To feel slightly put out at the implication that IVF babies are more precious?

[jollyfrenchy]

As part of a discussion about choking and cutting grapes for small children, one lady said she also wouldn't be giving her daughter raw apple or carrot pieces until she was 5 years old for fear of choking. When she was then told she was being a bit overly paranoid. In response she agreed, but explained it by saying that it took 11 years of trying and 2 rounds of IVF to have her daughter, and she wasn't willing to take any risks at all.

Now, I do understand that sort of experience has an effect on you, but I slightly resent the implication that her child is somehow more precious than others. Kind of like, "Oh well you can afford to take risks, you've got three kids, and anyway, you if you lost one you could always have another. This is the only one I've got and will ever have so I need to look after her more."

Er, no every one of my children is as precious and important as yours, it's just that in life you have to take risks and eating apples is a risk I'm prepared for them to take.

Also surely it's not beneficial to your oh so precious child's well being to wrap them in cotton wool and never take ANY risk with them. In a similar way I know people who had a hard time having their baby or who adopted after years of heartache, who then go on to completely spoil the child (never say no, let them have their own way all the time etc) because they're so grateful to have them. Again, not doing the child any favours really.

Do they really, FindGask? Holy shit, thanks for the revelation. No wonder people got so angry with me when I said I was planning to spit roast mine...

I can't work out if that snark is aimed at me, but I was just responding to the bit of your post when you said that people who "really are" driven by love for their children..."won't indulge in this tastelessness".

I think there's a whole load of reasons people get tied up in this sort of argument - like maybe their own fears and insecurities - but I think a lack of love is more than likely not one of them.

I'm saying that there are people whose actions are driven by loving their kids. Then there are people who I am sure also love their kids, but whose actions are driven more by self promotion and everything you say about your own feelings in parenting are actually all about THEM and the love they have for THEIR KIDS and how much everyone else must know about it. And there's been a massive pissing contest in this thread that is hard to miss if you read it.

Telling me that most people love their kids was beyond inane. Gesundheit.

Now, where's my spit roast?

I don't see this thread as a pissing contest. If anything it's like a sort of weird reverse pissing contest, with people accusing each other of boasting when actually that's not what anyone's doing at all. I see it more as a big unsettling display of various anxieties than anything else.

I wouldn't have taken the time to say that most people love their kids if you hadn't appeared to have said that pissy people don't. But since that's not what you meant, I'll stand down. Er, something German.

OP starts an incredibly contentious thread which I would SWEAR I've read word-for-word before, and vanishes.

Some people being purposefully hurtful and misreading things. Everyone upset.

Why is this thread still standing again?

I know a couple whose (teenage) dd is just learning to walk again after a horrendous car accident. Having her with them is absolutely more precious to them right now than to most parents, who haven't come so close to losing them for ever. This is surely something similar.

She never said anything of the sort did she? She's aware she can't have more children so the one she has IS precious to her! You sound horrid OP. "kind of like" No, she didn't say that nor did she imply it you've just decided to take offence at somthing she didn't even say!!

Of course she's anxious and I can understand why!

I call my daughter precious because she is precious to ME.

you haven't Ben through what that poor womans been through to get her baby you have NO right to judge what you decided she meant!!!

My first pregnancy ended at 7 months and my son lived for just 2 hours. I then lost two more babies after him. 2 years later I finally got my baby.

If someone like you was to judge me because I think my much wanted and longed for baby is precious I would tell you where to go

This post hasn't gone the way you wanted it to has it? Plenty of people on here have lost babies, children, struggling to conceive. So when we finally get our much wanted baby of course were scared of losing them!!! You just sound bloody awful.

This thread is a pointless waste of time, and I regret my part in it.

I hope it is left to stand for one reason only; Maryz wonderful posts.

Haven't RTFT but I think for the mentioned poster there's a sense that when something bad happens to you it makes you more aware other bad things can happen to you again.

I haven't had IVF so I don't understand those particular feelings, but I have suffered through quite extreme poverty and even though I'm now doing well for myself I'm aware that poverty is only a pay cheque or two away. I feel anxiety that I've escaped for this long and feel like it's only a matter of time before fate catches up and my good luck runs out.

Most people who haven't been in this situation will be blissfully unaware of how close poverty is - I'm sure some would consider me neurotic to worry about it in a stable job with a good wage, but it remains there like a shadow in the corner of my mind.

I can easily imagine how women who've gone through IVF could feel a similar way around their children - that they've somehow cheated fate and next time they won't be so lucky.

Kerbs
don't regret it xx

When you can't have (or think you can't have) children you are treated differently in this society - often as if you have no value as an individual and nothing you achieve could ever be as important as those who have reproduced.

THAT is what we have to endure for year after year and then, when some of us finally have the children we want, we are told that we are being precious and entitled just because we are relieved that we have them and that we are now part of the "club".

For years I heard how I didn't understand what it was like to be pregnant, love a child, deal with children, deal with juggling a family and career. It gets to you so yeah, my children are precious. In the grand scheme of things they probably won't do anything extraordinary because most of us don't - but I certainly appreciate them more than I would have if I'd not had to struggle and wait so long to have them.

