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The Birth Of A Child Essay

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For the average American who grows up watching television shows and reading books that portray the lives of families, he sees the path of life is to go to school, get married, have kids, and work. After growing up knowing that the goal is to eventually have children, whether the reason is from American culture, or an evolutionary drive to pass on their genes, it can be devastating to learn that they are not able to conceive a child naturally. When this is the case the couple may seek out another way to have a child, one of their options is In vitro fertilization, or IVF. IVF is the process of fertilizing an egg outside of the body and then implanting the egg in the uterus for the duration of the pregnancy. The process of IVF has become relatively common, with about 165,000 IVF procedures being performed in 2012 according to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology1. The common occurrence of IVF did not come about quickly. This history of IVF can be traced back to 1827 when scientists first learned that the female body contains the ova2. Sixteen years later the process of conception was discovered and fully understood for the first time. These two scientific advances were critical to the future of IVF; for conception to take place outside the human body, it must be understood how it happens inside the body. Before IVF was conceptualized artificial insemination was thought to be the answer for infertility. In 1884 William Pancoast performed the first artificial

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