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?

Some food for thought:
Infertility is not life threatening nor is it life limiting. In fact, it's only been around for the last 30 odd years. So relatively new.
The desire for reproduction is as old as time. Infertility is too!
The increase in multiple births and premature births resulting in c-section and hospital treatment is a direct result of IVF.
(So it's often not just the cost of the treatment itself that needs to be considered)
The success rate can only ever be 50% (and decreasing with age, just as in any other "fertility healthy" healthy woman.)

Just because something is available, does not mean one has to have it at any cost (to themselves and society).
I believe for every woman that has been offered IVF, there is one that had the treatment refused. For every successful treatment, the is a failed treatment.
The NHS has an obligation to consider all of this, before offering IVF treatment.

Sinhue, why should maternity care be funded multiple times for those who can have as many children as they care to keep on reproducing?

What about a limit of two - then the leftover pot directed towards infertility so that everyone who wants one gets a decent shot at having a family?

OP would you consider an egg donor? I'm donating my eggs to my DDs godmother we share about to start the process in a couple of weeks. I know it's not for everyone but if you know someone who would donate their eggs to you this could dramatically decrease the cost
Just an idea

I paid for an eye operation to remove the need for glasses. My eyes did not work and the NHS would not fix them. Are glasses the same as adoption in this context? With my eyes I always why we treat say a bad leg that can be cured by surgery but not eyes? We don't say to those limping use a stick. Instead if they can be cured we fix them by surgery.

Rale

Do you have children?

r some posters, equality seems to be the most important thing, which is very hard, nigh on impossible to absolutely achieve. So, for any treatment, not just IVF, but it could apply here, if calls for getting rid of the postcode lottery were fulfilled and that meant that no-one got treatment rather than everyone got treatment, would that be preferable to some people getting treatment?

Full equality would mean no one... at all... would receive NHS funding to have children, so everyone would have to pay to have them privately regardless of whether IVF were required or not.

Probably the rules have changed now but when I had IVF, I asked my GP would the practice themselves part-fund. They paid for the drugs and we paid for the procedure. The dr had to consult with other partners at the practice. Don't want to get your hopes up too much as it was a long time ago but anything's worth a go.

WHY are some people on here so damn callous and cold? You should all be ashamed.

OP in 2012 I was told the EXACT same thing as you. They wanted to send me for a laparoscopy to also rule out endometriosis. I'd been TTC for 2 years before I found out. I refused the surgery (I was trying to bury my head) ended up quite down, anyway 2 years later I decided enough is enough and I went back to GP to be referred for laparoscopy. I went to the hospital and they wanted to put me on the pill before the surgery and I declined (and I'm glad I did) because I found out the next day I was pregnant, I couldn't believe it and still can't. Now I am pregnant again and I am seriously hoping to help a surrogacy journey at some point in the near future for someone who wasn't quite as lucky as me.

Hang on in there. Big hugs to you x

You know what I think is pretty callous and cold? Expecting the government to pay for your attempts to get pregnant while other people DIE from lack of government funding.

Life sometimes sucks, you can do everything right and still get fucked over. Been sad dosen't automatically entitle you to get what you want. My brother who wanted to be a soldier since he was a toddler was rejected from the army because of an unknown heart defect...he was absolutely devestated but after time he accepted even though life isnt fair its still right that the Army vets out soldiers who would become a liability in a war zone.

If people are having mental health issues because of their infertility than there is counseilling and medication availible.

But who is 'expecting' it? I'm not being funny but as it stands it's offered on the NHS why should someone who works hard and pays their taxes, presumably, turn down something that they are entitled to as it stands

I get that the NHS is precious and that money is tight where it's concerned and that some areas of the NHS should be payable by the patient. But I don't think that stripping women of the chance to conceive is fair of their not able to do it naturally.

Look at the baby box scheme that's starting this summer in Scotland this year. £6m per year £145 a box (filled with baby essentials)
Really the parents should be providing these essentials in my opinion. It's not us (the public) that decide where our money is put in the NHS.

Rale - maybe those people should have worked a bit harder and paid for private health care.

See what a shit thing that would be to say?

Well, it's effectively what you're wishing on people who have a medical condition that stops them from getting pregnant! IVF is no different to any other medical procedure for a medical issue, from a moral and human perspective.

Which it really feels that some people here lack

Rale, don't compare a career choice to having a family. You just sound ridiculous.

Ugh!

I'm sure @rale would use NHS funding for infertility if they couldn't conceive naturally. Who the hell would turn down the help to potentially be a parent if it was being offered to them? I'm sure you wouldn't Rale if you were ever in that position

OP if you havent yet reached the stage where natural pregnancy is physically impossible, research diet.

I unfortunately had no option but IVF (tubes removed). On my last attempt I saw a dietician & went from barely getting any embryos to 3 good blastacysts and now twins. Im convinced if Id changed my diet earlier I'd have got pregnant naturally.

We could afford to pay for IVF (though we took out loans to do so) but I can't tell you how much I resented people saying 'having children isnt life threatening' while themselves happily using maternity services for free.

Rale - the lack of empathy in your words amazes me.

Infertility can in no way be compared to loss of a career. I also feel you are implying in saying the army 'vets' candidates that in some way infertility is a selection process. Cruel.

patience but what if a woman becomes pregnant again? What do you do? Force her to have an abortion? Refuse to pay for her care? Refuse to pay for her child's care its whole life? That idea is nice, sure, but totally incompatible with reality.

We could afford to pay for IVF (though we took out loans to do so) but I can't tell you how much I resented people saying 'having children isnt life threatening' while themselves happily using maternity services for free.

Not getting pregnant = not life threatening
Pregnancy/birth = may be life threatening

Not getting pregnant = not life threatening
Pregnancy/birth = may be life threatening

Broken leg. Not life threatening, but treated on the NHS

Pregnancy/Birth - entirely preventable.

What's your point?

Some people on this thread are so heartless. They clearly have no experience of infertility and have never suffered the agonising pain themselves, nor seen anyone close to them go through it. They probably aren't close to many people though, what with their complete lack of empathy .

I was lucky enough to qualify for IVF on the NHS, which to my neverending amazement and thanks resulted in my beautiful 2 year old son. I can honestly say that I don't think I'd be here without him. The pain of infertility is indescribable - the yearning for a child is a very primal thing, and it affects every single aspect of your life. I actually think it's inhumane to deny fertility treatment to a childless person who needs it. The cost is a red herring; as everyone knows, the NHS is vastly underfunded and underresourced, purely for political reasons.

My heart goes out to you OP and anybody else suffering. I truly hope your wishes come true one day

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

Wow, not been able to get beyond this comment!
Surely this poster is just shit stirring?!

OP- good luck with all the procedures/investigations, I sympathise with the fact that is it you who needs intervention, but you and your partner are penalised because he has already had a child.

The whole postcode lottery thing is crazy and makes a mockery of the explanation that "resources need to be spent on x, y, and z instead'

If IVF was such a choice to be made, why don't they make it a privately funded thing like boob jobs & nose jobs for vanity reasons?

Wishing you luck with it all OP & hope that you get your baby at some point in the not too distant future

I think its not shit stirring, but a prime example of women being screwed over by men. A man has a kid. Why should NHS pay for him to have more, just because he landed himself a new woman? There are other MEN out there who have none.
So at the end of the day, its all only about men...