for thinking that a woman who is about to turn 60 shouldn't be asking for IVF?

[Coldhands]

Ok I may get really flamed for this, but I have just read a story that a woman who is 60 this year had asked a Harley St doctor for IVF.

Should she get this? I have no problem with IVF, we came very very close to having it ourselves but I think that women go through the menopause for a reason. Older bodies are just not equipped to do the while pregnancy thing etc. Do you really want to be 70 when your child is 10? I know women have had it abroad even older than this, but one of them recently died of cancer and left her 1/2? year old twins behind after having IVF in her late 60s. I just think it is very irresponsible.

It is a shame if they have never had children for whatever reason (if they wanted them), but it just seems 'a bit wrong' (not quite sure how to out that last bit).

[nickytwotimes]

Parp

[thedollshouse]

As far as I understand it when you apply to adopt a child you must be 65 or under when the child turns 18. I think this is a sensible rule and the same principle should be applied to IVF.

[queenoftheslatterns]

actually I agree. I think there is a point (although I think that currently the cut off for NHS IVF is perhaps 5 years too low)past which it is not in the childs best interests to have an older parent. while it is a good point that we are living longer and older parents will be financially stable etc, it doesnt detract from the fact that childbirth is dangerous, raising a child is exhausting and there is still a good chance that the mother will die before the child is out of their teens. I just dont see how that is responsible.

my MIL is adamant (when discussing the last 60yr old woman who had IVF) that there was nothing wrong with it and said that she would love another baby if she could. however, MIL is 65 and has a wide range of health issues, all of which are a natural part of getting old. she can barely cope with looking after my niece 3 mornings a week, let alone a child 24/7.

[Coldhands]

That does sound like a very good idea thedollshouse.

Although in the same article a doctor said he won't give IVF to anyone over 39 (I think) as the success rates are so low, its not worth it, but there is obviously that chance that it will work.

What does parp mean?

[Acinonyx]

I agree with dollshouse that IVF requiring donor eggs should have the same kind of decision making process as adoption - and I speak as one who had an IVF baby at 43 (not donor) and is adopted.

[DuelingFanjo]

If health issues were an obstacle to having a baby then many many women and men would/should (?) be refused everything from testing to treatments by their doctors. Lots or people with health issues/problems have babies. The blind, people with disability, people with disease...

Basically we don't like it when old birds want babies do we? So always always always, the issue of illness and early death is wheeled out as a reason to be sniffy about older mums. Mums that is, not dads.

Although I am inclined to agree the menopause is a marker and this woman is probably too old. Seems odd to say it, considering the fact that women are at the mercy of their reproductive biology which is unfairly very different to mens!

[queenoftheslatterns]

i do agree with you fanjo. its shockingly unfair that we have such limited reproductive resources compared to men and I dont think that ill health etc should be used as an beating stick to hit potential mothers with. but i think that 60 is too old to have a child. just as I feel that 14 is too young.

when do see cons to get ball rolling for IVF? (its lissie btw)

[wannaBe]

no yanbu it's selfish and irresponsible.

"Lots or people with health issues/problems have babies. The blind, people with disability, people with disease..." How does that compare though? A disability does not necessarily impact on someone's ability to have a child or to even raise that child. As a blind mother I take exception to the suggestion that it might.

But a 60 year old woman will almost certainly be dead within the next 30 years, and quite possibly be incapasitated through age-related illness within the next 15/20. It is not fair to knowingly place that on to an as yet unborn child purely because you think you should be able to have one as and when you choose.

[DuelingFanjo]

I do agree too, it's true that 60 odd is way too old for anyone to be thinking of having kids (IMO! though plenty of men do it) but obviously when people talk about 39 being too old for IVF (as in the consultant in the press) it touches a nerve.

I see the consultant in March and we're hoping to get the ball rolling for April, but I have no idea how these things take. Hope they get a wiggle on as I am 40 in April

[queenoftheslatterns]

thats exciting. its definately in sight then (and many HA's will rush through appointments if you are cracking on a bit )

[thedollshouse]

39 isn't too old for IVF, I'm really surprised that the consultant said that. It all depends on the quality of the eggs and your ovarian reserve which varies with each individual. We took a year to conceive this baby and the tests showed that I had an ovarian reserve of someone in their twenties the problem was that I just wasn't ovulating every month which wasn't age related (I was almost 37 when I actually got pregnant).

