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Clinic-specific success rates, on the other hand, pose a more complicated issue. For “success” is a tough thing to measure in the fertility trade, and the numbers that might look best to Sally are not necessarily those that will either enhance her own chances or generate a healthy revenue stream for Dr. Welby. For example, in 2001, 27 percent of all IVF cycles performed in the United States resulted in a live birth. [57] This suggests that a woman like Sally has roughly a 1-in-4 chance of becoming pregnant using IVF. Yet if Sally is, say, twenty-six years old, aggregate statistics (see table 2-2) suggest that her chances of having a baby through IVF are actually more than 38 percent. If she is forty-two, they plummet to 9 percent. [58] Which are the relevant figures? Does Sally want the average, or the average for her age group? If Dr. Welby specializes in older women and thus has a lower pregnancy rate than his competitor, is this good news or bad news for Sally? Does it suggest that Dr. Welby’s clinic is better or worse than the clinic down the street?

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