After 5 Years of Trying, Victoria Morgan Had Baby Wesley Through IVF Close to Home, One of the First 2 Babies From Waco’s First IVF Clinic

Two babies have been born through IVF at Deerwood Clinic in Waco, Texas, this year, and the second is Wesley Morgan, who arrived in September after his parents spent about five years trying to conceive. His mother, Victoria Morgan of Hewitt, told KWTX that being treated in her own town was a blessing.

KWTX and the clinic’s owner describe Deerwood as the first IVF clinic in Waco. Wesley and a baby girl born in April are the first two IVF births reported from it.

Five Years of Trying

Morgan and her husband had been trying for about five years, according to KWTX’s report. The station did not detail the earlier steps the couple took, and Morgan’s husband is not named in the story.

Morgan said the timing of fertility treatment is largely out of a patient’s hands. She described the chance to be treated in town as “a blessing,” as quoted by KWTX.

The Dallas Option That Did Not Fit

IVF was not new to the couple’s thinking. Morgan told KWTX she had called a clinic in Dallas, but the arrangement was not realistic with her work schedule and her husband’s. In her words, it “wasn’t feasible for us, like truly.”

That distance is the problem Waco’s new program is meant to solve. Dr. Lacy Kessler, who owns Deerwood, told the station that travel was a major restriction for many patients, and that she had long struggled to find local options for them. She also pointed to waitlists at many existing clinics.

IVF involves repeated visits for monitoring, an egg retrieval and an embryo transfer, according to the steps the American Society for Reproductive Medicine describes, so a clinic in the patient’s own town can cut a good deal of travel from a cycle.

How Deerwood Went From OB-GYN Office to IVF

According to KWTX, Deerwood began as an OB-GYN clinic in 2012, added fertility treatments in 2024 and started IVF in 2025, with its first egg retrievals in April 2025. The Morgans heard about it through a friend in early 2025.

Kessler told the station she had known from the start that she would be the first to offer IVF in Waco. The claim that Deerwood is Waco’s first IVF clinic comes from KWTX and Kessler, and the station did not independently verify it. The clinic’s own website lists diagnostic testing, semen analysis, tubal assessment, IUI and IVF among its fertility services, at an address on Wycon Drive in Waco, but it does not itself make a first-in-Waco claim.

Wesley Arrives in September

Wesley Morgan was born in September 2026. He is the second IVF baby from the clinic, after a girl born in April, KWTX reported. The station did not give an exact birth date for him.

The clinic’s first egg retrievals were in April 2025, so the April 2026 birth came about a year later and Wesley followed five months after that. The station reported no other details about the April birth.

The Morgans’ story also touches on cost, a barrier for many families. KWTX cited the Houston-based Inception Fertility Network’s figure of about $22,000 for an average IVF cycle in the country. Kessler estimated that Texas IVF costs at least $10,000, adding that prices range widely depending on the area and resources.

What IVF Involves and How Common It Is

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine describes in vitro fertilization as a method of assisted reproduction in which sperm and eggs are combined outside the body in a laboratory dish. In its patient fact sheet on IVF, the society lays out the steps: injectable hormones stimulate the ovaries, a thin needle collects eggs under ultrasound guidance, the eggs are fertilized in the lab, and a catheter places one or more embryos in the uterus.

The same fact sheet notes that serious complications are rare but real. Twins or more are more likely when more embryos are transferred, and doctors should transfer the fewest embryos needed for a good chance of pregnancy. Miscarriage rates are similar to those after natural conception and rise with the mother’s age, the society says, and ectopic pregnancy occurs in about 1% of IVF pregnancies.

Most cases of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, a reaction to the hormone medication, are mild, with nausea, bloating and pelvic discomfort that usually pass within days of egg collection. In fewer than 1% of IVF cases, the society says, it can lead to blood clots and kidney failure.

IVF is common enough that the federal government tracks it. The CDC’s assisted reproductive technology surveillance page reports that in 2022, 435,426 cycles were performed on 251,542 patients at 457 reporting clinics, resulting in 98,289 live-born infants, about 2.6% of all births in the country that year. In 184,423 of those cycles, all eggs or embryos were frozen for future use. The CDC notes that its yearly figures are based on cycles performed in that year, and that the resulting pregnancies may have ended in that year or the year after.

Other recent IVF stories on Parent Diaries include an Austin nurse’s last embryo that became quadruplets and one of Vietnam’s first IVF babies becoming a mother.

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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.

Image: HuecoBear – Public domain/Wikimedia Commons