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.

I didn't say it was a common attitude either. I said plenty of people have experienced that, which is a statement of fact and is based on my experiences with my friend, who alienated many of her own friends in this manner!

I used to hate it when mothers complained about their children, or being pregnant, because it took me so long to achieve what had come much more easily to them. I think difficulties in life make you appreciate what you have, however it is debateable whether cutting up grapes is making the point that your child is more precious.

River, I understand what you are saying completely.

I get her point of view - haven't been through fertility struggles but have friends and family who have - she's just saying that she's struggled so much to have her child that she's everything to her and wouldn't risk it?

Oh good. So often these things make perfect sense in my head but are utter gibberish as the written word .

Interesting all of this. I agree with howto. No child is more precious than another. DD came along and took DP and me completely by surprise ("oh we will have children but probably not for another five years"). But we love every last hair on her head more than we ever knew we could love. I nip into check that she is breathing several times a night and I know that if anything ever happened to her, I wouldn't have any reason to live. But I have seen the dreadful heartache of friends who have gone or are going through years of IVF and I can understand that would have an impact on parenting style. But I don't think IVF children are intrinsically more precious than non-IVF children.

Has OP been back?

Yabu
What Maryz said

Try and be kind. You have no idea of the damage infertility and losses can do. It sent me barmy and I am still suffering now even with 2 children. I am overly protective but I would be sad that people couldn't show me a little understanding as to why I am this way after everything I've been through.

If I lost him, I would no longer be a parent, that's the thing. And anyone who can't see that is a fucking idiot, quite frankly

No child is replaceable. My now-adult dd is an only child, but in a lot of ways I think it would be worse to lose a child if one had more children, because you would have to try to keep on functioning while dealing with the grief.

YABU.

Your friend had 11 years of thinking she might never have children. I would imagine the idea of becoming childless again is something that is never far away from her.

Yes, all parents will have moments of panic and 'what if', but for someone who has endured enforced childlessness for a long period of time, I would think that those moments come much more regularly, because they're more familiar.

She was explaining her own feelings - not that she should have had to explain anything - not making some value judgement about other people's children.

While I have every sympathy with those who suffer the pain of infertility and the purgatory of IVF, I absolutely 100% disagree that it makes you more anxious or that it's an explanation for anxiety

No-one's saying infertility is THE ONLY reason for anxiety though, are they? But it can certainly be one of them.

No one set of persons has the ownership on grief,panic,distress etc no one knows a persons complete circumstances or how they are affected we should try to understand each other..

But I don't think IVF children are intrinsically more precious than non-IVF children

FGS, no-one's saying that's the case!

I think 'precious' is the wrong word and people are struggling to get past that.

If you've struggled to have something in your life, with lots of things going wrong along the way, then when you finally get it, you ARE going to be very aware that you're lucky to have it, because you've come very close to not having it at all. It doesn't mean that it's 'worth' any more in monetary or any given value than someone else's thing, if they achieved it easily.

It's very hard to explain if you fall into the camp of having come by the thing easily. My thing is not better than your thing. I can't even say that I appreciate my thing more than you appreciate your thing, because that's impossible to know, like knowing if we both see the same shade of red.

It isn't impossible for me to say that personally, I perceive that I MAY value my thing more because I've struggled for it, than I would have valued MY OWN THING if I hadn't had to have struggled for it.

I'm not comparing the preciousness of my thing to the preciousness of yours at all. I'm actually comparing the preciousness of my thing to the preciousness of my thing in an alternate reality where it wasn't as hard for me to obtain it.

YABU because this lady did not imply anything of the sort to you, you've made that up.

She told a group of people about a parenting choice she has made - "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."

Someone (you OP?) then turned on her and called her overly paranoid. She then explained her own reasons for her own feelings and actions - "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."

She didn't imply anything, she didn't say her own child was more precious than yours. She explained she has a particular fear which seems to have come to her because of her past experience. She did not say this - "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." - you made that up in your own head.

I actually have had people tell me, when two of my babies died within the space of eleven months of each other, that I could always have more. I know from personal experience that you can never replace a lost child, that's a terrible thing to say to a person. It's not true, and it's a fucking awful responsibility to put on the child who comes after a loss, to view them as a replacement or a bandage to fix the old wound.

And not all parents who lose a child can conceive again either. After two losses, we have one DS, if anything happened to him now I couldn't safely conceive again. It's not something anyone should say to anybody, but some people do say it.

The difference is, this woman did not say or imply that to you. She told you she was worried about a choking risk, got called names for it, admitted she knows she probably is a little paranoid and tried to justify herself and her insecurities when she probably felt under attack by you and your group.

And then you made up some nonsense in your head about her implying that her child was more precious than yours because you can have more.

Whether you or anybody else agrees with her about the food she lets her child eat or not, every single parent makes decisions like this all the time, regardless of how many children they have or how easily those children were conceived.

I know you said you understand that "that sort of experience" has an effect on people but I don't think you really do understand.

You just seem really judgemental about her and others in similar situations who are choosing to parent differently to you.

Plenty of people who have never had a fertility issue or never lost a child still feel anxious about their babies and children, and are careful with what they eat or what they do or don't do.

So when you say this - "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." - you are not replying to anything she said to you or anything she implied. All you are really doing here is saying is that you make a different choice to her and you're judging her for her choice but justifying it by saying her choice implies your children have less value to her.

Do you think it's fun to be an anxious parent? This woman probably hates feeling so anxious but it's what her personal experience had brought to her. When you or someone in your group called her paranoid you say she agreed that she probably was. Does that really sound like someone who is claiming her child is more precious or someone who knows her experience has filled her with fear, which she recognises but can't help? Can you really not understand what she was saying and feel some compassion for her?

Not every parent who conceives through IVF will share that particular worry but you made an anxious person feel worse by calling her paranoid, then came on here to rant about something she did not say, claimed to understand her feelings, and then sneered about wrapping "oh so precious children" up in cotton wool.

So yes, YABU.

Mary, that was a very helpful post.

Very interesting to read this thread from the perspective of someone who's longed for a child for over ten years but is still childless at 38 to after three miscarriages.

It basically reinforces that we're right to keep the complete hideousness of it all to ourselves. The last thing we need is judgement and lack of empathy on top of everything else.

For what it's worth, if we do eventually get our family, I will by no means think my child/children are any more precious than someone else's child (to them). But by god a child our own would be a precious gift indeed.

Another great post from Maryz

I'm agog at some of the posts on here.
You could be forgiven for thinking that based on the hysteria on here, there was a new rescue policy in place of IVF children first, then women and children, then men.

for the pp who very helpfully pointed out that IVF children aren't intrinsically more valuable than naturally conceived ones.
I'd been wondering what DCs might be worth for sale on the open market so thanks for clearing up that pricing question

Maryz has put into words the feelings that so many cannot express.

I am in tears.

I found *Maryz& post very enlightening, thank you

Thanks Maryz, it means a lot :)

It really is a deep, profound grief. It's relentless - an absence you're constantly aware of and a gaping fucking hole in your heart that you live with every day.

And for a childless future - a very real prospect for some of us - there really is no consolation prize.

Never the twain shall meet between those who dismiss/minimise it and those who 'live' through it.

Anyway, back to OP. Yabu for lack of empathy and imagining sleights that didn't exist.