To be annoyed at IVF comments

[Strawberryshortcake28]

My IVF was cancelled due to CV which although was devestating I completely agree and understand money and resources need to be better spent elsewhere

What I am annoyed about is the comments I have been hearing about how it shouldn't be available in the first place on the NHS and it is a waste of money

Infertility is a disease! Caused by all different health issues imagine not being able to have your own DC
Imagine trying every month and getting your hopes up for years and years to be disappointed month on month

Imagine watching all your friends have their dc and think you'll never get the chance and feeling like you have nothing in common anymore
Imagine waking up every Xmas or mother's day with no DC to spend it with

Infertility has been the hardest experience of my life and made me severely depressed IVF gives me hope .

Yes you can go private and pay for it yourself but not everyone is in the financial position a lot of couples spend thousands on treatment with no DC at the end the NHS could be their last hope give them one more shot
Yes adoption may be an option but not everyone can be approved or is it an easy process

Aibu to be angry ?

From a societal point of view, there's no need for fertility treatments. There's over 7 billion people on the planet. We don't need to create artificial ways of increasing the population.

From the point of view of the individual, then I can absolutely understand the need for fertility treatment.

I'm sorry yours was cancelled op.

I agree with Panic. I draw the line at saying IVF should not be funded on the NHS, but I do wonder if we are doing enough to encourage small families. There are definitely too many people in the world.

And please people, don't get pregnant now. Eat chocolate instead. We have no idea how long any of this is going to last and unless the government grows up, have the pleasures of a no deal Brexit at the end of the year. Double whammy. Do you really want a small baby with all that going on?

@Mullikins I really feel for you. IVF is such a roller coaster without this extra stress for you due to corona virus.

@Twinberry How lovely. Online school lessons just finished so I am off for a walk in the sunshine with my IVF teenager.

I'm so sorry OP, infertility is shit enough without having treatment delayed.

Please ignore the empathy-free pricks using this thread to suggest you shouldn't be getting NHS treatment - they will all be either child-free by choice or have not needed IVF themselves to conceive. They have no idea how traumatic it is to desperately want a child and not be able to have one.

I think IVF shouldn’t be funded on the NHS. No one has a right to have a child and if you cannot get pregnant naturally then you should go private and pay.

I'm so sorry your treatment has been cancelled. I am in the same boat as you, been ttc for 4 years and was finally getting somewhere in regards to what the problem is and what treatment might help. We were referred to a fertility specialist 2 weeks before lock down and now it has been postponed. Sending you big hugs

YANBU. Not at all. How dare people suggest that infertility isn't a disease. It's the cruellest disease out there. We're here, biologically, to procreate. All forms of medicine exist to enable healthy life. Life itself is seen to be that valuable. So to be unable to create it where the vast majority of people can do so effortlessly and even without wanting to, is one of the most pernicious diseases of all.

Personally, I think it's grossly unfair that the NHS doesn't fund IVF when it fully funds endless medical interventions due to obesity, dangerous sports and prolonging many lives beyond a point at which any pleasure is left in them.

I think it's heartbreaking to have had this put on hold. I hope you have a successful IVF cycle as soon as possible.

I have sympathy. But having a baby is not a right.

You are wrong. The right to a family life IS deemed a fundamental human right. The banal platitude that having a child isn't a 'right' is IME often trotted out by those who are easily able to conceive biologically. In which case, a) why is having a baby any more a 'right' for them, and b) they'd be the first to be up in arms if anyone tried to remove their right from them.

Procration is a choice. And it's the same choice, whether that baby is conceived naturally or scientifically. IVF has nothing to do with rights whatosever, unless you're thinking about the rights of the child (odd how these usually come last, isn't it)? And it's worth considering that the artificial conception process takes care of that issue with the couple's personal GP signing off a form to evaluate whether, in their opinion, they would pose a risk to any potential child.

As far as I can see, the biological conception route imposes no such safeguarding. It's fairly shaky ground on which to base a case for the very fraught ethical question of 'rights'.

Comments like this are never helpful.

The problem is that infertility is not a disease, it can be caused by disease, can be congenital but mostly it's due to the natural aging process. I have friends who needed ivf, I saw the pain they had when they didn't conceive but when it comes to finite resources, including infertility treatment in the nhs is up for debate as are the parameters for its inclusion eg upper age limit. I'm not sure what I personally think but I can see that it's a debate

I have a friend who has diabetes and is entitled to free treatment for that despite the fact that he drinks more nights of the week than he doesn’t, has an appalling diet and does very little exercise. But still entitled to free prescriptions and diabetes check ups and will have any treatment funded for any future issues that may crop up because of his diabetes. Being overweight also puts him at more risk of certain cancers, heart disease, all kinds of other issues, as does his drinking. But he is still entitled to all his treatment becasue that’s what the NHS provides.
I think it is awful that IVF isn’t funded for those desperate for child, when he can get all his medications and any treatment He needs funded despite not following any kind of guidance about a healthy lifestyle.

I’m not surprised you are angry.

You are not being unreasonable, OP. Some people have a serious lack of empathy and I imagine the majority of them already have children of their own.

