To wonder how, with all the funding cuts in the NHS, fertility treatment is still funded?

[Misfitless]

I know I will be flamed.

I considered name-changing, but it's cowardly, so I will take the flack.

Maybe infertility treatment has been cut, and I just haven't heard about it, but I have certainly heard that some cancer treatments have been cut.

I know it's easy for me to say, I have not had fertility issues, but I genuinely think that if I did, I wouldn't go down the route of expecting the NHS to fund it.

I am the only person on MN who feels this way/the only one who will admit it?

you probably gave as much consideration to adopting as you did to having biological children

Actually given her particular experience of adoption I would think she would run screaming in the opposite direction if anyone had raised it as an option.

That might be a bit unfair though to MrsDV - but she would have to have had nerves of steel to go through anything remotely similar again.

Oddfod though I believe that post was directly at me it wasn't a direct personal attack and so is probably fine.

Anyway sometimes what people say really does speak for who they are in ways they hadn't intended so should probably be left.

Get over ourselves?!

Maybe you're right Kew. I just thought it really overstepped the mark

You have been noting but eloquent and patient on this thread and don't deserve any accusations of bitterness

It's not my fault that adoption for you was the last resort is it?

Actually, now I think about it, either stealing someone else's baby or raising a monkey baby would probably have been my last resort (I'm not sure what order I would put them in), so happy for all concerned that it didn't become necessary.

I'm relaxed about the accusations of bitterness and anger because I'm neither. I gave it a good shot, I had my line in the sand about what I decided I would an wouldn't do and surprised myself at the point I drew the line.

I feel no "guilt" about the chronological order I did things in - I did them in order of easiest things first. It seemed logical to me at the time. I got DS out of it, he is lovely, what's to feel bitter and angry about (except the thought that someone thinks he is in some way a poor result, my "last resort").

I cannot be made to feel guilty or angry about something which I'm not. OP feels defensive and angry about being flamed so she is getting a bit tetchy. She chose the topic, not me [shrug emoticon]

Wow OP, you really are not nice.

Instead of debating the topic aka being a goady fuck why don't you just, not? Your arguments are flawed and you have come across as showing little empathy and that actually you have little knowledge/understating of the funding of infertility nor adoption.

kew you are always so eloquent

As an aside, best decision ever - our kids are gorgeous and never regretted a day

So some maths then
1 nhs ivf 3-6 k
Vs
4 natural conceptions assuming labour etc
4*1800
=7200
Plus mw meetings perhaps consultants
HV
Free nursery hours
School
Nhs free prescriptions / dentist/ opticians
I cant even estimate that

So comparison 1 the ivf couple who conceive will have 1 lot of the subsequent costs vs your 4x
Or the couple who fail and have funded your lifestyle choices to tune of well at least 2k probably more like £20k
So ... Who do you think should feel guilty for'taking money from cancer treatment?'
Also interesting how you didnt want antenatal provision cut isnt it.
This is all assuming no CS or SEN for your children.
Though really it seems too convenient for you to suddenly have 4 kids without mentuoning them earlier like you want people to pick up on how very unreasonable you are.
Accepted that is ivf results in multiples the costs of that could be very high, plus due to age increase risk of say DS, but i think ID twins are more risky and more likely to be natural, and of course twins give infertile parents an opportunity to have more than 1 baby.

Posted too soon.
I think its even worse that you nake it sound like you couldnt care less about having kids - yet went ahead and had more than average.
I think that you should be happy that infertile couples are abke to spend some of the money put into childrens services/healthcare to even out and balance, in light of 60% wont be successful anyway so will be tax paying subsidizing schools and maternity services for people like you their whole working lives

Well OP aren't you just so lucky that you naturally conceived your 4 DCs with ease, well done you!!

You come across as completely smug and insensitive. I've just taken years, a devastating mc and a whole heap of fertility investigations to get pregnant. I count my blessings that we eventually managed it naturally. If we hadn't then I'd have definitely carried on down the fertility route to ivf, as have a number of my friends who were left with no other choice following operations that meant they couldn't conceive naturally.

I don't think you come across as having any understanding of the bleakness, emptiness, slow rotting of hope and strain on a marriage that can result from fertility problems. It can take it's toll on mental and physical health and there can be many reasons why a couple may not be able to conceive naturally (unlike you - aren't you lucky!) such as past illness.

If funding ivf makes it possible to help these people to have some hope of conceiving a child then I say go ahead.

But for you to dismiss DS's adoption as some kind of last resort and imply that someone doing it prior to or instead of fertility treatment shows some kind of moral superiority does stick in my throat rather, particularly an armchair warrior whose taking a theoretical high ground only.

I wasn't intentionally suggesting that, at all, though having read back, I can see it sounded like that, sorry.

kew I found your earlier post about your child very touching. Your posts in adoption helped me when I was considering my next move after several failed rounds. Happily the last round I had did work out for me at the grand old age of 41 but your insights were informative.

