...to ask why the NHS funds IVF?

[moofeatures]

I promise I'm neither an (intentionally) goady fucker, nor Katie Hopkins.

But.

Following on from a recent thread about there being a perception that public money grows on trees, I'd like to ask your stance on the NHS funding IVF.

Now, before I get flamed for my insensitivity, let me explain that I myself was diagnosed with ovarian failure in my 20s. I am still of an age where I'd meet the criteria for NHS IVF funding, which would be my only way to have a biological child. I initially grieved for this as I always assumed I'd be pregnant one day, but also from day 1 of my diagnosis I've felt that artificial reproductive hormone therapy/IUI/IVF falls outside the remit of what the NHS should provide as it serves no medically therapeutic purpose.

The logical response to my argument is: "if the only option for IVF is to privately fund, then you're depriving less affluent people the chance to become parents", which is both true and a shame... but is it the NHS's problem? Really, it's the infertility which took away that choice - and it is a choice, not a right... at least in my opinion.

Am I alone in feeling this way?

We barrens can't win

Children are just a want not a need, no one NEEDS to have a child, and we should just die out and stop trying to go against nature

But elsewhere on MN there's the narrative of 'childless women just don't understand' and 'I didn't know happiness until I became a mother'

When our reproductive organs don't work we can't fucking win either way

And that's just the icing on the cake to the permanent sadness at not having the family you so desperately want but cannot have, through no fault of your own

I’m saddened at the number of people on here saying no to limited IVF funding.

I consider myself lucky to have conceived fairly easily in my late thirties - i have friends who have not been so lucky and I really feel for them.

I can’t imagine the heartache infertility must bring and I’m all for the NHS funding say 2 rounds and doing investigations etc. It’s a medical issue.

💐 to those going through this.

And to those saying that allowing the infertile to breed is damaging the gene pool - bollocks. I’m a geneticist, humanity has been producing fertile and infertile individuals for millennia. If having no fertility treatment bred out all the myriad of issues we have there would be no infertility. And don’t be so smug about your own genetic superiority either - it’s estimated that the average person carries several potentially lethal alleles as it is.

I’m reading some of the posts on this thread and am so disappointed with the ignorance and lack of compassion from women.

I’m just coming to terms with my fourth miscarriage, which happened less the two weeks ago. I have spent an inordinate amount of time in an NHS hospital going through full labour pains, with limited medication (after trying ibroprofen and paracetamol - I eventually got upgraded to morphine five hours in) and doing so knowing there will be no bundle of joy at the end of it.

I’m left with the emptiness of counting down the days to my ‘due date’ knowing that the life I had planned out will not be happening. Carrying on with my normal day trying to avoid pregnant women and happy chat about pregnancies, births and babies. You have no idea how impossible that is to do.

I weep at the slightest thing, struggle to eat and sleep alludes me. I am barely functioning. At my darkest points, I wonder whether I have the strength to carry on and wonder what my purpose in life really is.

I have been here three times before. Each time I was refused help or support from the NHS as doctors termed my losses as just ‘unlucky’. I managed to get a referal to the Recurrant Miscarriage Clinic after loss three, just to be told I hadn’t suffered enough miscarriages yet (one wasn’t medically verified as I lost before a scan verified I was pregnant). I was told to go away and have another miscarraige before they would see me again (assuming it would be verified).

I am a shadow of the person I use to be. I was never a maternal person, and if I’m honest never overly eager to have children. I probably was one of those people beforehand that would have sat on the fence of this debate. I was so ignorant.

The only thing keeping me going; and other women like me, is hope. Hope that next time it will be different. Whether that is trying again naturally unassisted or with medical assistance (ranging from doctors advice to medical intervention such as IVF).

I will not be afforded IVF. Due to my age and the fact I am fortunate enough to have DS4 (who is desperate for a sibling)I would have to go private. I do not have the means to do so. My hope is bound in a pill or a treatment that will allow me to carry to term, that is if I can convince DH to try again.

So I’m not the worse case. There are stories and people out there going through much worse than I am. And believe me, I wouldn’t wish my pain on my worse enemy - never mind theirs.

Gatecrasher61 - I too am very short-sighted and couldn't function at all without my glasses or lenses. I must have spent thousands of pounds on them over the years. (The NHS gives me free eye tests and a voucher of around £12 towards the cost of new glasses, but that doesn't go very far).

