To think that just because her baby was conceived through IVF does not make them more "precious" "loved" or more likely to be preyed on by sex offenders??

[BackToB4Beatrice]

I sometimes take DD out with a group of friends and friends of friends for a dog walk and some tea and cake. One woman (friend of friend) has an adopted teenage son, and then a daughter (2.5) through IVF.

There was about 12 toddlers out today, and a one point two of them were missing (for about 15 seconds, had snuck into a small wooded area). When they were found, said mum turned to me and said "the thing is Beatrice, people just don't understand how precious X is, we just love her so much, and she is so beautiful she is just the kind of child somebody would, you know, TAKE"

This is not the first type of comment like this. And I'm afraid to say I just snubbed her a bit, raised my eyebrows and said "really?".

I'm sure it was a bit rude of me but I just felt like telling her to fuck off. Every child is precious, and me and DP love DD so so much, despite being unplanned and probably being a bit young (not teenagers, I was 21 but we definately could of done with a few more years before she trundled along!) when she was born.

And don't even get me started on the "taken" thing! WTF?

Go on, I'm BU, aren't I? Guess I Gould cut her more slack?

Sounds more like what I mean LOL

Every child matters totally plagiarised

I can understand why OP got a bit huffy after hearing repeated comments about the precious child rather than the mother's feelings being unusual. Which they probably are, because she worked so hard to get that baby (same for adoptive parents, I imagine).

I've had a different side to this... people telling me that DD will be more attractive to sexual predators because she is blonde. I feel very uncomfortable about those statements. :(

QOD has explained it much better than I had.

If you are infertile and you have been lucky enough to conceive (like me) then if your child dies, you haven't just lost a child (worst case situation anyway for any parent) you're also condemned to childlessness forever. :(

And when you've been infertile, then you know exactly how awful childlessness can feel, except that in this situation, you are also grieving for your child. I just can't imagine...

We had a long hard road to having a family. It took 7 years, three failed IVF's and finally ended in adoption. I KNOW how this woman feels! Our child is sooooo precious to us, much more so than if we were able to have children easily like everyone else. I think everyone is taking it too personally. She said "people just don't understand how precious X is". Of course no one understands unless they had such a hard time themselves. I don't think she was making out that hers is more precious than other peoples children, just that the child is so extremely precious to them! I think you tend to appreciate something more if you've had to struggle for it than if it came easily.

Except if you lose a child and then have another one it doesnt replace the one you lost ffs.

I could write a whole thread on that right there.

So CaptainKirk if you've never experienced easy conception, how do you purport to know how unprecious the rest of us consider our children to be?

Can I just add something ?

My dc are the most precious ,special beautiful children in the world to me.

No one else's kids/babies are anywhere near as fabulous as mine. ....nah nah ne nah nah < raspberry> , your just all ...

Barking mad ? ,probably , but it's just natures way of making sure we protect our own offspring.

The woman is just a victim of her hormones IMO ....she will soon change her minds ( or calm down) when the dd becomes a teenager ! .

MRsDV - I don't think anyone has suggested that having another child would in any way replace the one who has gone. :(

ThePeoplesPrincess- that's exactly what I was going to say.
CaptainKirk- so if you miraculously became pregnant, would that child be less or more precious? Of course it wouldn't be any different, because all your children are the most precious things you have, the same as mine is to me.

captainkirk I dont think that is true at all. They are not automatically appreciated more because they were so hard to get. If that were true there would be no abused children born of IVF, no neglected late babies, no adopted children would ever be beaten.

thepeoplesprincess - i don't think Captainkirk is saying that other peoples children are UNprecious. Just saying that that child is ultra precious to THEM.

As my Mum says.....there is only one beautiful child in the world, and every mother has it! Every mother has the right to think that their children are the best/most precious/beautiful/clever, and if they don't there's something wrong.

Not explicitly thumb (well not on this thread).

But the loss of a child to a couple who struggle to conceive is a truly tragic and awful thing. No more or less than the loss of a child to the most fecund couple in the land.

Being childless and losing a child are two different things.

I have had two babies since losing my DD. I know I am lucky to have them. The fact they are here does not lessen my pain one tiny bit.

There is no league table for the loss of a child or for the love of a child.

Those feelings are projected by people who are imagining what they think they would feel like.

IMO

And of course

MY children are the most precious, bestest in the universe.

In case anyone was wondering

Children are all loved, or should be. I don't think conceiving and maintaining a pregnancy through IVF would necessarily make you love your child more than someone who was lucky enough not to need that. She's being unreasonable, if that's what she thinks.

