American Experience

Lucinda Veeck Gosden, Embryologist: In that first year when we were working with natural cycles, we were forced by the patients’ reproductive biology to collect eggs when their bodies said it was appropriate. So quite often we were at the hospital at 1:30 in the morning, four o’clock in the morning.

Dr. Howard Jones, Fertility Expert: One of the first things was that we weren’t sure we were going to get the egg, the egg! I recall going back to the office after each time, and as I’d walk in the office, the girls in the office said, “Did you get it?” That would be the question. And most of the time we had to say no.

Narrator: A year later, there were still no pregnancies. The Joneses were stymied.

Dr. Howard Jones, Fertility Expert: We sought the advice of everybody we could. One of our colleagues said, “You need to work in the dark. You must remember that the sperm and egg have never seen light.” And therefore, when we began, we did indeed use infrared lights. Well, that turned out not to be the case. The sperm and egg have no light receptors and they don’t know whether it’s light or dark. But this is the type of technical thing, and I’m sure I could make a list of 50 of these little technical details that had to be worked out.

Narrator: The turning point came when Georgeanna Jones started using hormones to stimulate her patient’s ovaries to produce more eggs.

Lucinda Veeck Gosden, Embryologist: Her decision to begin using hormones was a great boon to our patient population, because instead of having a single oocyte that we would hope would become fertilized, we now had two or three we could work with in the laboratory, and thus the chances for our patients were much greater.

Narrator: A young couple from Massachusetts, Judy and Roger Carr, were among the first to try the new method. Months earlier, Judy had nearly died when an embryo lodged itself outside her uterus. During emergency surgery, her fallopian tubes were removed — leaving her infertile.

Judy Carr: My physician walked into the room with a brochure, waving it, saying, “Well, I don’t know if you’re interested in anything like this, “But,” he said, “it’s some husband and wife, and they’re starting something new for couples that can’t conceive children. So you might want to look into it.”

Narrator: In March, 1981, Judy began a regimen of three hormone shots a day. Weeks later, two of her eggs were retrieved and one fertilized. Dr. Jones cautioned the Carrs not to get their hopes up.

Roger Carr: I remember him asking us specifically, “Are, you know — are you — are you a betting — betting man?” And he essentially said, “You know, you put your money down and you take your chances.”

Narrator: Soon the results came in — Judy was pregnant.

Judy Carr: We can’t be this lucky. This could not be happening to us. This is like winning the lottery. You know, one in a million, or whatever it is, and we just happened to be that one couple.

Roger Carr (archival): “Can you tell yet what sex it’s going to be? Is it still too early?”

Nurse (archival): “Right now it’s probably still too early. In another three weeks, we might be able to tell.”

Narrator: Judy’s pregnancy was remarkably ordinary — until a sonogram raised concern.

Dr. Howard Jones, Fertility Expert: As she approached term, her head size began to fall to the lower limits of normal. We were concerned that this … slowing of the head growth might be associated with general abnormalities. Georgeanna kept saying, “Don’t worry. Judy’s small and Roger’s small. It’s going to be a small baby,” and “Don’t be nervous about it.”

Narrator: For the next month, Howard Jones could not shake his fear. In the tense hours before the scheduled caesarian birth — he planned for the worst.

Dr. Howard Jones, Fertility Expert: I had written out a press release, which said that the baby had been born, that there was an abnormality, we were distressed about this, we hoped that the privacy of the patient would be regarded.

Narrator: As he entered the delivery room on December 28, 1981, Howard Jones folded the press release into his pocket. At 7:46am, America’s first test tube baby was born. Weighing five lbs. 12 ounces, she was much bigger than the sonogram had indicated — and in perfect health. The Carrs named her “Elizabeth.”

Roger Carr (archival): “Alright ladies. Here she is — Elizabeth!”

Judy Carr (archival): “Hello! Hello!” (Laughs)

Television reporter (archival): “The announcement itself was made by Dr. Howard Jones.”

Dr. Howard Jones, Fertility Expert(archival): “This morning at 7:46, a daughter was born to Mrs. Judith Carr, a 28-year-old school teacher. The father is Mr. Roger Carr, a 30-year-old mechanical engineer.”

Judy Carr: Not only was she perfect and normal. She had full head of hair and you know, healthy, healthy looking and very pink and- and everything you hope for.

Margaret Marsh, Historian: When Elizabeth Carr was born, it emboldened other medical centers to go ahead and start up their own IVF clinics and to say to the federal government, “We’re not going to worry about getting your money for this. We’re going to risk it.”

Narrator: Over the next two decades, Howard and Georgeanna Jones would continue to perfect in vitro fertilization and train the first generation of IVF doctors in the United States. By 1985, 115 children owed their existence to the Joneses.

Judy Carr: The first baby reunion was perhaps the most special to me. The staircase was just filled with parents holding their babies. And to see all those couples with those beautiful babies, that’s the first time it hit me just what had happened over the course of the past five years.

Robin Marantz Henig, Author: It was a little surprising how quickly people got used to IVF. But, not really if you think about how people get used to all sorts of new technology. That’s sort of the—the pattern that it takes, is that at first it seems like its abhorrent and it’s something that we absolutely shouldn’t do. And then for a while it seems kind of miraculous. And then after a while, the technology just becomes part of the fabric of daily life. In 1983, ten years after he stopped Landrum Shettles’ experiment, Raymond Vande Wiele becomes the co-director of the first IVF clinic in New York City. It’s not because he was a hypocrite, or even because he changed that much. It’s because society changed and IVF became just the next thing to do for infertile couples.

Arthur Caplan, Bioethicist: Clinics popped up all over the place. Some programs would put eight embryos back at a time, to try and get a better success rate. Other places would say, “That’s immoral. We’re only going to use three.” Some people would treat gay people. Some people would treat single moms. So the whole field wound up being a kind of wild, wild west where the free market reigned.

Robert George, Legal Scholar: The doctor who gave us Louise Brown recalled looking at her in the Petri dish, and said, she was beautiful then and she’s beautiful now.” There are really very deep and fundamental differences between Americans about some fundamental ethical questions: how we regard the human being; how we regard human life. We are not united as a people on these questions.

Narrator: Since the birth of Elizabeth Carr, over 400,000 IVF babies have been born in America. There are now more than two million “test tube” babies in the world.