Obviously severe myopia isn't remotely comparable to infertility, and it doesn't have the associated emotional trauma, but it's still a medical condition that the NHS doesn't pay for. I suppose it would probably bankrupt the NHS if everyone needing sight correction got it for free.

pineapple big hug. I was "lucky enough" to "only have" one miscarriage because I only managed to conceive once. I also had the failed IUI and the failed IVF l too was a shadow of me, although I now have my little IVF miracle I still bear the scars of those days. The friendships I left drift because it was too damn hard to be around "perfect, happy families", the sadness that my beautiful boy will never get a be a brilliant brother, the memory of weeping at the nurse at the early pregnancy unit when she said it's one of those things it happens all the time when it had taken us three years to conceive. I hope you get the referral you need and that they can find a solution for you.

i think the concern from me (cant speak for other who have said their comments) is that there are some people who have minor issues and a one session if Ivf works and they've paid for it and all is fine with healthy happy family. but there are others who go through years and years of it, multiple miscariages and thousands of pounds spent to force a pregnancy

This was me except for the multiple miscarriages, nothing ever stuck in my wasteland of a uterus.

rather than it being accepted that life without kids is no less valid/fun/filled with love and joy. just because you felt you would have liked a baby, unfortunately it clearly isn't something everyone can have or will get and there needs to be limits to the extent this is pursued - especially at other people's costs if this isn't a self funded desire.

I sort of agree with this. You do hear about people who virtually destroy themselves, their marriages their physical and mental health in their quest for a baby. Perhaps we were lucky that we were able to draw a line and say "no more and come to an acceptance that we could not change the hand we'd been dealt, but I do know that thete are people who simply can't imagine a life without children and I find that terribly sad.

PineapplePrincess

I am so sorry

banana we should probably just fuck off to a nunnery like they did in days of yore. We can't be upsetting the fertiles, they are the chosen ones, you know there must be a reason why we can't reproduce so we don't deserve babies.

Freudian. I have no idea how it's felt to go through that, but you describe it so movingly and eloquently.

I still sometimes think of something from a few years ago. The church my DH and I got married at had an optional preparation morning (to talk through the procedure, readings, etc) and there were too many of us to fit in the vicarage, so an (absolutely lovely) couple from the congregation hosted it. They must have been around 70. Almost as soon as we all got into the house the woman said 'you'll notice the pictures of children around; we were never blessed with children ourselves but we were lucky to have a lot of nieces, nephews and godchildren'. She said it quickly and I initially thought it was slightly odd, and then I realised that clearly, probably at least 25 years after they knew for certain they'd never have children, she still found it too painful to be asked and so headed it off at the pass.

"How many couples that fall pregnant naturally have £10k lying around?"

Ok then, if you can't afford to pay for your maternity leave, then you can't afford children.

If you can't afford to pay for the medical care then you can't afford children, or if you can't afford to raise them with out any state intervention, then you can't afford children.

If people pay into a collective pot, then collective needs to be met, to a certain degree.

So many sad and dignified accounts on here. for you all.

Infertility is caused by bodily phenomena which in some cases, to some degree, can be alleviated by medicine. To my mind, this makes it a medical issue. And a medical issue absolutely should receive medical treatment.

Of course, a person can function without having children. But people can function while having all sorts of physical issues - doesn't mean we don't treat them if we can.

I don't have any children. It was a lifestyle choice as I have real concerns with population growth and also (AND THIS IS MY OWN PERSONAL VIEW) I didn't want to give up working as I believe a child needs a full time Mum, especially in the early years.

Anyway, that aside, IVF wasn't available to my generation. If you were infertile, you had to just accept it, get on with your life and maybe consider adoption and to be fair, there were more adoption opportunities, but those who I grew up with who were unable to have children, just put it behind them and got on with life.

In some ways I think it was easier then. I have witnessed the stress that IVF can put people through. The hope, and often the disappointment. My generation knew it that there was no hope and I think it was easier to accept and move on.

Now, at 60, my nieces and nephews have their own children and although I'm not back where I started I do occasionally get intrusive "I should be a grandmother" thoughts

So do I. Some of my friends are grandparents now and it does make you realise what you are missing.

FreudianSlurp you put it so beautifully in saying that it's something you felt you had come to terms with but would never get over

That rings really really true

I totally get and respect what you're saying Gatecrasher61 but from what you're saying you are childless by choice, and it doesn't sound like you have experienced involuntarily childlessness first hand?

