Why don't you just adopt?

Because there's no such thing as "just" adopting.

• IVF is easier, almost certainly cheaper, probably quicker, definitely less painful and invasive, morally and ethically simpler, and less restrictive of our lifestyle than adoption, and for us, as of the time of writing, it offers about the same chance of success over the same time period.


• Adoption won't lower my risk of breast cancer, for which I have a family history. Pregnancy will. (IVF makes no difference to my risk.)


• We can adopt later if we decide we want to. We can't do IVF once the biological clocks have spoken. And because adoption takes so long, we'd be pushing uphill against advanced maternal age by the end, so it's more or less a one-way street.


• Our adopting won't benefit anyone else. Because the supply of children available for adoption (including international adoption from poorer countries) is dramatically outstripped by demand, joining the long and winding queue of adoptive-parent-hopefuls will not get a single child out of poverty any faster than what's already being done. In fact, all we'd be doing is making a lovely couple who are very committed to the idea of adoption (and perhaps have no other choice) wait a little bit longer for their much-anticipated family. If we want to help a child we'd be better off buying a goat or something.