“Counseling the Infertile Couple” Being a Family Ministries pastor with three healthy children, it is difficult for me to counsel other couples about infertility. I was also on the other side of the table facing these infertility choices in my first marriage. We were faced with a choice regarding selective termination if we conceived after hormone treatment. In a way, I'm glad we didn't conceive because my ex-wife and I clashed over this procedure. I was opposed to the procedure while my wife accepted it. As a pastor who must counsel others on the issue of infertility, there are many choices to make regarding infertility. I believe God has given doctors the technology to help couples in the process of conceiving a child. How far a couple goes to conceive a child is the problem we face as Christians in today's culture. Assisted reproductive technologies allow many couples suffering from infertility problems to have children. But with the multitude of options comes tough decisions. Couples must weigh the financial, emotional, and physical costs of each treatment against its chances of success. The ethical ramifications of creating life in a laboratory are also a consideration that Christian couples often turn to their faith for guidance. God has given us the task of exercising dominion over all the earth (Genesis 1:26), which includes using medical technologies to help us reproduce. The first step in infertility treatment is to carry out diagnostic tests for the intended parents. Treatments can be as simple as medications to stimulate ovulation or as complicated as in vitro fertilization. Some couples can achieve pregnancy quickly, but others may need to decide to use assisted reproductive technologies. Since the birth of the first “test tube baby,” in vitro fertilization has become a common procedure in fertility treatment. How to use their embryos is a key question for couples considering in vitro fertilization. The woman often produces more eggs than she can use in a single IVF attempt. Extra embryos may be frozen for use in later procedures, or a couple may have them destroyed, stored indefinitely, or donated to another infertile couple. Another question is how many embryos should be placed back into the uterus. The less it is used, the lower the chances of multiple pregnancies and the higher the risk of complications. The more they are used, the more the couple is faced with the issue of seeing more embryos implant in the uterus and having to decide whether to abort one or more fetuses to give the others a better chance of survival..