We often say that DD took so long to arrive because she was on "special order". My DD is the most precious thing in the world to me. I think that's the default position for most parents (and I say most, as I watched a lot of adoption/SS related programmes during the 'black years' and it seemed like some of the parents on there didn't agree).

I can't remember who said this, but I agree that I've already mourned the children I thought I would never have (and the ones I lost though mc). I don't think I could survive losing her. If I had another child, or had the ability to have another child, I might be able to continue, but I can't. Doing all the over-protective, risk averse stuff is to an extent about self-preservation, it's not a comment on other people's parenting or a judgment as to how precious each child is.

Zeezeek, you've put that so well. When you're trying there is a certain type of woman who won't ever pass up an opportunity to tell you what a defective, inferior human you are because you haven't managed to reproduce. How you will never have the deep profound experience of humanity that they have. How hollow and empty your life will be because you haven't experienced something they have = pregnancy and parenthood as a result of having sex. Of course you can never hope to be as valuable as them as them as a human being.

But as soon as you have a baby with assisted conception? It's all 'how dare you think that makes me better than you, you conceited bitch'.

I too agree with zeezeek.

One of my good friends is 24 weeks pregnant and she writes statement the other day about how lucky and blessed she feels and how is she is having "the greatest gift a woman can ever have" and I found it in such poor taste.

I'm 100% sure she said it in complete innocence but I couldn't help wonder how a woman who was struggling to conceive would feel when they read it - probably quite upset.

maryz explains it so well

i have spent 10yrs ttc and paid over £12k for 2 private ivf as i dont qualify under nhs

both failed

the heartbreak of a) not being a mum and b) paying the loan off for 6/12mths after a failed attempt is so hard

DF and I will try and finance one more try tho im getting on now at 42 so really will be our last try, as well as mentally and emotionally im not sure i can go through the 2 week wait and failing again - its heartbreaking :(

unless you are infertile/not a mum you wont ever understand the pain

and soooooooooooooooooooo much harder then my friends just conceive asap/accidently (yes im happy for them but it hurts)

and i dont undertand secondary infertility, and those who find it hard to accept that wont have a 2nd child

if i ever got preg/had a baby/become a mum i would be so happy to have one baby/child

i dont think the mum meant any harm and yes all children are precious but when you have waited so long and saved every penny you can and taken out loans etc if not on nhs , then your ivf baby means the world to you

Good luck with your next try blonde if you are able to have one and I sincerely hope you get your baby

Blonde - good luck on your next try.

Secondary infertility can be devastating though. In a different way to primary infertility, but still devastating.

thank you

This thread is horrible. I'm not sure if some posters are stunningly lacking in empathy or just vicious and spiteful.
I fell pregnant easily but I can still understand why someone with fertility issues or who'd had miscarriages would be more anxious or over-protective. It's just obvious to anyone with half a brain isn't it?
As for CactusAnnie's disgusting bile-filled rants

You're not wrong OP. But personally I don't care if IVF mums talk about how precious their babies are until the cows come home. I can't imagine in any form or fashion how it would feel to really want children, and to be or worry that you are infertile.

Posts like this are awful really, not nice for women who are trying to conceive or those who've been told they can't conceive at all. I know most subjects are talked about here but really, empathy and a bit of thought is going out of the window is it unfashionable these days?

I know a couple whose (teenage) dd is just learning to walk again after a horrendous car accident. Having her with them is absolutely more precious to them right now than to most parents, who haven't come so close to losing them for ever. This is surely something similar.

Good post iggi. And I think that is key. Parent of IVF babies maybe appreciate them more. Every morning when I wake DD up, I am reminded of everything we went through to get her. Everytime I go for a run and I feel the searing pain in my buttock muscles from all the IVF injections, I am reminded of everything we went through to get her. Everytime I compare out shitty, tiny, rented house with fertile couples' houses i am reminded of everything we went through to get her. if you suffer for something, you are bound to appreciate it more.

Best wishes to your friend's DD, by the way.

MissDallas I don't think it works that way for children, what with them not being consumer items.

And *SlaggyIsland", what a vicious, nasty post. You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself.

explained it by saying that it took 11 years of trying and 2 rounds of IVF to have her daughter, and she wasn't willing to take any risks at all.

Was she really saying her child was more precious than all the other children? Or was she just saying that her child was extremely precious to her, implying no comparison?

I agree with Hygge and Kungfpanda and others -- what was said and what was heard are two different things.

I had DD1, no problems conceiving and no pregnancy problems, followed by three unexplained miscarriages. There was a point where I thought DD1 would be an only child and that my body had let us all down, not just me and (now ex)H but little DD1 as well. While I went on to have four more babies and one second semester MC, I know I never took anything for granted about pregnancy again, and I never felt I was out of the woods until about 30 weeks.

yabu. you may not understand the trauma people go through when they've had difficulty having a child.

blondeshave I hope you get lucky, I really do.

But be aware that, if you are lucky, you might experience secondary infertility pain too. Right now all my friends are having second babies and I've been trying for a 2nd for 2 years. It hurts. Not as much as when I thought I'd never have any children, but the pain is still there, just muted.

We need to be supportive of anyone experiencing infertility, whether first or second.