Cant see another thread - IVF Lottery.

[MarioandLuigi]

here

It leaves a funny taste in my mouth, only because it feels like they are playing on the desperation of infertile parents with no guarantee of success.

Just picking faults with that, would a gay couple also have to try IVF/sperm donation/surrogate before adopting...?

Don't know.

We were ready to adopt from abroad.I've taught children in schools who have been fostered in the past and just knew I wasn't strong enough(we were quite fragile having been on the infertility/IVF rollercoaster)to adopt an older child from this country.The older you are the older the child you'll be placed with I think.

Anyhow we were sent away to use up our frozen embryos before starting the adoption process and we had our twins.I often think of the child we may have adoptedbut you need money to adopt from abroad and room(their own bedroom).After IVF and twins we had neither at the time.We're too old now.

I can see their logic and presume they're better qualified to know what is right.It is hard,hence my anger at "just adopt".

afaik you have to have ceased all fertility treatment for between six months and a year (depends where you live) before being able to embark on adoption. I have a friend who started out on the process having not been through ivf and she wasn't told she had to have IVF - I think it's more that if you have had fertility treatment you have to have moved on from those treatments before being able to embark on adoption..

What happens if you are fertile, but choose not to have your own and instead adopt? Is it a case of having to foster first to get experience? Or can you only adopt if you are infertile?

Yes Wannabe could be right.I'm wondering if agencies differ????? Massage a gay couple wouldn't be infertile ie they could have their own kids in theory whenever they wanted if they sorted out the logistics iykwim. Not entirely sure though.

"If you want to adopt you have to have done IVF"

Not true - I know a number of couples who have adopted who haven't been asked to pursue fertility treatment. You have to show that you have come to terms with infertility though.

"afaik you have to have ceased all fertility treatment for between six months and a year (depends where you live) before being able to embark on adoption."

As you say, it depends on the area. I had just finished an IVF cycle (approx 4 weeks) when we were approved for proceeding with adoption.

I have 2 young adopted children, both adopted as babies. Our route to our children was a relatively easy and fast. Its not always true that the adoption process is long and drawn out over many years - this can be the case, but not always.

fanjobanjowanjo - You can choose to adopt if not infertile, but you have to come up with a very convincing arguement as to why you would choose to.

I'd buy a ticket. It's a chance - we can't afford IVF, don't meet NHS guidelines to qualify (and I also live in one of the PCTs with really shitty IVF policies anyway), have no hopes of ever saving enough to afford to go private... I'd take the chance I might get lucky, with the expectation that I, only one minute notch below impossible, wouldn't... hell it's better odds than shagging every month for pushing 7 fucking years. Wouldn't exactly shatter my hopes and dreams when it didn't win - I have no hopes and dreams left to shatter.

Mind you, I'd only miscarry it anyway.

I'm probably one of the "poor vulnerable people" they're accusing this of preying on - it's raising money for their cause, and it's a very very slim chance that you might get there. No devastation when you don't win - infertility grinds you down to where you do pretty much become immune to disappointment on a monthly basis anyway... I'm actually glad they're offering this very very slim possibility of a happy ending to someone to be honest - because if you haven't got the means to fund IVF privately (before anyone starts the crap about if you can't pay for IVF you shouldn't have children - did you have 15 grand in the bank each time you shagged and concieved naturally), hell, it's a chance, it's a possible hope... and unless you've been there - you can't imagine how utterly soul destroying it is to function in a life without that hope. Sad, but just knowing there's that avenue and potential miniscule chance of a miracle ahead for you when all doors are shut - it's actually lifted my mood a touch this morning (and since I'm in a vile itchy mood since I've broken my decade long record of working with kids without catching nits - that's an achievement).

Oh and since I can't have IVF (and have it fail - but yet another example of how things are much much harsher on those with fertility problems), since I'm not black or mixed-race - there's bog-all chance of adopting around here. Hey-ho - on we go.

fanjobanjowanjo - You can choose to adopt if not infertile, but you have to come up with a very convincing arguement as to why you would choose to.

Saddens me to hear it can be made so difficult.

Empty shell, so sorry to hear of your hellish time. I'm assuming you've considered egg sharing or your DP donating sperm so that you can get discounted treatment?

As someone who's had IVF I've always been shocked at the patronising claptrap that's spouted in the media (and by other women) about the "poor and desperate women" who were being preyed upon by unscrupulous clinics/doctors/drug companies blah blah blah.

I never ever felt I was in the camp and I didn't know anyone else who was either. It was quite a simple problem/solution situation in my mind. I'm a grown-up I can work it out for myself, thanks.

It would have been impossible for me not to know what the most likely outcome of treatment would be.

