First appearing in 2014 in France, this graphic novel has resonances for all the adults out there who have struggled with infertility. It would surprise you to know the sheer amount of experiences people are too shy to talk about, but the giant fertility clinic commercials should tell you something: lots of parents are unable to procreate easily.
Parenting is both frustrating and rewarding, and the process to get there sometimes is not as an easy and straight forward as it seems to be. Sometimes the IVF has extremely good results and women find themselves the mothers of triplets. Sometimes a second child is hard to come by; a friend of mine showed me the needles she had used every day to ensure her second kid was able to live in her body, it is truly a humbling experience and a testimony of how nothing is ever for granted.
I have an aunt, who is a doctor, and she always suggests newlyweds to take a fertility test as soon as they are married. As Guillaume and Emma will find out after trying for at least two years, sometimes one of the partners is sterile. A fertility test can save precious time.
The way Gillaume sincerely tells us about how he feels is a first one for me. Most men will NEVER talk about this in public. As Marisa Acocella Marchetto tackled cancer treatment in Cancer Vyxen, William Roy tackles infertility and IVF: the daily embarrassment of sperm donations, the injections his wife has to take for months on end, the cold clinics… it’s all there. Also, the suppressed conflict with his disappeared father will come into focus as well.
I read this one in one sitting. It is honest, it tackles a hard reality for many men, and it really explains how painful, scary, long, expensive and frustrating in vitro fertilization can be. Of course, there is light at the end of the tunnel…
In Vitro is on sale since March 31th, 2020.
Publication Date: March 31, 2020
Format: Paperback, 156 pages
ISBN1643379887
ISBN13: 9781643379883
Genre: Biography, Adult
Featured image by William Roy, all images belong to Life Drawn, Humanoids