Infertility can be an extremely painful thing to go through and I absolutely believe that IVF should be funded on the NHS. The current postcode lottery system on the NHS is unfair and going private is so expensive that it's out of reach for many people who by the time they've saved enough the years have rolled on making it even harder to get pregnant.

I actually don't understand why IVF finding is so controversial and can't get my head around why some people feel so strongly that it shouldn't be available on the NHS. It just seems like a cold hearted and cruel way of thinking to me.

I agree and disagree with you. Infertility is not a disease. Infertility os a symptom of a wide variety of problems of different origins. Some are easily treated while others are not. The end result - the inability to have children - can be extremely traumatic.

People struggle with the existence of IVF on the NHS for a number of reasons. It doesn't treat the cause of the infertility - it only treats the symptom; the infertility is often not something that affects a person's health in any other way - it doesn't reduce their life expectancy etc; IVF is extremely inefficient - the healthy live birth stats do not reveal the truth, which is that not all of those children are truly healthy (eg a child who is born with Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome can enter the stats as a healthy live birth); the NHS has finite funds so using those funds for IVF will seem frivolous to someone who has been denied an expensive but effective new cancer drug that could give them another 5 or more years with their kids.

That said, the NHS does a lot of things that are not lifesaving. For me, as some one lucky enough to have had my own kids without a hitch, I don't feel qualified to have an opinion on NHS IVF. All I can say is that, given you were promised it, that promise should be fulfilled as soon as possible.

No one has a right to have a child and if you cannot get pregnant naturally then you should go private and pay.

Literally how is it more acceptable to say this than it is to say "no one has a right to have a child and if you cannot pay to raise them then you should not get pregnant naturally"?

Ignore the mean comments OP. None of these issues are black and white.

Not unreasonable at all OP. We were due to start (private) treatment again which has been put on hold too. Hope you can get going with it all again soon.

I feel for you. I had /have unexplained infertility

Ttc for 10yrs

I met someone who had children tho in their 20’s I lost my nhs go

Which meant we had to pay for ivf

Yes obv it costs lots and always a risk of failure

And people don’t like to save borrow loan for ivf as no guarantee at end

Not like getting a loan for a car or new kitchen etx

All I can say is if the nhs doesnt happen then save borrow or loan

We had 4 failed ivf but the 5th worked But in all our daughter cost us £27k and still paying her off - now 3yrs

I do think everyone should have one nhs go at ivf if one of the couple have Infertility issues

Seems unfair I lost my go as someone I fell in love with had kids decades ago

Yet I know someone who had 4 goes on nhs

@firsttimemum30 With all due respect it is not a disease, it will not kill you. In my job I have seen people suffering from horrendous things but not having a child is not like dying in agony of cancer.

I have rheumatoid arthritis. It won't kill me. Should I not have treatment on the NHS because it's not comparable to dying of cancer?
(Arthritis is agony btw, but as someone who has also had 2 failed attempts of private IVF I can tell you that the physical agony of arthritis is on a par with the mental and emotional agony of infertility)

@SunShine682 if no-one has the right to a child then no-one has the right to free maternity care. Have a set cost of having a baby at £15k and if you can’t afford that then tough luck as having a child is not a right. The NHS will save way more money doing this.

@okiedokieme another one who hasn’t got a breeze what they’re talking about. My DH is infertile and has been his whole life. Age is irrelevant. Much as you would like to you can’t just make up facts about old maternal age and extrapolate from there. Educate yourself

Just wanted to offer my sympathy to your fertility struggles.
I empathise greatly. I struggled to conceive for 6 years, had numerous losses, ectopic and 3 failed embryo transfers. Our 4th transfer resulted in our nearly 1 year old twins.
I know completely how hard the journey is and although it is completely the right thing to do, it must be hard for you to have to wait even longer for something that already feels like it will never happen.
For the people saying the NHS shouldn't fund IVF, im sure they would be quick to change their opinion if it was them struggling to conceive. Its easy to make them comments when you haven't experienced the longing, the heart ache and suffering that infertility brings.
I wish you all the look when you can eventually resume treatment

@Hamsterian It was me who said 'procreation is one of life's fundamentals' - and it is.

Perhaps I should have explained myself better. The ability to reproduce is one of the fundamental characteristics of all living organisms, including us.

So when something so fundamental is denied to an individual, it is hardly surprising that it makes people distressed.

No one has a right to have a child and if you cannot get pregnant naturally then you should go private and pay.

No one has a right to a new kidney or a liver transplant, but making these services available to only those who can afford them is a dangerous path to go down.

I agree it shouldn’t be funded by the NHS either. It should be a private treatment as the result is a want not a need imo. There are so many other areas that need more funding than this.

Dell, I think it would be much better if we did charge for maternity services even if not the full cost. We’d raise funds, not take from taxes so much and people would have to ensure they could afford the care and the cost of raising a child after.

Likewise, like other countries, I think there should be a charge for seeing a doctor etc. The more funding we have, the better for the NHS.

We are extremely lucky that we have the NHS, many use it and never pay into the system but will have free healthcare that’s taken for granted I suspect by many.