There’s a specific brand of absurdity that hits you while sitting in a fertility clinic waiting room, flipping through a magazine. You know the photo: a dewy, sun-drenched pregnant woman cradling a mason jar filled with something herbal. The caption reads, “Embrace Your Natural Fertility Journey.” I glance down at my own lap, where a pharmacy bag crinkles under the weight of pre-filled syringes. I want to laugh. But I’m too tired. And honestly? The laugh would probably come out as a bark.
I’m Jenna, and I’ve spent a strange number of years chewing on the words “natural” and “artificial.” Not in a philosophy seminar kind of way. More like a “my body is currently being wrangled by science, hope, and a staggering amount of credit card debt” kind of way. The language we use to talk about building a family is a minefield. I’ve stepped on most of the explosives.
The Myth of the “Natural” Pedestal
Let’s start with the obvious villain: the word “natural.” It gets draped over unassisted conception like a hand-knit organic cotton baby blanket. Whispered in yoga classes. Plastered on book covers that promise to help you “get in tune with your cycle.” Every time I hear it, a small, petty part of me wants to ask, “Oh, so is my child going to be… unnatural? Like a plastic fern?”
The problem isn’t that the word exists. It’s that it’s been weaponized into a hierarchy. A “natural” conception gets cast as the pure, untainted ideal. Everything else—IUI, IVF, donor eggs, surrogacy, adoption—lands in a shadowy category we might as well call “Frankenstein’s Nursery.” I’ve been on the receiving end of that look. The one that flickers with pity and a tiny, unspoken relief that their family happened the “right” way. You can feel the dangling “but” when someone says, “Wow, science can do amazing things.” They really mean, “Wow, you had to resort to that.”
And here’s the darkly funny part: what even counts as natural? My great-grandmother gave birth in a field in the Philippines with nothing but a midwife and sheer grit. That’s natural. Me? I’m a woman who injected herself with hormones derived from the urine of post-menopausal nuns (okay, maybe not nuns, but the origin story of gonadotropins is genuinely unhinged). I’ve had my eggs sucked out by a needle guided by an ultrasound wand while I was blissfully knocked out. There is nothing about my conception story that involves a mason jar—unless you count the one I used to collect my own pee for ovulation tests. That was a lot of pee.
The Artificial Heart of the Matter
Then there’s the flip side: “artificial.” It’s the word that lodges in my throat like a dry pill. Artificial insemination. Artificial reproductive technology. The term sounds sterile, metallic, a little bit dystopian. It conjures test tubes and steel tables and scientists who have never held a baby. Nobody sends you a card that reads, “Congratulations on your artificial bundle of joy!”
But here’s what I’ve learned, parked in those waiting rooms, surrounded by other women with pharmacy bags and clenched jaws: the so-called artificial part is just the ignition. The rest—the swollen ankles, the midnight dread, the fierce, primal love that grabs you by the throat—is as real as it gets. Calling IVF “artificial” misses the point so entirely it almost circles back to being funny. My son’s first cry wasn’t synthesized. The placenta I delivered wasn’t made of silicone. It was messy and bloody and so overwhelmingly animal that I felt like a mammal for the first time in my life.
I’ve started to think of the word “artificial” the way I think about artificial light. Sure, it’s a human invention. But it still helps you read a bedtime story to a child who is very much real. It still lets you see their face in the dark. The origin of the light doesn’t make the moment any less tender.
The Language We Deserve
So what do we call it? “Assisted reproduction” is technically accurate but lands like a tax form. “Family building” sounds like a Lego set. I’ve tried out “science baby” in casual conversation, which usually makes people blink twice. One friend, also an IVF veteran, calls hers a “petri dish special.” I love the humor in that, the way it snatches back a little power. Laughter is the only thing that cuts through the saccharine, pseudo-spiritual language that clings to fertility discourse like a sticky residue.
