to think NHS IVF rules are unfair?

[kathkim]

So I have adenomyosis and endometriosis. It's looking increasingly likely I will need IVF. Why can't I get it on the NHS just because my partner has a child with someone else? It's me who needs the help. How much would it cost privately?

Kath it's so unfair

My partner and I have been trying for 18 months and are waiting to be referred for one NHS cycle. The waiting list is 6-8 months so I have been looking into it privately. In the U.K. it seems between £6-8,000 and overseas from £2-4,000. I've been speaking to Serum clinic in Athens - if you look them up there is a huge amount of information on Fertility Friends. They are generally highly regarded.

Good luck.

Sorry, I feel for you, but I do feel the rules are fair. If having a child is the most important thing to you then you have the option to choose a partner who hasn't had children. The NHS is crumbling and visiting my dear friends in hospital each week as I do has hit home to me that they need to prioritise lives that already exist.

I feel the rules are fair. It's about £5000 for a private cycle.

What I find astonishingly unfair is that provision varies so much from place to place - I live in one of the few places where the CCG provide no IVF at all, and it just seems so outrageous that there could be two women in exactly the same circumstances and one would be entitled to three cycles and the one near me would get nothing. I can understand having limits on eligibility and number of cycles, but having it as a lottery dependent on where you happen to live seems indefensible to me.

Darla 'choose a partner who hasn't had children'

What an utterly ridiculous thing to say!! So falling in love is in some kind of supermarket of partners where you go through with a checklist???

Totally unhelpful and unreasonable suggestion. The OP is with the man she loves and is being penalised because he happens to have had a child. She hasn't had a child and is struggling to get pregnant. Show some compassion!!

Darla, that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! Should she dump her partner now?
It's not the IVF that's causing the NHS problems. How about the free paracetamol, free cough medicine, free kids calpol, breast jobs (for cosmetic reasons). My husbands nan gets free Aveno cream (premium product) and she gets order for the family for it! What a piss take!

If having a child is the most important thing to you then you have the option to choose a partner who hasn't had children

So this lady should ditch her husband, just because he was able to have a child with a previous partner.

I said this on another thread last night, before people like you start posting incredibly insensitive comments on posts like this, when you kiss your children good night and tuck them in be very grateful that you do not walk in my or other women like me, shoes.

Have an opinion on IVF cycles by all means, but show some bloody compassion.

I think it's horribly unfair that some people can have children easily and some can't and I also think that is unfair that IVF provision varies around the country. It should be equally accessible to everyone.

I'm not sure about where the line should be for who should get it and who shouldn't. It has to be somewhere I suppose. Ideally everyone should have help but that can't happen. I don't understand the finances etc.

💐

It's not fair at all OP. But sadly, they do need to prioritise.

I'm so sorry you're having to go through this, OP. I think it's very unfair, using your husband's fertility as the reason for not treating your infertility. As another poster has said, it wasn't treatments like this that put the NHS in its current predicament. Hope you get some good news soon.

It's awful and I'm in the same boat. Have decided against IVF and decided to adopt, for personal reasons, but I still think it's ridiculous that because my DH had an (unplanned) daughter 8 years ago, I'm not entitled to IVF.

Apologies because I'm not an expert on endo, but does it impact your ovarian reserve? Because quite a few fertility clinics will do an "egg swap" where if you donate some of your eggs to their clinic, they will give you a free round of IVF. Definitely worth looking into!

Oops it's called egg sharing not egg swap!

I will start saving hard. Waiting on a laparoscopy to get excision of endometriosis and take it from there. Thank you.

I agree there needs to be a line drawn. Not sure where I think that should be but either way some people are going to feel aggrieved. I was boarder line whether I would get help due to my age. Luckily medication helped me before we had to go down that route.

Probably a discussion for an alternative thread, but what advice would you offer to someone who had met the love of their life who had children through a previous relationship and didn't want more children? I wouldn't have made Darla's comment to the OP, but women are frequently faced with making the choice between their partner or having children.

Yep, it seems unfair doesn't it? (I'm in the exact same boat as OP).
Doesn't it seem that there are women who can get knocked up at the drop of the knickers hat & aren't responsible enough to raise a child, and many of us who long for a child who simply can't have them.
But alas, reproduction is not a human right.
It's a lottery.

As for the one who said marry someone without kids - - should they have screened their prospective partners fertility too, to ensure they get a viable mate to reproduce with

I do not think the NHS was ever intended to provide the range of "services" it now does. Clearly the fertility area is becoming over-subscribed so opportunities and options have to be limited.
There is always the option of private treatment, as many would see IVF as non-essential.

Good luck with your laparoscopy kath

Infertility is the hardest thing I've ever faced and I've got so much sympathy for anyone else going through this

'Probably a discussion for an alternative thread, but what advice would you offer to someone who had met the love of their life who had children through a previous relationship and didn't want more children?'

I would tell them this person is not 'the love of their life' (it's actually possible for a person to share intense love with more than one person, and people's 'souls' are perfectly complete on their own, they don't need a 'soulmate) because the pair of them have vastly different things they want out of life, so the woman needs to move on if she wants children, because it's never a good idea to compromise what you fundamentally want out of life for another person.

'but women are frequently faced with making the choice between their partner or having children.'

More fool them if they forgo what they want out of life for a man. The world is full of millions of men/partners, but you only get one life.

Personally, I don't believe in 'falling in love', either. It's a conscious decision to keep seeing someone with whom you might share many commonalities or sexual chemistry. It's no accident. For me, that meant no men who had children from previous relationships back when I was single and childfree. No matter how much we got on, I asked right away. If they had any kids I was off because I just didn't want that in my life so it wouldn't have been fair to anyone to continue seeing someone who had them.

I dont agree with the postcode lottery. Thats terribly unfair.

But there do need to be lines. I could easily agree that your partner having one child shouldnt impact on you as in individual, but youre a couple. And what if he had 3, 4 or even 7 existing children? There has to be a limit.

How long have you been with your partner and how old is his existing child?

I do understand the NHS must priorities. I work for them in MedRecs so it probably seems nuts I am posting complaining about them.

I think what eats me up is that if I ditched my partner and got another guy w/o kids I'd get treatment. If I stay with my current partner, I don't. I'm still the same woman who cannot get pregnant - it just depends on the guy I'm with!

It is terribly unfair.

At the very least there should be consistency within the country, the post code lottery is outrageous.

Medical ethics and law are a minefield. Ivf is either offered to childless women with endometriosis or it isn't.

expat wish I'd realised the NHS rules before. Didn't realise they applied to partners. I thought as I had no kids, it would be okay. Yes you did a sensible thing.

How would it work if you didn't have a partner, would they do ivf using a sperm bank?

What if your DP donated to a sperm bank and you chose him?
Or what if he donated and someone else having ivf chose him?

How is the line drawn?