Some women need eggs from others, or from their younger selves

“You will not have a child with your own eggs,” were the hardest words to hear. They were delivered late last year to one of your authors and her partner, after five years of failed IVF, by a doctor who quickly moved on to the remaining options: adoption or seeking the help of an egg donor.

Coming to terms with the idea that you will not pass on your genes even if you do still bear a child is another of the strange new forms of loss that IVF has brought with it. It is possible to know that genes are not the essence of what it is to be part of a family—that step-children can be loved unconditionally, that people may bear scant, if any, resemblance to their genetic forebears—and still struggle to adjust to what can feel like a loss of parental identity.