This week, I’m delighted to share a guest post by Ericka Andersen, a freelance writer and mother of two living in Indianapolis. She is the author of Freely Sober: Rethinking Alcohol Through the Lens of Faith and Reason to Return: Why Women Need the Church & the Church Needs Women. She writes thought-provoking essays for World Magazine (and many other outlets!) and is featured in the forthcoming documentary Frozen Orphans.
On a personal note, I have long admired Ericka for her courage, transparency, and willingness to invite others into the hardest parts of her own life, including her journey with infertility. It can be easy to draw a strict binary—either you’re “pro” IVF or you’re “anti” IVF—but Ericka shows us what it looks like to love the children one has had through IVF, while also being honest about the lack of informed consent, root-cause care, and pro-life protections inherent in the IVF industry. If you enjoy this guest post, leave a comment and follow Ericka for more. :)
The IVF Industry Doesn’t Want You to Ask Questions by Ericka Andersen
I recently watched The Plastic Detox, a Netflix documentary on how the overuse of plastic as played a part in America’s fertility crisis. The documentary followed four couples, all struggling to conceive, then tracked their plastic use and the drastic changes each made in their homes and daily lives to remove it.
Specifically, researchers tracked sperm counts for the men and what effect plastic had on them. Months after changing how they oriented their lives toward plastic, male sperm counts increased significantly. By the end of the documentary, three of the four couples profiled were pregnant or had given birth.
Perhaps it’s not as simple as plastic detox (or maybe it is for these couples), but there are many natural and effective pathways toward fertility to be tried before giving up and going the unnatural route of IVF. And yet, Big Fertility pushes you specifically in one direction. No need to hassle with lifestyle change or root cause analysis.
What Big Fertility Fails to Say
Eleven years ago, when I was struggling to conceive, no one suggested we try a plastic detox, or any other kind of natural effort. I’d never heard of NAPRO (Natural Procreative Technology) and would not hear of it for at least six years.
When my husband and I couldn’t get pregnant, we thought our only option was IVF. The IVF clinic gladly allowed us to believe that. After paperwork, a brief assessment, and a short conversation with a doctor, we were offered a package deal — one that would give us the best chance of having a live baby at the lowest price.
The Devastation of Leftover Embryos
October 25, 2023
I wish I were joking. At the clinic we used, you could buy an IVF package that included 4 egg retrievals (if necessary) and as many tries at embryo creation as those retrievals would allow. If you chose the “one shot” egg retrieval process, you’d have to pay for each fresh cycle individually, which would cost much more than agreeing to the 4-egg retrieval deal.
We knew that 100% at the end of the day we wanted a baby and this — the clinic told us — was the best chance at that happening without spending extra money. Of course the “deal” was still $28,000, but we knew a child would be worth any sacrifice it would take.
Things the IVF clinic didn’t go over with us:
How likely it would be that we’d actually need four retrievals to be successful
The likelihood that an IUI or less invasive method might be all we needed
How hormones & egg retrieval can negatively affect the female body
What other options we might consider before going full IVF
The likelihood of ending up with “leftover” embryos (and how many there could be)
What choices we’d need to make if we did have “leftover” embryos
In the office, there were photos of babies born through IVF covering the walls. Their website boasted some of the highest success rates in the country.
There was language in the contract about what constitutes “success” — a “live birth” (sometimes called a “take home baby rate”), whereas a stillbirth or miscarriage is not. As if those potential lives didn’t matter, didn’t count — just like the imperfect blastocysts they’d never implant for being less than Grade A.
But, a “take home baby” is the fully optimized product, right? So they can’t grant any value to the factory duds that petered out too soon.
Like so many women who walk through the doors of an IVF clinic, I was blinded by my desire for motherhood. I had no understanding of the repercussions of IVF procedures on my body, my future children, and others; I had no idea who would be affected. Most notably, these created human beings with entire lives ahead of them. Secondly, myself, who would spend years anguishing over what I’d helped create. It’s not anguish because they exist (no human being is a mistake), but because of the trauma and brokenness my choices will bring them.
The Silent Consequence of IVF That Fertility Doctors Keep From Women
July 16, 2025
Perhaps I wouldn’t have listened if someone tried to dissuade me back then. I certainly didn’t understand all that I do now — but the fact that so much information went unsaid is a travesty. That no responsible person at that fertility clinic walked me through every bit of this — step by step — with all the options and potential consequences laid out on the table is wrong.
