical (monozygotic) twins.  Which means that only one embryo survived; and split.

Obviously, I thought that was a brilliant move at the time.  We had spent all the money we had.  They told us our embryos were of low quality.  So, we were easily convinced to have four "poor quality" embryos placed.

If IVF had been funded, would I have agreed to that?  Probably. I really, really wanted to be pregnant.  However, if IVF is funded, there will be regulations requiring only one embryo transfer.  Is that a good thing?  Well, it seems like it is.

The reality is that multiple births have higher risks; the higher the number of multiples, the higher the risk.  Here are some statistics on the risks:

Multiple births in Canada are on the rise: birth of twins has risen 35% (per 100,000 successful pregnancies) between 1974-1990. The incidence of triplets has increased almost 300% and quadruplets over 400% between 1974-1990.