Did Halle Berry have IVF

Answer 1

At 46, it's very likely. I've been to an RE (Reproductive Endocrinologist) at a fertility clinic for my multiple miscarriages (5 of them). I know about reproductive technology. I suspect that Halle either froze some of her own eggs when she was younger and used them for IVF (In Vitro Fertilization), used donor eggs or did IVF with her 46-year-old eggs using a technology called PGD (Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis). I suspect she did the IVF with PGD, since she knew very early on that the baby is a boy. Here's how IVF with PGD works: A woman's eggs are collected during a medical procedure known as "egg retrieval" (ER, for short), after being stimulated to grow to maturity and mass quantity in her ovaries with injectable and/or oral fertility drugs. The eggs are then joined with sperm in a petrie dish, then the embryos are allowed to grow to the 8-cell stage. A pipette (tiny syringe) is used to extract a single cell from each 8-cell embryo. That one cell from each embryo then has each chromosome (all 23 of them) tested for chromosomal abnormalities. (This is where they can also find out the sex of the embryo via the chromosomes. XX for girl. XY for boy.) The sex can be determined before the woman is even pregnant! The embryo(s) that have all normal chromosomes are allowed to mature to 3-5 days in a controlled environment that mimics the womb environment. (It is totally up to the couple what happens to the "abnormal" embryos. They would most likely miscarry anyway, so many choose to discard them.) They transfer the embryos (usually 2 or 3 embryos, if you're over 35 and just 1 if you're under 35 because the younger, the more likely you'll have success) in a technique called "embryo transfer" (ET, for short). With constant help from fertility drugs, the woman's hormones will be primed for a successful implantation of the embryo(s) and pregnancy will be more likely to occur. Most likely, Halle had 2-3 embryos transferred after PGD testing. What often occurs (in younger AND older moms) is the early miscarriage of 1 or 2 embryos and they end up carrying just one baby, even if they started out with 2 or 3. Or just one will implant. So, there it is in a (large) nutshell! This is how she can be confident of the sex of the baby so early on (because she's known since before she was even pregnant, thanks to PGD) and why she can be so confident that the baby is chromosomally normal and likely won't miscarry. Sorry this was so long, but it is a detailed (and very expensive) process.