to think a biological child is not a right

[Aribura]

and the NHS should not fund IVF in favour of vital medications for already existing people e.g. cancer drugs being funded?

I'm feeling masochistic this evening and am looking forward to munching on some biscuits and getting my ass handed to me.

Also I didn't get bumdrop saying IVF parents llove their kids more,

I have 4 kids conceived easily and love them to bits but it's when you think you may have lost one( as we recently did) you realise just how much h you love them.

I get her on this.

"adoption is not suitable for everybody"

Yes bobbledunk. And adoption is about finding homes for children, not children for potential parents. It's just as much an option for fertile couples as those with fertility problems.

Many people who think infertile couples "should" adopt "all the unwanted children in the world" have never done so themselves. Why don't they adopt?

I don't think I said "love more" ??
If I did, that is clearly incorrect.
My point is about gratitude.

Trestle very good point, I loathe the infertility/adoptions point every time it comes up. I hate that it suggests that adoption is the second best consolation prize for infertility rather than a valid first option for the right people regardless of fertility.

Bumdrop, I sort of get where you are coming from. I sat in antenatal classes thinking that none of the other women could possibly be as grateful as me for being pregnant and then you get to know people and you realise everyone has story.

Infertility, miscarriage, ectopic pregnancies, difficult relationships, fibroids, anxiety, difficult births, (and thats in just one class) everyone has some story and only a very very few sail through it all easily (I personally dont know anyone), so yes, perhaps people going through ivf have had to be more sure that its right for them, and feel so grateful, but we just dont know the other side of the story so cant judge (although i get that its totally maddening when you see or hear about people who neglect their children when you are ttc or a new parent after infertility).

It also suggests that it is selfish to want to conceive your own children if you need IVF, but totally fine if you don't.

The double standard infuriates me - if you have non-adopted children, why did you want them?

Yes, well that's the same reason people going through IVF want them.

Adoption isn't just showing up to Annie's orphanage and picking out the cutest newborn baby.

Bumdrop your comment that IVF babies are somehow more special was silly enough without the extra silly comment about being bright enough to move a leg to one side.

Someone else back up the thread (forgotten who) said that the NHS shouldn't fund older women who choose to leave conceiving until late to pursue their career. I can't see how it would be possible to work out which of those women had always been subfertile but hadn't known it and which were subfertile purely as a consequence of age.

"Someone else back up the thread (forgotten who) said that the NHS shouldn't fund older women who choose to leave conceiving until late to pursue their career. I can't see how it would be possible to work out which of those women had always been subfertile but hadn't known it and which were subfertile purely as a consequence of age."

Absolutely. The honest ones wouldn't be allowed treatment, and those who changed their story to suit the system would.

and what constitutes 'a career'. Is the NHS going to say well if if you earn over £35K then you have obviously put your career first? Nonsense.

you clearly have never had fertility problems.

Also how would we work out which women had delayed having children because they were waiting for a suitable Daddy to present himself (acceptable) and which were selfish want-it-all "career women" (totally unasseptable)?

And anyway, a huge percentage of female infertility issues are resolved with simple and cheap tablets such as clomid - not IVF or IUI. IVF is the tiny top of a large complex mountain.

By the way I cant see why a 40 a day cancer sufferer is entitled to treatment more then a heart broken infertile couple? They both need essential help and they both pay taxes.

I know lots of people who have had trouble conceiving and I wouldn't say any of them have done so due to 'putting their career first'.

Most of them married in their early thirties, then ttc naturally for 2-3 years before trying assisted conception. If it takes a few years going through IVF then that could easily take you to your late 30's.

The fact is that people just don't find themselves in a financial position nowadays to start a family until they are in their 30's. Also, a lot of men just aren't ready to commit to marriage and children in their 20's.

There are any number of reasons why women are ttc later than is biologically ideal, but putting their careers first is rarely one of them.

I definitely don't subscribe to the fertility treatment children being more special/ precious/loved view. I adore my children but so does everyone else. I was heartbroken when we had two miscarriages following successful treatment, but miscarriage is heartbreaking for anyone. The thing that I wanted so much was normality-to escape the feeling of being different to our friends who were conceiving without difficulty. Once we were expecting, I relished and was quite defensive of our normality. I responded poorly to people who wanted details of our treatment (not as if you ask for details of anyone else's conceptions is it?) and got a bit marked when I gave up work and a couple of friends suggested it was inevitable after what we had gone through that I'd want to be with my kids full time. So all I wanted was to be treated as if my children were as special as the next person's. The only thing I would say is that the miscarriages added another issue to be thinking about really-there was the babies we'd lost and also the will we get lucky again with treatment. If its straightforward to conceive I would imagine, although I could well be wrong, that that worry might be less prevalent.

Actually, thinking about it I'm not sure even the worrying about getting pg again would be different. Mc made me mistrust my body and that wouldn't be much different with fertility treatment or the usual way. But you might be wondering if finances would permit the actual trying.

Wow. What a fucking evil thread to start.

I'm sat here doped up to the eyeballs on tramadol, naproxen, Buscopan and paracetamol. Due to stage 4 endo and PCOS. The endo has spread to my renal system and bowel and bladder. I have had 8 major surgeries. I have 1 DS and am facing a hysterectomy and bowel resection in the next few months.

