Snapshot captures joy, ordeal of IVF

New parents often take photos of their tiny babies sleeping on downy blankets or with fluffy teddy bears.

Angela captured her 5-week-old sleeping daughter surrounded by hundreds of syringes in the shape of a heart. The photo—which features the syringes Angela used to inject fertility drugs as part of her in vitro fertilization treatments—went viral soon after the Sher Fertility Institute posted it this month on its Facebook page.

“I wanted a record for my baby and myself of some of what I went through to conceive her … how much I was willing to go through to have her,” Angela wrote in an e-mail as her now 4-month-old daughter slept in her lap. Angela, who asked that her last name not be used, was a patient at the Sher clinic in St. Louis.

It was an exhaustive process. Angela tried intrauterine insemination four times and then went through five rounds of IVF. It took her about two years to become pregnant.

“A short time compared to some people,” she wrote.

Since Sher posted the photo on Facebook, it has garnered more than 16,000 likes, been reported on by hundreds of news outlets and reached about 2 million people on Facebook alone, said Lisa Stark, a spokeswoman for the Sher Fertility Institute, which has clinics across the country.

Angela said the decision to arrange the syringes into a heart rather than a circle was a last-minute one.

“I love watching her sleep,” Angela wrote, “and thinking how lucky I am that I have my miracle.”