It might have been that without IVF there wasn't the same hope of medical treatment for infertile couples - but whilst it may have been easier to move on, I don't think that's necessarily the case that it made it any less painful to come to terms with. It's still a bereavement and a deep grief - some people come to terms with it differently (like it sounds like SerenDippitty has) - but others find that it's a grief they never truly get over.

It's a very private pain, and something that people don't talk about. Involuntary childlessness might have been easier to accept then, but doesn't mean it was any less painful

I mean, I have a deep loathing for Theresa May on a political level, but on a personal level, her involuntary childlessness is used as a stick to beat her with.

She said that they had very much wanted children but that they hadn't been able to have them.

"It’s been very sad. It just turned out not to be possible for us. Of course we were both affected by it. You see friends who now have grown-up children, but you accept the hand that life deals you," she told the paper.

And then Andrea Leadsom used this to score political points, arguing that this meant she couldn't possibly care about the next generation in the same way, because she wasn't a mother herself

“I am sure Theresa will be really sad she doesn’t have children, so I don’t want this to be, ‘Andrea has children, Theresa hasn’t’, because I think that would be really horrible.^ But^ I have children who are going to have children who will be a part of what happens next.^ Genuinely I feel that being a mum means you have a real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake^"

Nicola Sturgeon gave a dignified interview to the Sunday Times about her heartbreak at having had a miscarriage - which was accompanied with this incredibly cruel sidebar image of 'childless politicians'

And look at this cover of the New Statesman

This is the cruelty with which society treats childlessness. As though we are lesser than.

And then when you're infertile, you're expected to just get over it, because 'children are a want, not a need'

Our worth doesn't come from having children, but equally our pain is roundly dismissed.

bananafish81 I hope Ruth Davidson is now sticking two fingers up to the New Statesman.

As someone who needed to intervention to fall pregnant I’d argue it’s not up to me to have a stance. Fwiw I’m happy for my NI contributions to go to IVF

If people pay into a collective pot, then collective needs to be met, to a certain degree.

This is a very good way of putting it. For me, though, the worst thing about this thread is that some people simply can't cope with others disagreeing with their own point of view and resort to insults. Debate is healthy. The collective pot is finite; there are competing interests who want a share of it and it's only right and proper that all these things are debated. Is there a case for IVF? Absolutely. Is there a case for universal free dental care? Absolutely. Is there a case for the provision of certain cancer treatments? Absolutely. Is there a case for raising the state pension? Etc etc. The debate matters....

I'm only 2/3rds of the way through the thread so apologies if this has been said already.

State education being paid for by childless people does not mean people are paying into a service they don't use. We don't pay to educate our own individual children, we pay to guarantee an educated adult population. Unless a childless person has never used a doctor, lawyer, policeman, accountant, electrician etc then they can't say that they are getting nothing for their education taxes.

I'm on the fence about NHS funded IF but definitely think it should be all or none. The postcode lottery is shit. And I also think 'all' should include all women. People in a heterosexual couple are no more deserving of a child than single women or lesbian couples.

Also - really random and slightly off topic, but it seems like the vast majority of posters on this thread who say they have conceived via IVF have had daughters. Does anyone know if that's coincidence or whether there's actually a scientifically higher chance of a girl than a boy when using IVF?

I view ivf in much the same way I view abortions. The choice should be there for those who wish to take it. Both are deeply personal and whether I would have one or the other treatments is irrelevant.

I do however hold a special space of dislike for people who think abortion is wrong because it’s “playing god” but are supportive of/happy to have IVF. That too is “playing god”, when applying the same logic re abortions.

We don't pay to educate our own individual children, we pay to guarantee an educated adult population. Unless a childless person has never used a doctor, lawyer, policeman, accountant, electrician etc

You do realise IVF children can have jobs too right?

And I have 3 IVF boys.

It frustrates me as somebody who suffers with serious mental health issues that have never been taken seriously by the medical professionals I've seen.

I don't doubt that infertility is devastating, but as some PP said - having a (biologically yours) child isn't a human right or need.

Also - really random and slightly off topic, but it seems like the vast majority of posters on this thread who say they have conceived via IVF have had daughters. Does anyone know if that's coincidence or whether there's actually a scientifically higher chance of a girl than a boy when using IVF?

Actually although there's no firm data, some studies have shown very slightly the opposite

BBC news - IVF 'increases the chance of having a baby boy''*