I arrived in Paris this weekend—returning to Paris after giving up parenthood dreams. It’s my first visit since I made peace with a future that no longer includes a child. The last time I was here, I was still trying, still hoping.
Paris is where it started.
I remember stepping off the metro years ago, clutching a folder full of medical paperwork, standing in front of a sterile clinic that felt so different from the Paris I knew and loved. This was not the city of long lunches and slow walks along the Seine. This was the city where I fought for a child. Where I tried. Where I lost.
The French Healthcare System and IVF Coverage
I was fortunate that France provides up to four attempts at IVF, fully covered, before the age of 43. No massive bills, no financial ruin—just a government-funded chance at something I had spent my life waiting for. The French national health insurance system reimburses 100% of all infertility treatments, ensuring that financial barriers do not hinder the pursuit of parenthood.
But what no one tells you is that the cost isn’t just financial.
The Painful Reality of IVF
When I first started this process, I knew nothing. I assumed what most people assume: You try for a while, and then it happens. My British gynecologist reinforced that belief when she told me to wait a year after marriage. “That’s how long it takes to have a child,” she said.
I was 41 years old.
She was wrong, of course. A year wasn’t something I had to waste. I waited six months before seeking help. When I finally found the right doctor, I was put through a series of tests, each one revealing a truth about my body that I had never known. One test—a hysterosalpingogram (HSG)—was an X-ray of my womb and fallopian tubes performed after a dye was injected.
It was the most painful experience of my life.
I remember the cramping so severe I collapsed on the floor, my husband, Michel, rushing to pick me up. I remember crying, not just from the pain but from the humiliation of it. This was the cost of wanting something so badly. And still, I was grateful. Grateful for the doctors, grateful for the French government funding IVF, grateful that I had a chance when so many others never got one.
That test revealed I had a heart-shaped uterus. Another painful test showed that, despite the shape, it was large enough to carry a baby. These were the small wins, the tiny glimmers of hope I clung to, believing they meant something. That they meant I would succeed.
Returning to Paris Without a Child: Finding Closure After IVF Failure
And yet, here I am. In Paris again. Without a child again. Without that version of my life.
There is a strange full-circle feeling in coming back to this city, the place where I first learned the language of infertility treatments, where I first understood how little control I had over my own body. Paris, where I walked out of clinics with a prescription for hope, where I walked into pharmacies with an insurance card and left with bags of IVF medication and syringes, no cash exchanged. Paris, where I believed I would leave with more than just memories.
I thought returning would break me. I thought I’d see those clinics and feel nothing but loss. But as I sit in a café, sipping an espresso, watching people pass by, I realize something unexpected: I feel lighter.
I lost something here, but I also survived something here.
And maybe that’s enough.
