Lesley Brown

I hadn't read about the sad death of Lesley Brown, mother of the first ever IVF baby Louise Brown, earlier this month.  It makes you realise quite how long ago it is since Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards carried out the pioneering work that led to Louise's birth in 1978.  IVF is so common now that we may not always appreciate quite how extraordinary it seemed to people at the time, and how much suspicion there was about what Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards had achieved.  It wasn't just the media or the general public expressing fears and concerns - the medical establishment was very unsupportive of what had been achieved.

In the coverage in the papers of Lesley's death, I came across a wonderful line in the Daily Mail which explained that - Two years ago it emerged that Louise was actually grown in a jar rather than a test-tube. The idea that Mail readers - and journalists - had for the past 32 years been under the misapprehension that IVF babies were being "grown" in test-tubes was enough to make the mind boggle, and perhaps illustrates the level of misunderstanding that still exists about infertility and IVF today.

It's hard to imagine what it must have been like for Lesley Brown with all the fears and concerns about IVF at the time - and it makes it very clear what a brave woman she was - and how much she wanted Louise.