Some would say it’s not their job. I’m a responsible adult who can educate myself. That’s true. I could have done so much more to get informed. It’s also true that you don’t know what you don’t know. You can’t fully understand what you haven’t experienced.
As for the clinic’s “job” — that is precisely the problem. IVF clinics are baby-making factories that turn human beings into commodities to be created, bought, sold and discarded based on credit card numbers, medical grades and personal preferences.
…It does them no good to counsel me toward an option outside of their clinic. That’s a waste of their time.
…It does them no good to guide me toward a less invasive option like IUI because it may skew their success rates.
…It does them no good to stress that IVF may result in multiple extra embryos that I’ll need to decide “what to do with” someday because then I might not move forward with them.
…It does them no good to suggest I could create only the number of embryos I would use because again, that thwarts their total success rate possibilities.
When I signed the paperwork and put down the initial $15,000 dollars for our “deal,” there was a faint voice in my mind. It reminded me that extra embryos were possible. I tuned it out, praying selfishly that God would allow only the number of embryos that I could use — maybe three. But I was asking Him for what I wanted while attempting to play His role.
At the time, I didn’t know that some people can create up to 20 or more embryos in one fell swoop. I didn’t know you’re paying for storage — $75/month currently — forever unless you decide what to do with the ones you don’t use. I didn’t know that once I became a mother, those embryos were no longer “leftovers” but the siblings of my born children who I love so desperately I can barely breathe sometimes.
Embryo Adoption is Not the Solution
I didn’t know that “embryo adoption” is no solution to this problem for pro-life couples. I thought, if it comes to that, that’s the answer — and then I get to bless someone else and newborn babies don’t know the difference. I was wrong.
I’ve learned a lot since then. Like that there are over 1.5 million embryos on ice and counting, and most will never be unthawed due to parental neglect.
I’ve learned that every kind of adoption includes trauma and that those who are born to non-biological parents experience identity issues, detachment, and higher rates of mental illness.
I’ve learned that I now have to do the most excruciating thing I never imagined would be my life — and give my own child up for adoption. I will be a bio mom, and someone else will raise my children if they are lucky enough to make it through the medical process to birth.
The number of extra embryos we had was too many. There are other, private reasons I cannot discuss on why I couldn’t birth more of them. They are each made in God’s image and created with a purpose. Their lives are infinitely valuable, and God will redeem these little people, despite me. At this point, they are ours to steward, and we hold on to the fact that they are God’s children first and deserve a chance to live.
If they ever read my words, I want them to know that they are loved, prayed for, and chosen by God because HE redeems what we make messes of.
But fertility clinics don’t care about God. They don’t care about your imperfect blastocyst or what you do with the “leftovers” when you’re done paying for their services. They don’t care if you unthaw them for destruction, offer them to science or keep them on ice until you die. Their job is done and yours — mine as a mother of frozen embryos — is now living with the repercussions of my uninformed decisions.
I’m now a member of several private Facebook groups related to embryo adoption. Frequently, people post of having many embryos available for adoption. Often, they mention how they unexpectedly got pregnant naturally after having their first IVF baby. It’s almost as if they could have gotten pregnant without IVF if they had waited.
This week, I saw a woman who shared she had 4 boys, but chose IVF because she really wanted a girl. She has 10 embryos leftover, but she got her little girl. Other times, I see women struggling when they learn their embryo has been born to another family. It hits them — that’s their child — but there’s nothing they can do about it now.
IVF is not just a medical solution to infertility. It’s an unnatural burden on the body, contributing to a corrupt, human-commodifying industry and a culture of death that rates human beings by grade and leaves them to freeze in labs that may one day get unplugged or shut down or put them inside the wrong wombs.
It’s an injustice to men, women, and their future children to continue running headlong in this direction. When we don’t address root issues, seek natural solutions, and instead take things into our own, fallible, technology-laden hands — we invite disaster, heartbreak, eugenics, corruption, and worse. This is the natural end to what Big Fertility has wrought.
Today, I speak out against traditional IVF because no one did it for me. Here’s my story with Live Action:
Almost every option is better than IVF (which is evil) https://denzinger.substack.com/p/why-ivf-is-more-horrible-than-you?r=5mg6n3&utm_medium=ios
Well said, Ericka. Thanks for wearing your heart on your sleeve on this important issue, and encouraging others with your example by walking in obedience to Christ.