In vitro fertilization (IVF) technology - or t p bebek (literally "tube-baby") as it is ubiquitously known - has become one of the most arresting hallmarks of contemporary Turkish society. Ever present in popular media coverage, from celebrity endorsements on daytime television shows, to cutting-edge news items on the front pages of daily broadsheets, tsp bebek stories regularly pique the national interest and have wide appeal for an emphatically "child-loving" population. The growth and expansion of IVF within Turkey, particularly since the introduction of funded treatment cycles in 2005, has had a profound impact on the personal experiences of involuntarily childless men and women, and on social attitudes towards (male and female) infertility. Promoted as an efficacious modern medical "cure" for the social and personal tragedy of childlessness, the allure of IVF is evident in reports that estimate up to two million couples currently on waiting lists. Engagement with the biomedical system transforms the social condition of involuntary childlessness, usually blamed on the woman and identified in this context with the absence of a pregnant belly, into the medical condition of infertility, which can be attributed to either male or female physiology (as blocked fallopian tubes, hormone malfunctions, or low egg or sperm quality).However, regardless of the infertility diagnosis, IVF is always enacted upon the woman's body, and is thus unique among therapeutically indicated biomedical interventions in "treating" couples rather than individuals, and its ability to "cure" by-proxy. Using data from ethnographic fieldwork in fertility clinics, as well as archival research of media and regulatory materials, this paper analyses the impact of IVF on the gendered conceptions of infertility - its causes, consequences, and cures - as expressed both at the level of popular media representations, and in the personal accounts of male and female infertility patients. Tracing the social practices and public discourses surrounding IVF in Turkey, I argue for and explain the paradoxical outcome whereby IVF has led simultaneously to an increased awareness of male infertility and a perpetuation of traditional preconceptions that blame involuntary childlessness on women rather than their husbands.