To ask if you regret IVF after it worked?

[ivfregret]

NC for this post but I firstly want to make it clear I'm not looking for opinions from people who regret having a child generally or IVF didn't work for -

This thread is specifically about people that had UVF but feel like they should have just continued without going down that route and being child free instead.

Has this happened to anyone? Can you please share your experience if so.

Hello, I do have a child who is older from a previous relationship but my partner would have loved a child of his own but he has significant sperm issues so IVF was the only option. We had a horrendous experience. Our IVF baby was stillborn at 25 weeks, we also had an early miscarriage and lost a lot of embryos. We had to give up as we couldn't do it anymore. It's added a lot of trauma to our lives that we now have to deal with on a daily basis. I do think we'd have been happier if we just accepted our situation and made the best of it. I think we had to try IVF to be able to close that chapter and move on although it's been 3 years and I haven't really been able to as I'm grieving my son everyday.

People think IVF is a guarantee to a baby but it's far from it. I feel we're in the minority as almost everyone else we met through the process has gone on to have a baby but most did not have a straightforward experience and suffered loss along the way. For example one friend had a severely autistic baby and another's relationship broke down when their baby was 6 months old. It's definitely not all perfect outcomes.

I wish we'd adopted to be honest but that's not an easy route either. We are now seriously considering fostering as we want to help children without the pressure of chasing the perfect family life which we've decided does not exist. Just loving kids who need it as we have the time and space to do it and hope to make the best out of a really shitty situation.

In summary I think if I had known the outcome I would never have done IVF, enough trauma to last us a lifetime but we have been particularly unlucky. It's a really hard decision!

I think you have to think about:

1. How you would feel when you're too old to try, would you regret not trying when you had the chance.
2. How you'd feel if you tried and it didn't work.
3. How you'd feel if you tried and it did work.
4. what life looks like for you child free
5. How much time, money and physical/mental energy you willing to invest in the IVF process, it's good to have a cut off before you start otherwise you could be chasing it for years and it really does take over your life. there's no end to it as always something else to "try".

This is a really unfair and difficult position to be in when most people can have however many babies they want so easily 😢

Hi OP, I just want to say that I’ve recently been in your position, indeed got to the front of the ivf waiting list, and have decided not to go ahead. I thought it could be useful to hear from someone who’s made that choice. I feel completely happy with the decision: we are content and fulfilled without a child, and so while we’ll welcome one if it happens naturally, we don’t need to go thru the ivf tribulations. There is a real calm and relief in me at having made this choice, and I’ve chosen to focus on everything I do have, and to be grateful for that, rather than the opposite. I feel society tells you so strongly you should want kids above everything, but we are allowed to live many different kinds of lives. Good luck with your decision.

We had successful IVF and it has been the best thing that ever happened to us. It is the single best decision I have ever made. Hard going, but worth it.

My initial IVF didn’t work, but then had two children from two consecutive frozen transfers. I feel grateful for them even though my life is now hectic, it is just a very different lifestyle with its unique ups and downs.
looking back I wish I wasn’t so all consumed with ttc/IVF in the last child free years and instead enjoyed my free time more (while I had plenty of it). That is of course easy to say with hindsight.

I had massively delayed IVF just when clinics started to reopen after covid, and up until I went for that appointment to
begin treatment I didn’t know if I was going to tick that box even though I really wanted a child. I had many wobbles and perhaps because I had such a long time to go back and forth about it I talked myself out of it so many times.

As another poster has said I was terrified of needles, blood, birth, had no experience of having a surgery or being sedated - the whole thing felt overwhelmingly difficult and scary and there was always a voice in my head saying I didn’t have to go ahead with it. There was also the fear of possible miscarriages, failed transfers, complications - that I’m sad to hear other posters have suffered - and because it was going to be a deliberate choice to put myself in those situations (no chance of natural conception) it weighed very heavily on me. Sometimes I felt like I was looking for reasons not to do it to keep myself safe if that makes sense?