[kreecherlivesupstairs]

Feeling sick emoticon. I am of the menopause is there for a reason camp. It doesn't matter how well the woman is now, she doesn't have the gift of second sight and doesn't know what lies in store for her healthwise. I think it is irresponsible of the consultant let alone her.
Good luck with your IVF DF.

[DuelingFanjo]

Thanks Kreecher

It is funny how old women having babies is seen less favourably than old men.

The reality for this woman (the old one) is that IVF may not work at all. I think I am looking at a less than 15% success rate at 39!

[kreecherlivesupstairs]

But there is still a success rate to be measured.
Really, good luck. We very nearly ended up down this route. So pleased we didn't. I have a couple of friends who have had IVF and it is a very stressful thing to have to do.

[DuelingFanjo]

Oh dear. I haven't really allowed myself to read up on what it's actually like in terms of the medication and stuff, and am trying not to think about what we do if it doesn't work. Fingers crossed - we might even get pregnant before we have the treatment!

[juuule]

"It doesn't matter how well the woman is now, she doesn't have the gift of second sight and doesn't know what lies in store for her healthwise."

I'd think that was true for all of us.

[MollieO]

She was on Radio 5 this morning. Seemed quite glib at the prospect of not surviving to see her baby reach adulthood. Said her husband is 47 so he will be around to look after the baby if anything happened to her. There was then an amazing call from a 40 yr old woman who became a widow to her now 10 and 11 yr old children when her husband died in a drowning accident on their family holiday last year. She sounded amazingly positive but said that it was not at all easy to go from being a two parent household to a single parent household and how hard that was on her children. I think this point completely passed the IVF lady by.

I have read a bit about this story but have no idea why she left it so late to have children (can't find anything on that). I know she wants this IVF baby as a sibling for another IVF child she had in Russia. I think the adoption rule of being 65 or under when the child is 18 makes a lot of sense.

[queenoftheslatterns]

juuuule, true. but for the most part you try to minimize the risks, not add to them!

[OtterInaSkoda]

Clearly 60 is too old to be having fertility treatment but I can't help feeling that maybe it isn't for the state to decide. Weird hard cases make bad law and all that.

Unless there were hundreds of these women I guess, in which case I'd feel differently.

[DuelingFanjo]

just wondering, is this woman having the treatment on the NHS of is she paying to have it done? in some ways It think women who want to spend money on something like that are entitled to. the ahrd part is getting someone to agree to it.

[queenoftheslatterns]

but surely it is the responsibilty of the specialists to say to the applicant "no, this is not a good idea, you can keep your money" I was devestated when we were turned down for IVF. sobbed for a week. but i understand and respect the decision. the odds were against us and the risks to my own health (in this case - yet ANOTHER mc) were too great. heartbreaking? yes. but absolutely understandable.

[Acinonyx]

My feeling is that the main issue here is that this will not be the wonen's biological child, but that of a donor. And therefore, the same arguments that are used in adoption with respect to age should apply.

For better or for worse, we do not legislate wrt people having their own biological children. We do not intervene in the case of the 80 yr-old man or the teenage heroin addict. But when it comes to facilitating a person in having a non-biological child i.e. via donor or adoption (and after the menopause it must be donor) then I think the state can and should intervene.

[juuule]

Would it be her husband's biological child? Is she doing this to give him children and her dc a sibling?

[Pikelit]

I'm 56 (gah!) and while I can fool myself that I have the stamina to bring up more babies, the reality is that I don't. Neither do many of my friends. We've gone through the menopause which exists for a reason, no matter how unfair it is that men can father babies into their dotage. That medical science now allows women in their sixties to have babies doesn't make it the right thing to do. For all sorts of reasons. But let's start with the fact that very much older parents will die while their children are still children. Or at least move into a state of vulnerability you wouldn't wish upon a child.

Do these insistent older women realise how devastating it is for a child to lose its mother? All my contemporaries are losing parents at a rate that Lady Bracknell would describe as positively careless. My dp was "orphaned" a couple of years ago (his mother dying at 84) and I am very fearful of my mother's rapidly deteriorating state of health. I shall be very sad when she dies. But it will not be a tragic loss since she is 85 and has lead a very full and highly interesting life.

Had I lost her in my teens, things would have been very different and I should have been inconsolable - as were those few friends unlucky enough to lose parents in untimely deaths. I've discussed the subject of very much older mothers with my sons and they've said that, when children themselves, there was no amount of preparation that would have made the loss of a mother more bearable.

So while I'd like to be kinder, I've come to the conclusion that, basically, these women are selfish.

[MollieO]

If she is the one in the Daily Snail then IVF has already worked as she looked heavily pregnant to me!