I agree with so much written previously so I will just say OP go and read the adoption and infertility boards on here before starting threads on topics you know little about.

Naty1

I think its even worse that you make it sound like you couldn't care less about having kids - yet went ahead and had more than average.

I take it your above comment is in response to my comment below..?

but we stopped using contraception when we knew we would be happy to conceive.

I'm baffled! I didn't think I would be allowed to use words like desperate/thrilled/conceived naturally/gave birth or any such no-doubt-on-this-thread patronising/smug/arrogant/insensitive words.

As a result, I rewrote that post about 4 times, trying to make it as un-offensive as possible. If you think I couldn't have cared less about having kids from that post, then there's not much I can do about it.

Lala I have said so many times that I can not even begin to understand how you and others have suffered, of course. There have been many heart wrenching posts. I haven't posted flowers or offered sympathy, as that would have been deemed insensitive and hollow, I'm sure, even though it would have been genuine.

I am repeatedly being told that I don't understand, and I don't. It's almost as if I have no right to think or post or question any of it, because I haven't been through it.

I just don't understand why the needs of infertile people get to top trump the needs of e.g. cancer patients who are refused treatment on the grounds of the medication they need, failing to meet the cost effective criteria, because there isn't enough money around.

If I had suffered as you have, maybe I would think that my need to have a child, was more worthy of NHS funding than a cancer patients' need for treatment. I'm not allowed to say that I wouldn't want IVF, because the majority of posters on this thread have had it, so that means that they know that I would want it, and that I'm wrong in knowing thinking that I wouldn't.

As I've already said, I've been slated for not being understanding enough/being smug/insensitive/arrogant etc, etc. Fair enough! But, I can count on one hand the posters who've had fertility issues, who have shown even a fleeting thought for anyone other than other people with fertility issues.

So in advance, can the next person to accuse me of being insensitive, just take a look at themselves, and see if they've shown sensitivity to anyone who hasn't had fertility problems.

I'm beginning to think you might be somewhat hard of understanding rather than insensitive and patronising.

I'll simplify for you...

Why does one cycle of ivf for a childless 'top trump' cancer treatment when the (more expensive) cost to the NHS of your four unassisted pregnancies?

No-one said you have no right to decide not to want IVF (nice sleight of hand though) we have you cannot be so definitive about what you would do. As with many life changing events you would surprised how many people discover that their previously superficial and untested views change. Not always but sometimes.

And as someone who has previously posted about how my mother was told she had terminal cancer the day after my final IVF failed, I do take issue with the idea that having fertility treatment precludes me from having empathy with anyone else.

Why does one cycle of ivf for a childless couple 'top trump' cancer treatment when the (more expensive) cost to the NHS of your four unassisted pregnancies doesn't?

MrsD thanks for sharing that. I wasn't asking to be confrontational, I was genuinely interested.

Naty1 - well I don't know the costs of me having my DCs. But yes, having 4 DCs is maybe using up more than mine and DH's share, if there is such a thing. It seems that the default or right number of children is 2, and anything under or above is somehow unacceptable to the majority of people. Of course for the purpose of this debate, 1DC is fine, as nobody would accuse a family of 3 of being a drain on resources.

I think that CB should only be paid for the first 2 DCs in any family, tbh, that would save so much money, that could theoretically be put in the NHS pot, but that's another thread, I suppose.

Naty's post has made me think. I had never thought of it in those terms. I can see that if people are working and paying taxes, they are actually funding maternity services, child health services, schools, colleges but if they are childless, are not personally benefiting from the money they are paying in.

I suppose Naty has made me realise that if you turn my whole argument on it's head, it is actually unfair to expect childless people to pay for some services that they might not get to use via their children. In that case, it does seem logical and fair that those people should be funded treatment to give them an opportunity to address any imbalance and have a child.

Trust me, in my 5 years of infertility the NHS spent more on me due to mental health issues than probably 5 rounds of IVF. Had I not eventually managed to have a baby after those 5 years and then 6 miscarriages I wouldn't still be here.....bet you'd approve of that OP. Suicide due to despair and depression, a way to save the NHS thousands!

I haven't put that very well.

Wow, I wasn't expecting to come out of this with a shift of mindset .

It still leaves the question of how much treatment/funds should be set aside to treat each couple who need fertility treatment, and doesn't alter the fact that there isn't enough money to go around for people who are already alive/about to be born.

No Country .

Everyone on here totally side-tracked my OP, which was that the NHS is paying money to create more lives, when it simply can't afford to treat the people who are here.

Anyway, now that I've alienated everyone on mn who's ever had fertility issues and/or who has ever gone through the adoption process, I would like to say that Naty's logical argument has made me change my mind, I think.

It was never about me wanting to dismiss or deny the despair and heartache that infertility brings.

You can't compare two completely different areas of medicine so directly. Cancer is 'worse' (more life-threatening anyway) than so many other illnesses and conditions, but they all affect lives somehow and deserve attention.