However, in the end I did go ahead and was very fortunate to have a straightforward experience. I now have a wonderful little girl and I don’t regret having her or having the treatment because she wouldn’t be here without it. But I can understand why you are thinking the way you are thinking. What pushed me to go ahead was my desire for a child despite all the possible heartache involved. I think what makes it really hard is that this is a deliberate choice you have to make and you have to consider all the possible outcomes. It’s a scary place to be!

Hi Op. I think you are looking for answers from people who had IVF, it worked, and they have come to regret having a child.
This happened to a good friend of mine. She now realises she would have had a perfectly good life without kids, though she was desperate to have them.
I just wanted to let you know you are not alone (if this is your situation).
I imagine it happens to a lot more women than you could ever know, as it's a difficult thing to admit.
I had IVF and don't regret it, but I can imagine how I might have done if I had a less supportive partner, or more challenging child.

@ivfregret i think your question is a bit pointless or the wrong question.
I think nearly no one will regret doing ivf. People may however regret or have mixed feelings about pregnancy ailments, complications, pnd, twins, broken marriages, reduced income due to having kids, loss of savings etc
None of this has anything to do with ivf except its expense.

I do regret spending so much money and time on IVF. It was a serious headfuck for me and it didn’t work. If I had my time over again I would just crack on with life and not bother.

I know it's not exactly what you asked, but a close friend of mine had IVF and then had some major psychological struggles in pregnancy and when her child was young as she wasn't enjoying it at all. She was going through a lot of what many other mothers experience in reality, but she thought that because she had gone through IVF and all the expense and difficulties that entailed that she should be continually grateful and happy about her pregnancy and motherhood. She found it very hard to acknowledge her, perfectly normal, negative feelings for a long time and developed quite severe PND. Obviously she might have developed PND if she had conceived in another way but I think the combination of feeling "I brought all this on myself and used up all our savings en route ", "I wanted this desperately but now I'm not loving it, there must be something wrong with me " and "All those other women I met whilst I was having IVF would kill to be in my position, I'm an ungrateful cow" really made things worse for her. And some of the "helpful" things others said to her really didn't improve matters.
In my view, no woman really knows how they are going to feel about pregnancy and motherhood until they are actually there and there is absolutely no reason why someone who has needed help conceiving should be expected to feel any differently, or be held to different standards to the rest of us. But if my friend's experience is anything to go by,they are. Fortunately she did get the help she needed and is now well again but I think it took her a long time to be able to acknowledge that parenting can be shit at times, no matter how you get there, and that it's ok to feel that.

Thank you for posting this. I suspect there won't be many who have done this but it's great you were "brave" (sorry that sounds patronising) enough to change your mind rather than go through with it out of some sense of obligation is good to hear.

I’m really sorry for your losses. Have you had testing for recurrent miscarriages? It may be worth asking for this later when you have your follow up, appreciate you may not be in the headspace to think about it now.

I’m so sorry for the loss of your son.

Not quite your target audience but I had ivf several times and it was a horrendous rollercoaster of emotions for me. I was between rounds when I got pregnant naturally. I adore my child but I'm finding motherhood very hard and it does sometimes cross my mind whether I would have put myself through so much if I'd known how hard it would be. I could never unwish my child though, but it's taken a toll

I appreciate your response. Don't be afraid to ask me, I'm very meh about it all at the moment. I've had tests for immune system issues and blood clotting issues, both tests granted by my fertility clinic after the 2nd loss. Both tests came back clear. I think it's just plain rotten luck. This loss currently is/was a blighted ovum, the 7 week scan showed a gestational sac with blood in it, no yolk, no placenta, no fetal pole. I'm still testing positive but it has started to get lighter. I'm going to seek more testing somewhere in the near future.