I am IMMENSELY grateful for DS - it took SO much to get him. He is no 'more or less' special or loved than any number of children. but he was a damned site harder to get here than most.

Think about some of that backgrounds to people's Fertility problems before you post such a fucking vile thread again.

Bumdrop, totally disagree with your argument about gratitude, and as another poster has said, you don't know how people feel.

Your comment about people getting stressed because "kids are just being kids" is judgmental. No matter how a child arrives, some parents will struggle more than others, and pressure to be grateful / non-complaining doesn't help.

Btw, fertility problems are a risk factor for PND.

FWIW I think the debate about what the NHS should / shouldn't fund is an important (if insolvable) one.

Posting such an inflamatory, nasty OP because you're bored?? That's what's made me fucking burn with rage.

Maybe if I wasn't costing the NHS so many £1000's I'd be calmer. But there is NO way anyone can ever tell me the NHS shouldn't have treated me.

It would make far more sense to get the drug companies to lower their prices like they just did on the Prostate cancer drug.
My Dad's cancer drugs cost about £30k a month. My fertility treatment which has allowed me to get pregnant after a MC and years of ttc was a one off trip to the operating room to have some holes drilled into my ovaries. This op, not only allowed me to get pregnant, but also temporarily solved my debilitating periods, by kick starting the progesterone I need to ovulate. It stopped the huge amount of blood loss I had when I did get a period and highlighted the early risk of Type 2 diabetes, which hopefully will save the NHS money in the future.
If I had needed IVF, and I am not entitled on the NHS as I already have a dd (funny how the details are never brought into the argument), I would have had to fund it myself at about £5k. They are hardly comparable and No, I am not saying my dad shouldn't get his cancer drugs.

It's a nasty OP but the discussion has largely been pretty balanced and sensible. Particularly the posts about how silly it is to always compare IVF with "life saving cancer treatment" when there is so much more that the NHS does - drugs for acne, help with weight loss, all sorts of things.

I hate the way IVF is seen as an "easy option". It involves putting your ovaries into temporary menopause and then accelerating egg production, turning you into an egg farm, extracting those eggs with a giant needle shoved through your vagina and so on. It's a frickin horrible process. But I'll be starting it next month because I want kids. And my lovely husband wants kids. And despite being as fertile as fertile things on paper, we have been unable to conceive for 19 cycles of crushing disappointment. So I will put myself through it with that end goal in mind.

Yes-the Pnd thing. Sometimes after treatment people feel that somehow if they say motherhood isn't all it's cracked up to be they're being ungrateful or somehow disloyal in some way to those who are still going through treatment or remain childless. When actually they've just been given access to the journey of motherhood. What happens after birth is down to another roll of the dice of life.

God you are so right OP , now where can i hand in beelzebub DS2?

I'm proud of being from the uk because of the NHS. However, I believe in means testing for most things, despite paying my taxes and so on. I had 3 children (singleton and twins) through ivf because I have endemtroisis (sp?) and we paid for it ourselves.

Dh and I are teachers so not poor or rich, but I certainly wasn't going to expect the NHS to pay for my kids if I could with my savings-it just seemed obvious. If I really couldn't have afforded it then I would have gone on the waiting list but tried to not see it as the be all and end all-as I tried to when we doing ivf-kept making lists of life plans with no children and then for life with 1 child when we were trying for 2nd child.

As it's a big teaching research hospital I got some money off for being part of 2 research projects-that was fine by me.. The operation I had for ende, dh's for his bowel ulcers, my births-these seem different some how, but how can our taxes pay for it all?

IVF is a tricky one-somewhere in the middle of a scale with my aunt's cancer treatment at one end and my Mum's face lift(that she paid for of course) at the other end-some things it's obvious the NHS should pay for.
My inlaws always say they're their miracle babies, I do think the science is amazing, but all babies are miracles, not just ours.

The op has clearly never met someone who's only chance of a family has been through IVF. They haven't seen that person's marriage be pushed to the brink of destruction; the depression; the heart breaking sense of loss, of mourning for a child that hasn't even existed; or witnessed a life being lived without purpose or meaning.

I too cannot stand the cancer v ivf argument
It is crass and underdeveloped and it pisses me off.
I have never been infertile and have four birth children, two conceived in my 40's.
I have lost a child to cancer though.
and I despise people appropriating her condition to make spurious arguments.
And bumdrop I think you are very wrong about the grateful thing but can see why you think that way.
If it means anything to the women on here living with infertility, you have my utmost sympathy. I sincerely hope you get the family you want in what ever way it takes.
And finally, thank feck I don't have to rant about a 'you should just adopt then' post.

I don't think children (biological, adopted, other) are a right. They are a gift that some of us are lucky enough to have. So I agree with the OP that "having a biological child is not a right". But I know the sheer heartbreak that infertility can cause, and would never want an NHS that would not fund IVF. The question of where to draw the line on who is eligible is one I can't answer, but I do think it should be the same throughout the UK rather than variations between health authorities. And it's unseemly that private clinics can charge so much for IVF / assisted conception, really just because they know so many people will pay the huge fees because of the primal urge to reproduce.

OP - I hope this thread has cured your "boredom"...