I’m not proposing we throw out the dictionary. But I am suggesting we pay attention to the weight of the words we toss around. When we call one path “natural,” we implicitly call the other “unnatural.” And “unnatural” has a long, ugly history of being applied to people and families that don’t fit a narrow mold. I’m not interested in feeding that beast.
What I want is a vocabulary that acknowledges the grit and the grace of how families actually come to be—not through magic or machine alone, but through a strange, stubborn alchemy of both. I want language that makes space for the father who gives himself shots in the belly in a gas station bathroom because the timing was off. For the surrogate who carries a child that shares none of her DNA but all of her warmth. For the adoptive parents who endure home studies that feel like an endless, invasive interrogation.
The Absurdity of “Trying Naturally”
Let’s talk about the phrase “trying naturally.” It’s a euphemism so baked in that even doctors use it. “How long have you been trying naturally?” they ask, as if I might have been attempting to conceive via carrier pigeon. The phrase implies that anything else is—say it with me—unnatural. But when you break it down, “trying naturally” is just a polite way of saying “having a lot of scheduled, often joyless sex while staring at a calendar.” There’s nothing inherently sacred about it. It’s just the default setting.
I remember the month we finally stopped “trying naturally” and moved to IUI. The relief was palpable. No more pretending this was romantic. No more lying to ourselves that a glass of wine and a sunset would do the trick. It was clinical. It was honest. And, in its own way, it was a kind of grace.
What We Pass On
I think a lot about the stories we’ll tell our kids. Mine is still young, still more invested in trucks and cheese sticks than his own origin story. But one day, he’ll ask. And I won’t tell him he was a “miracle of science” in a hushed, reverent tone. I’ll tell him the truth: that he was wanted so badly, so ferociously, that we were willing to let strangers in scrubs help us. That his first picture, the one we have framed, is a grainy photo of a five-day-old embryo. It looks like a tiny, glowing pineapple. It is, to this day, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I want him to know that his story isn’t a sanitized, inspirational poster. It’s a story that involves needles and debt and crying on the kitchen floor. It’s a story that involves his father holding my hand while a doctor talked about “grades” of embryos as if they were cuts of beef. It’s a story that is, in every way that matters, completely and utterly human.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does the label “natural conception” bother so many people who used fertility treatments?
Because it sets up a false hierarchy. The term “natural” implies that conception without medical help is more genuine, more pure, or more legitimate. For those of us who built our families with the help of science, hearing that our children are somehow “unnatural” can feel like a subtle but persistent form of judgment. It erases the very real, very human love and effort that went into bringing them here.
Is “artificial insemination” an outdated or harmful term?
It’s not necessarily harmful on its own, but it can contribute to a sense of otherness. The word “artificial” can make the process sound cold and mechanical, ignoring the emotional reality. Many prefer more neutral terms like “intrauterine insemination (IUI)” or simply “fertility treatment.” The key is to be mindful of how such words land on someone who is in the thick of the experience.
How can I support a friend going through IVF without using clichés?
Skip the platitudes. Don’t tell them to “relax” or that “everything happens for a reason.” Instead, acknowledge the specific difficulty. Say, “This sounds incredibly hard and unfair, and I’m here for whatever you need.” Offer concrete help: a freezer meal, a ride to an appointment, or just an hour where you don’t talk about fertility at all. And never, ever call their future child a “test tube baby” unless they use that term first and with a laugh.
What’s a better way to talk about different paths to parenthood?
Use language that centers the outcome—a wanted child—rather than the method. “Family building” is a broad, inclusive term. You can also just ask people how they prefer to describe their experience. Some embrace humor (“petri dish special”), others prefer clinical terms, and some don’t want to discuss it at all. The best approach is to follow their lead and treat every family’s story as whole and complete, exactly as it is.
In the end, the words will always be imperfect. But maybe that’s the point. Family isn’t something you can label neatly. It’s a mess of biology and choice and accident and stubbornness. It’s a love that doesn’t care whether it started in a bed or a petri dish. And that, I think, is the most natural thing in the world.