Usually it's only the people who come out beaming on the other side, with a baby on one hip, who speak up about in vitro fertilization. We never hear from those whom IVF has failed—it's too crushing to talk about. We don't hear from men and women in the middle of treatment, either. Our culture doesn't seem to know how to deal with people before we've figured out if they're successful or not. People like me.

In November 2008, I had my first IVF workup. In 2009, I had a laparoscopy, two egg retrievals...