On Aug. 3, 1983, Elizabeth Casey became the state’s first “test-tube baby,” conceived through in vitro fertilization. At the time, five years after the first in vitro birth, to a mother in England, Elizabeth was among only a handful of such babies worldwide; doctors weren’t yet sure if pregnancies achieved in such a way would produce normal, healthy offspring.

Since then, millions of women have undergone IVF and given birth to hundreds of thousands of healthy babies. Each year, more than 85,000 women undergo the procedure at hundreds of clinics nationwide, and babies conceived via IVF represent more than 1 percent of annual U.S. births.

What has become almost commonplace as more women seek to conceive in the twilight of their child-bearing years was closer to the realm of science fiction in the late ’70s and early ’80s.

“When I was pregnant, no one had ever heard of it. People still thought it was something from Orwell or Aldous Huxley,” said Ellen, 64, who repeatedly traveled from her home and job teaching kindergarten in Colorado Springs to an IVF center in Texas – one of only two in the United States at the time – for the procedure. “Things are so different now. I just Googled ‘test tube baby,’ and you wouldn’t believe all the ads that came up for doctors who perform it. I had to research it the old-fashioned way, at the library.”