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.

bamboo rainbow babies is usually a term for babies conceived after a still birth or neo natal death. I've not heard it used for babies conceived after miscarriage. That is hopefully why you are unfamiliar with it.

My dd is a straight surrogate baby and the hospital wrote

PRECIOUS PREGNANCY

On the outside of my surrogates notes

Any compassionate human being would have understood my post totally, I didn't think I would insult people's intelligence by stating the blindingly obvious.

Surely to every parent their child is more precious than anyone else's? I'm sure to you, your child is more precious than hers didnt mean she was suggesting your kid is a waste of oxygen, she was merely pointing out how special hers is to her. Isn't that how every mother feels!

Perhaps I'm missing the point and wondering if it's safe to say anything to anyone these days

Kerbs, that's pretty much what I said in my earlier post around 8.30 because it seemed fairly obvious. I just don't think that CA should be jumped on for taking your post literally when it seemed more borne of heartbreak.

I'm starting to understand why so many people who suffer infertility feel so unable to talk about it...and consequently feel so incredibly alone, yet judged, in their pain.

I don't know if it's that some people can't understand what they read, or if they choose to wilfully misunderstand what they read.
Either way,

Nobody has said that, Annie. You just wish they had.

A very early poster made the simple point that it's not about one child being more important than another, it's about bad experiences making some parents more anxious than others. YES YES YES there will be exceptions, but it should be obvious why a mother who struggled for many years to have a child might well be more anxious than one who didn't. It's nothing to do with a hierarchy of children, it's to do with personal feelings being shaped by experiences.

As was stated very early on, OP is making it all about her (as are other posters) and it is not. Like you, she is wildly imagining and projecting nonsense that nobody has ever said.

I don't think anyone is lacking in compassion towards those who have struggled with infertility. I'm quite sure it's a hideous, raw and desperate time. I'm also quite sure that if you are then lucky enough to go on to have a child of your own then all your hopes and fears are wrapped up in that one tiny being. There must be an element of not really believing you are finally there and constantly expecting it to all come crashing down. I totally get that. I just think it's very emotive to suggest that your child is more precious because if anything happened you couldn't have another. I understand why they feel that way but it can't be all that surprising when someone else finds that offensive.

I have read this post with a bit of a rolly eye emoticon in my head as having failed singularly to get and keep a pregnancy I have subsequently been told by more than one poster on MN that I can't possibly love my (adopted) DS as much as she loves her birth children

Basically I'm fucked - never deemed to have a child sufficiently precious (there's just not really enough 's in the world for what I think about that!)

And yes OP - you interpretation of the child by IVF being more precious and your's being disposable is entirely in your own head. What she said sound just like a person who have hit the lows of failing to get pregnant and has an underlying anxiety as a result.

Look at it this way - however she feels about her child has no impact on how you feel about your child. Even if she believes that her child is more precious - it doesn't make it true. Anymore than DimwitFeatures (or whatever her username was) thinking I couldn't love DS as much as she loved hers makes it true.

Just be grateful that you didn't need to go through years of misery to get your very precious children. That is something to be grateful for, isn't it?

An earlier poster who had had fertility treatment said that she experienced a lot of bitterness and hostility from women who had not. I didn't believe her at first (why on earth would anyone be hostile or bitter over that?) and thought perhaps her perception was skewed by her bad experience...

...but as I read more of the thread, I think she might have been right. How absolutely appalling.

The op was awful. The other parent was only trying to explain why she was so overly cautious.
I have 4, all conceived very easily. I worry myself half to death about their safety. I agonise over what they eat, if their clothes are warm enough, if ds3 is happy (asd), if they should be vaccinated, if their school is secure enough. I am anxious parent extraordinaire! If I was to suffer the devastation of losing one, not once would it enter my head that at least I have 3 more. Not once. I thinks it's more that being a mother is more precious to women with fertility issues than their children being more precious than any other.

They are talking about their own feelings, Annie. They are not talking about an objective, absolute truth of 'child X is worth more than child Y'.

Even if they were saying that (they're not), I think someone who has suffered infertility and the very real possibility of never having a child has experienced a near indescribable pain. Certainly a much worse pain than you or I have to suffer by hearing them say something stupid.

I am quite secure in my knowledge how much I love my child and the equal importance of all children and grateful every day that I conceived without difficulty. I don't feel threatened by it the way you, OP and others seem to feel (why? It's so patently untrue and absurd, you might as well get offended if someone told you your hair was naturally green). If there's a problem, it's about them, not you or me.

I said you're acting like one, actually. Which you are.

You're being totally vindictive - and ridiculous to boot.

Your last line is totally appalling and a complete fabrication - absolutely fucking no one has implied that

I have friends in real life who have had fertility treatment. I don't believe that any of them would think or express anything along the lines of what I've read on this thread tonight
Well let's hope to god they don't express their feelings about their journeys in front of you
It is only the concept, the experience if you like, of having a child after going through hell to get there, that can seem more precious. It is not the child him/herself, as all life is equally precious.
Poster after poster has tried to explain this.

OP YABU.
I ❤️ Mary.
Cactus, don't say anything more, really.