in which statistics bite me in the ass. again.

Let's review some statistics, shall we?

According to the CDC's website, up to 10% of the general population has fertility problems.

So, let's take 10 million people.

1 million of them have some kind of fertility problem.

Generally speaking, 40% of fertility problems are male; 40% are female; the other 20% are either unknown, or both partners.  Let's split the number and say that 10% are both partners.

Now we're down to 100,000 people.

The CDC estimates that about 85% of fertility problems can be solved without extreme medical intervention (read: IVF).  So, up to 15% of those 100,000 people will try IVF.

15,000 people.

Let's say they all go to my clinic and they're all in my age range.  In which case, they have a 50-60% chance of success.  We'll split the difference: 55%.

2250 people.

Of IVF patients, approximately 1-2% will end up with an ectopic pregnancy.  Again, we'll split the difference: 1.5%.

That's 34 people.

So, today's three-part lesson is as follows:

Part one: I have an ectopic pregnancy.  Damn it.

Part two: I am one of maybe 34 out of TEN FREAKING MILLION PEOPLE to whom this will happen.  DAMN IT.  (That is a .0000034% chance, in case you were wondering.)

Part three:  I should seriously consider buying a lottery ticket.