Me. Got twins from the 3rd round, l love them but the last year or so has been a nightmare. I hate IVF, 12 weeks of morning sickness, endless hospital appointments (they are still too thick / lazy / chaotic to work out l have pre-eclampsia, c section recovery and the hell that is breastfeeding. I am bored shitless and / or exhausted 99% of the time. We never have any money and lm constantly ill but never get to rest to get over it. My husband drives me insane e.g. l get home from work today (we can only afford 2 days of childcare as it’s twins), lm meant to takeover childcare but the house is a shit hole. I never do this to him, l have the respect to clear up
a bit. He barely listens to a word l say, agrees plans to deal with the chaos but usually opts out leaving me to deal with it. The way he speaks to me is a mix of disrespect and arrogance. Like l said to him why did you have children with me if you think lm so much of a moron

I should be getting them up from their nap but l can’t be arsed having to change them both most likely, do yet more washing and deal with the incessant screaming. Im still trying to resist the urge to get in the car and drive off to have a weekend away from it all. Husband has been a particular dick this week, l think it’s time to split up. I have a job interview next week but feel too ill to prepare even if l had time, plus trying to make the hours with childcare would be a miracle and it’s tube strike

If l could turn back the clock l would. I was super reluctant about the transfer that worked and l was so right. I could have a way nicer life with less hassle and more money

Ah yes that was the testing I was thinking of. It is such rotten luck for you after going through IVF so many times, I’m sorry.

Same about the all consuming thoughts of TTC. I am occasionally wistful of time to myself and lie ins now I have two children. 😁 Wish I had made the most of it!

I have one DS, from my only full IVF cycle after 5+ years of TTC. He’s about to turn ten. I do not regret the choice at all. The ‘good’ part of having such a drawn out time waiting for IVF was the doctors were pretty sure they knew what was causing the problem and sadly for many it’s a mystery. The bad part was this was my only option - there is no way in my entire life young or old that my body was ever going to make a baby without intervention.

I did have a very long course of fertility drugs while they monitored everything it was doing to my body, and the drugs made me absolutely out of my mind. Intrusive thoughts all the time and it took so, so much effort to not let them win. I would get very curious about what it would feel like to just walk into traffic or step on a train track and whoa this was not something I was prepared for At All. I sobbed at charity posters like it was my own family in the sad pictures. Emotions just totally out of all control. Please if anyone ever on fertility meds (or any meds or just ever!!!) starts to feel like this, please please please tell someone. There was one nurse at the clinic who was warmer than the others and I finally got brave enough to mention it to her and she got me the help I needed. I honestly think she saved my life and I really, really hope the descriptions of what these hormones can do to your brain become more commonplace. So while I was going through all that, I definitely had a rollercoaster of ‘will I regret this? Will I be terrible mother? Will my husband walk out?’ thoughts all the time. But for me, those are all no answers ten years down the line.

I had an absolutely crap labour and recovery. Super intense baby who was seemingly allergic to anything other than being constantly held and sung to, and had an actual allergy on top of that, so the baby era was not a walk in the park. I had two more embryos frozen, but lost too much of my womb to ever carry another baby. I grieved that a while and DH was really not on board with an only child plan for a while, but actually now I absolutely love being a family of three. We stayed in the city, we manage to do a fair amount of stuff that we did before we had a child, and it turns out that the kid who wouldn’t be put down for the first 14 months is an epic human. (I reserve the right to come back and pull my hair out when he’s a teenager if everything goes wrong.)

IVF screwed with my brain and my body but I’m in the ‘worth it’ camp.

I finally got to IVF at 38 and did one cycle. IVF is tough but okay. I got 13 eggs and 8 embryos. 3 embryos were frozen, three were implanted and 2 were discarded. I got my son and 15 months later my daughter. They are 26 and 27 now and the best thing we've ever done. We were very very lucky. Good luck OP

IVF goes hand in hand with PND and PNA and PTSD. It’s why we get offered free counselling and why we should be using it regardless of whether we’re successful at it or not. For me personally, 4 years down the road from having my dc, I don’t regret a penny / moment. But I do regret how terrified and anxious I was throughout pregnancy and DS’ first year.