However, I can imagine that requiring IVF, and hence having found yourself on the wrong side of various statistics in order to be there (1 in 6 couples has fertility problems, 1% of women has this problem, 5% of men have this problem, etc) , would make you a more nervous person afterwards, and far more panicky about any kind of risk. It could make you less blasé about "everything being okay; it'll all be all right. That kind of thing only happens to other people."

Which applies to anyone who has experienced any tragedy, actually.

I may be sitting on the fence here. I have no idea how reasonable she is. Perhaps because I've never met her!

MrsDV - I'm very sorry that I offended you. I was trying very hard not to - which is why I put in my first post on this thread that no child can be replaced, but obviously I failed.

I have seen people very close to me go through the death of a child - including my own parents. It was a source of great pain to my Mum that she was too old to have another child. If I hadn't been around then I believe that my Mum would have killed herself. It has made me a very anxious parent.

CaptainKirk, I have had 4 very easily conceived dc and I find it insulting to hear that I couldn't possibly appreciate them as much as you appreciate yours, because mine came easily to me. There is no way on earth I could love or appreciate my children any more than I do - it just isn't possible and I expect you (and all the other parents here) feel the same way about yours.

I think you'd probably find that if you'd had a second, easily conceived child you would love and appreciate it just as much as your first, because most people do.

Are you sure you are not the OP's 'friend'?

mrstittle I understand your anxieties re your mother.
Unfortunately I know lots of bereaved parents who have no other children.
They do carry on because that is what you do.

I have heard a thousand times 'if I lost my child I would kill myself'

Yet the vast majority of bereaved parents dont.

The experiences of a bereaved parent who has no surviving children are different from those who have living children. The pain is the same.

She came close to it, even with me around. :(

I completely agree that the pain must be exactly the same, although obviously I have been very lucky and don't know from first hand experience. All children are precious, and irreplaceable, which is why I put that the OP was NBU.

I suppose that the point that I made to the OP is that some people also have to learn how to cope with the experience of childlessness (which I have some experience of) on top of the pain of bereavement (which I make no claims to understand).

I also know that the friends of mine that have lost children have gone on to have more, if they can. Not to replace the child that died, but to have something positive in their lives (from what I can understand).

I am sorry you went through that with your mother.
I worry about my eldest boy and the affect the death of his sister has had on him, the way he lost me as well as his sister.

Everyone thinks that their child(ren) are more precious that everyone else's...but most of us know that everyone feels the same. My MIL is the same about DH, he was conceived after SEVEN years of trying and is her only one. I am pretty sure I feel the same about each of my four as she does about her one, my love is not divided it expands.

That's OK. It wasn't anybody's fault. It happened, and we all tried to get through it as best we could. We're still trying to get through it as best we can. I was older than your DS when my brother died, so I think that my Mum probably leaned on me a bit more because of that. I'm sure that your DS still has a very loving and caring Mum, and it's better that he knows how much you loved your DD and how sad you are that she has gone, than everything is swept under the carpet, surely?

The only thing that has really taken my Mum out of her grief has been the birth of my children. I think that it's given her a future, if you like. The pain is still there, but there is joy too.

I'm just talking about my personal experience. Just like anything else that you have to struggle and sacrifice and work for is usually appreciated more than something that comes easy. Sure, I don't know how we'd feel if it had happened naturally, I'm sure we'd love our child just as much but I'm not sure we'd appreciate it as much or feel as lucky as we do now. I'm not saying everyone should, would, or could feel this way MrsDV, it's just how we feel and I sort of understand where the woman was coming from.

I have adopted and birth children.
I feel lucky to have/to have had them all.
They all drive me equally bonkers.
There is no difference.

I get pg very easily. I realise how lucky I am and I cannot imagine the pain of infertility. I just cannot get my head round a child being more/better loved because of their means of arrival.

YANBU whilst she was probably worried, but what she said was grossly insensitive to other parents who were probably equally concerned and loved their children just as much as her.

The way a child is conceived has no bearing on how much it is loved. Does she love her naturally conceived child less than the one she conceived using IVF?

God help the woman when her daughter goes to school and is out of her sight for 6 hours a day.

I've noticed a few people struggle to articulate it, and perhaps the OP's friend did as well.

I think it's actually a badly expressed emotion not so much relating to the love of her child been greater than anyone else's, but more the love of her position as a mother and the realisation/experience of the fragility of the situation.

Much like when people experience a sense of their own mortality, it's not that they like been a alive more than other people, they've just experienced an anxiety and perception of how vulnerable and uncontrollable everyone's position in the universe is.