More Hong Kong couples turning to IVF treatment as late marriage trend and work, money constraints delay baby-making
- 4,000 to 5,000 embryo implants done each year, with couples prepared to pay up to HK$200,000 to have a baby
- Older celebrity mums have helped dispel lingering taboo that keeps shy infertile couples from trying IVF
After two years trying to have a baby, while taking Chinese medicines and vitamin supplements to improve their chances, Sincere Kan and her husband Roy Chan decided it was time for in vitro fertilisation (IVF).
She was 32 at the time, he was 34 and they had been married for two years. Kan did not want to wait much longer.
“I thought if I want to have a natural pregnancy it might take me another two years, and I wanted to get pregnant as early as possible so the baby could be healthier,” she says.
Although Kan was relatively young for IVF treatment, the full-time urban planner was concerned about the elevated risks for babies of older mothers.
“Though it was the last resort, I didn’t hesitate,” she says, of starting the process to create an embryo in a lab from her egg and her husband’s sperm, before having it transferred into her womb.
That meant a year filled with visits to the doctor, hormone injections and an operation to remove her eggs.
