Other people come to in vitro fertilisation (IVF) after the grief of repeated pregnancy losses.
Here again, what for the professionals is often a minor medical problem is for the woman a major trauma.
Miscarriage can cause enduring grief, even if the pregnancy is lost at a very early stage.
Grief after an ectopic pregnancy is often not recognised at all, as medical attention is normally focused on the potential threat to the woman's life and the possibility of saving her fallopian tube.
Despite this, studies have shown that most couples starting IVF are emotionally strong and enjoy a good relationship.
Indeed, it is often argued that it would be impossible even to contemplate the treatment otherwise.
The bulk of research indicates that couples tipped into real psychological problems as a result of fertility problems and IVF are the exception.
The stress that most people encounter is the result of basically healthy and well-adjusted people going through difficult experiences.
Despite the aura of high-tech medical intervention which surrounds IVF, most of the drugs are in fact self-administered by the woman, either at home or at work.
In both cases she is likely to be very isolated.
At home she may be on her own, at work she may feel that she cannot confide in colleagues.
Either way it means that often she is left to deal with the stress alone, sometimes in quite difficult circumstances.
The different stages of IVF produce quite different emotions: some are stressful, others can be positive.
Almost universally, embryo transfer is the most positive stage of treatment for both 38 men and women, with couples often in a celebratory mood, frequently regarding the embryos as miniature babies.
Equally, the most stressful period for most women is the two-week wait after embryo transfer to see if implantation takes place and the treatment is going to work.
Subsequent failure is, not surprisingly, the most depressing stage, akin to the experience of miscarriage, and often requiring a period of mourning.
A Canadian study by Nancy Newman and Christo Zoves, entitled 'Emotional experiences of IVF participants'', published in the Journal of In Vitro Fertilisation and Embryo Transfer, Volume 8, No.
6, in 1991, shows the different emotions that men and women experience during six distinct stages of IVF treatment.
Although based on a small sample size, it provides some useful insights into the different stages of treatment and the differing responses they produce in women and their partners.