Oh and the why don't you adopt brigade...... I always wanted to say, so why didn't you adopt then smartarse? But never had the balls to do so.

I think the lottery is a good idea if it gives any couple one more chance than they would otherwise not have had.

Like MDBN, we've also toyed with the idea of adopting when our children are older (we have 2DCs and a 3rd on the way). We'd like a bigger family, and all things being equal thought that adopting would be more responsible.

Genuine question - should we consider fostering instead? Both in terms of where there is greatest need, but also to avoid 'taking' a child that would otherwise be placed with an infertile couple?

Deux yep there IS a lot of profiteering and claptrap out there (particularly when you start that initial googling for information when looking for answers about why the rest of the world's up the duff and you can't get there) - but not like people claim with poor innocent women being manipulated into everything by evil doctors. I don't think you can even begin to get onto the fertility merry-go-round of fun without being assertive and taking ownership of your own destiny anyway - and the chances of someone blithely being able to drift into IVF... god, I'd blithely drift away if I could! I think by the time you're at the stage of going to the doctor to start broaching the subject you're getting pretty well clued in on the chances - and in actuality, even in ideal situations, the odds are so against you that it's a chuffing miracle anyone becomes pregnant in the first place anyway!

I have friends to have tried IVF, one who went to the US for a donor egg and another who did adopt. None are easy but being there with them - the adoption was by FAR the most difficult IMHO. I am speaking as an outsider but the questions, the veiled remarks about their relative wealth (they earned £90k) between them. The great sympathy SS had for the birth mother who had had child after child and half way through decided to change her mind. All very tramatic. But I do think this view that teenage mothers with no visble means of support who have not used birth control and who are in casual relationships with no father figure planning to contribute will do fantastic jobs of bringing up their children? Really??

How do they regulate it all?

Is the money for the clinic of their choice or can you use it in the clinic you attend?Would you have to prove you needed the treatment?

For some women IVF is dangerous,for others not the only treatment needed etc.Just wondering the logistics of it all.

Also we had councelling,I wonder how that would fit in. For some desperate couples it could be a double blow of monthly AF and no lottery win.Not all infertile couples are tough as old boots.I know several who suffered badly.We coped ok but part of it was due to having councelling.

Utterly were you young when you adopted? We were told a very different story ie the chances of adopting a baby was practically zero.They also said the younger you adopt the younger the child which considering IVF can take years(waiting lists,saving etc)isn't helpful for infertile couples.

I also sadly think that IVF could be one of the things to go when the NHS is being reviewed. It is already a lottery as to whether you get it or not but being harsh here. Would you rather fund £5k worth of drugs for a family member to have a better quality of life or allow a women to have a cycle of IVF?

The women on benefits fighting for her 'human rights' to have a child with no man and no money to support a child spoils it for geninue cases and when the committees/boards are deciding whether to fund this or that (and we cannot having everything) they will remember this woman - not the couples whose lives have been changed by being allowed to have IVF on the NHS

you think that there is an abundance of single women on benefits trying to get NHS funding for IVF? Or am I reading that incorrectly? I have to say when I was going through the IVF process the vast majority of people I met were couples with infertility problems who had tried for years and finally made it to near the top of the list for NHS treatment, for many of the couples it was male infertility which meant they were unable to have children and they had been through all kinds of other treatments before having IVF.

Dont think tbh that are a vast amount of single women on benefits trying to get NHS funding. However IMHO they should not be eligble full stop.

I do think that you will find the money to fund IVF. The NHS was never set up to fund this treatment. If you cannot afford a round of IVF how on earth are you going to fund a child or two?

So only the rich should have children? Only the rich should be allowed IVF?

Finding £5000 in one go is very hard, saving £5000 is hard. Affording to bring up a child is very different. I had IVF on the NHS, without that I would have had to put myself into debt to fund myself. I am now raising a child and find that it really doesn't cost very much to do so.

This is the third thread about this fucking lottery.

Incidentally the people it directly affects (those hit by infertilty, and those hit by infertility and screwed by NHS guidelines/shit PCT rules) on the previous couple of threads were pretty united in the stance that it's a possible way forward for whoever gets lucky, that we're not all going to sit with the ticket framed on our wall assuming that in 9 months we'll all have our babies and that we all fully accept the odds of winning and IVF succeeding are pretty shit - but since our odds are shitter without taking the chance - we're big enough girlies to deal with taking that informed choice... without our fertile overlords deciding for us.

We also fully explored the whole "you can always adopt" and how offensive, ill informed and bullshitty this comment is - and how it smacks of smug ignorant fertile (the advanced life-form of the Bridget Jones Smug Marrieds).

We're big girls - we can handle the disappointment of not winning - we do disappointment on a monthly basis anyway.

Well said!