Now I'm a test-tube teenager.

• Author: O'Connell, Rachelle
• Position: Voices

PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA -- One afternoon in late February, I happened to ask my dad about the poster in our hallway--an image of a test tube with babies swimming in it. His answer was not what I expected: "Honey, you're a test-tube baby."

At first I didn't understand what he meant. He explained to me: "Your mother and I couldn't have you without help." He also told me what they had to go through to get me.

Unable to conceive a child on their own, they bad decided to try in vitro fertilization, a procedure in which a woman's eggs and a man's sperm are combined in a petri dish before being implanted in the mother's uterus. (The world's first "test tube" baby was born in England in 1978, and three years later the technique succeeded in the U.S.)

In 1988, an in vitro procedure cost about $5,000. My parents had saved up $15,000, enough for three attempts.

They interviewed fertility doctors to find one they liked. On one trip, they visited the Genetics & IVF Institute in Fairfax, Virginia. A counter in the waiting room read "212." The doctor said that the clinic had been successful in impregnating 212 women. My room and dad thought that sounded promising.

For each procedure, they could implant between one and four eggs; with four, the odds of success were greater, but there was a chance of producing four babies. My parents decided to try one egg, even though the doctor told them there was just a 6 percent chance of conception with a single...