Renée Higgins remortgaged her home because of an 18-month wait time for a government-funded in vitro fertilization cycle.
Higgins, now 35, was diagnosed with medical infertility in 2021. Doctors said she was likely a few years away from menopause.
Higgins and her partner were prioritized for in vitro fertilization (IVF). In IVF, eggs and sperm are fertilized in a lab. The resulting embryo, or embryos, are then surgically transferred to the uterus. Each cycle can cost between $10,000 and $20,000. Success is not guaranteed.
In Ontario, the government offers coverage for one IVF cycle for women younger than 43. The government does not cover the costs of pricey drugs associated with the treatment. Nearly 50 clinics provide government-funded IVF treatment. But when Higgins spoke to her clinic about the funded fertility program, she learned the wait time was 18 months.
“We just didn’t think it was going to be an option for us medically to wait the 18 months,” Higgins said.
For many people facing infertility, waiting is the hardest part. Someone is deemed infertile if they have not conceived after a year of trying or six months for women older than 35. By the time someone gets a diagnosis, they have already been trying — and waiting — to have children.
The chances of getting pregnant decrease as women age.
“Waiting for IVF treatment can sometimes be the difference between having a baby or not,” said Laura Spencer, a fertility coach based in British Columbia. Many provinces — including B.C. — do not fund IVF. But even in provinces that do, some people opt to pay thousands of dollars for the treatment because the wait times to access IVF through non-government-funded treatment are shorter.
Higgins paid for IVF treatments, but it was not easy. She and her partner re-mortgaged their home and dipped into their savings. Higgins lives in Sudbury, but no clinic there offers IVF, so she travelled to Toronto for treatments. Total travel for treatment has cost more than $15,000, even though she travelled to and from Toronto on the same day to avoid hotel stays.
Three rounds of IVF yielded no live births. After 18 months, Higgins phoned the clinic and asked if she could start a publicly funded cycle. To her surprise, she was still on the wait list — and the clinic could not tell her how much longer her wait would be.
Each clinic that receives public funds manages its wait list differently. There is no centralized wait list.
In total, Higgins spent more than 20 months waiting to access the government-funded IVF cycle.
It felt like an eternity. “Doctors are constantly reminding you when you’re going through infertility that time is running out,” said Higgins. Each day of waiting for treatment, each month without a pregnancy, made her feel like life was passing her by. “All of the biggest dreams that I had for myself are not moving forward,” she said.
Similar numbers
Most people do not wait as long as Higgins did for government-funded IVF treatment in Ontario. A 2023 survey of 1,000 people who were able to access IVF through the Ontario program found that 30 per cent waited fewer than six months to start treatment; 30 per cent waited between six months and a year. Only 10 per cent waited longer than 18 months, like Higgins did. The survey was conducted by Conceivable Dreams, a patient advocacy organization that lobbied the Ontario government to fund IVF. Higgins is on Conceivable Dreams’ board.
Alberta has similar numbers. In September, Fertility Alberta Advocacy & Outreach Association, an organization that advocates for publicly funded fertility treatments in Alberta, surveyed 639 people about their experiences with fertility treatments. Among the 494 people who started fertility treatments, 34 per cent waited fewer than six months. Nearly 38 per cent waited between six months and a year. A quarter waited more than a year, with nearly 19 per cent waiting between a year and 18 months and six per cent waiting more than 18 months. Three per cent did not have to wait at all.
Some survey respondents — 145 people — said they had not yet started fertility treatments. Eight per cent of these respondents said they were on a wait list for treatment; another 12 per cent said they were waiting for a referral from their doctor.
Wait times to access IVF are longer in Atlantic Canada, where only two clinics provide IVF treatments, one in Moncton, N.B. and one in Halifax, N.S. In New Brunswick, there is a six to eight month wait for initial fertility appointments. In Nova Scotia, the wait for these appointments is approximately a year.
“Wait lists are frustrating,” said Tara Wood, a board member with Conceivable Dreams. “But it’s a symptom of a bigger problem.”
The government needs to increase funding for fertility treatments, she says. There also needs to be more access to IVF and other fertility treatments in rural areas. As Canadian Affairs recently reported, access to IVF can be an acute challenge for couples in remote or rural areas.
After her government-funded cycle, Higgins paid for three more cycles. She has had seven cycles of IVF and two miscarriages, and says she is at “her wit’s end.”
Treating infertility is all-consuming. She worries if her showers are too hot, if she is eating the right food or exercising enough or too much. At times, the effort seems worthless; she believes the main reason people get pregnant through IVF is pure luck.
“Effort does not correlate to outcome,” she said. “You can work 500 times as hard as a fertile person, and you still won’t get pregnant.”
One of five siblings, Higgins knows her dream of having four children of her own likely will not become a reality. But she still thinks telling her story matters — if only to let others know they are not alone. Her Instagram account, which is devoted to discussing infertility, has more than 7,000 followers.
And while Higgins still feels sad about experiencing infertility, she does not have the shame about it she once did. “I don’t feel any of the feelings [of shame] that I did in the beginning,” she said.
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