To ask if people today don’t agree with ivf?!

[Yaerry]

or am I just naive? Watched the new documentary about Jean Purdy and I’m surprised there was so much push back at the time. It’s made me wonder if one day surrogacy will be more accepted? I thought ivf was just a standard thing now that wasn’t controversial.

I can assure you my mental health was far worse when I was childless with no hope than it ever was when I was undertaking all my IVF cycles and ultimately, giving birth.

Why waste money on therapy when you can actually treat the problem?

My ovaries left to there own devices produced eggs at random intervals of who knows what quality.

What is anyone going to say in therapy that's going to make that any better?

Glad it worked for you in the end.

@KimberleyClark For me IVF was much less stressful that TTC naturally, constantly trying to figure out have I ovulated or haven't I, is my period about to start or am I about to ovulate.
My first two cycles TTC were 8 weeks and 13 weeks.

One of the problems of IVF taking place in private clinics is there isn't a 'no frills' option, worry that with NHS funded rounds costs would continue to spiral. I don't think three course meals, floral displays on the reception desk, free parking and a private room to wait in were vital to my treatment (the NHS rounds came with a sandwich rather than a chef-y meal but everything else was identical.) I saved a fortune by having sedation rather than a general but no one suggest this or told me it would knock a big chunk off the bill. I just enquired if a general was necessary as I struggle with them and always choose sedation if it's available as it better for me.
My clinic was comparatively cheap and had good results but there could have been loads of non treatment related costs shaved from the bill. If costs were driven down by say offering shared rooms, it could benefit both private and NHS patients.

Surely you could say why bother with therapy for anything then? You have a bereavement why bother with therapy there's nothing they can do to make it better?

If the IVF doesn't work you still need to treat the mental health effects of infertility which I assume will be even worse by this point.

Well we treat people who smoke and get lung cancer or eat too much and get diabetes. Would you suggest we stop treating those too?

@Fairyliz comparing not being able to have kids (which many people actively choose not to have and live very happily) to lung cancer, nice 🙄

There isn't a treatment to bring back your dead loved one so therapy is the only option. There are possible treatments for some, but not all infertile couples.
My mental health improved during treatment, I felt I was 'giving it a good go' and 'trying everything we could'. We started from realistic position of knowing the odds and agreeing what our limits were (how many rounds we would try, whether we would consider donor gamates, what other options we could explore). Had we ended up childless I think I would have been far better placed to move on with life after IVF than I was before it and month after month of dashed hope.

People who have ivf are not actively choosing to not have children though are they? They are generally going through mental agony.
People do choose to smoke even though we have known about the risks for years

But if having help to conceive actually cures the problem then offering only therapy makes no sense

Yes my friend knew from being a very young child. No she doesn’t know who the donor was. However lots in the group do know or have the option of knowing and they are still struggling with similar issues so it’s not uncommon.

It’s very sad for my friend and her parents who are lovely but can’t help her with how she feels. They just wanted a child and admit they never saw this coming. My friend has chosen not to have children herself due to it and ultimately it resulted in her marriage breaking down too. It’s a really sad situation all round.

Mine too, IVF was so much less stressful than IUI or the months before TTC watching the clock ticking.
We'd made up our minds 1 round, no more, we ended up with the fresh cycle which failed and a frozen cycle. I had 3 frosties left we'd probably have given them a go but that would absolutely been it. It would have been time to move on.

We don't assign moral judgements to people who give themselves a disease or injury. If we did there would be hardly anyone left to treat! When we talk about children being a lifestyle choice we mean it's a want not a need. Dying of lung cancer and seeking treatment is very much a need, whether it was self-inflicted or not.

Is that what family are? A lifestyle choice? Reserved for who, exactly? 🧐

Therapy might help someone come to terms with bereavement, and nothing is going to bring that person back.

And it might help someone come to terms they are at the end of the road. They need to greive for the child that will never be and move on.
But it's stupid to suggest Therapy when that money would be better spent on at least trying to help the problem.

It's like saying we won't bother giving you an artificial leg, we'll just give you Therapy to come to terms with not having a leg.

I did my IVF privately and it is recognised that some patients can benefit from Therapy 3 sessions were included in the price which I think might have had to be there as part of the law / guidance surrounding IVF at the time.
And I did use one as I was unsure about going for the FET. Which resulted in me concluding, I wasn't ready to give up all hope so giving the fet a go was the right thing for me (us) at that point in time.

There are many different ways to have a family that don't involve all the issues with IVF.

Do tell!

Adoption and fostering being two. I was also speaking more broadly, a family doesn't have to involve kids at all.

@ItCantHurtYou

but equally- how many people are conceived in the more typical way go on to struggle with their identity for a variety of reasons - I’ve worked with clients and have friends who have struggled with their mixed race identity, children of DV relationships who have to come to terms with what their dad did , parents who have divorced…. Where do you draw the line if the fear is ‘at some point they might struggle with this’ - not get married in case the relationship breaks down? A significant number of them do….

yes, there is a risk my child might at some point struggle with their identity as a donor conceived person - but who can say they wouldn’t equally have struggled if I’d gone the marriage route and ended up divorced or their dad ended up being somewhere on the ‘total prick/bit bloody useless’ line. I take every possible step to ensure they don’t struggle with identity and feel confident in my ability to support them if they do. As PPs have pointed out - thanks to changes in how DC children are raised , those having significant issues with their identity are now in the minority. As mentioned in my previous post - right now she thinks it’s cool- what if years of feeling incredibly confident in her identity because it’s something she’s always valued and explored actually helps her ?

Adoption: difficult, expensive, long waits, no guarantee of acceptance.
Fostering: not your own. Temporary placement. No oarental bonding. Not a permanent family. Troubled children/families you may not be willing/able to deal with.
What's the other option you suggest? A cat, perhaps?

Personally i think IVF is fine for those using their own egg and sperm but I would draw the line at egg and sperm donation. Obviously people have different views on this but mine have been influenced by my friends experience and the many people she knows in the same situation, some I have met and listened to their stories which are heartbreaking for them and their parents too.

As for comparing it to something like DV, creating a child to purposely bring them up in a home with DV isn’t something I’d hope most people would do either, yes it can happen, but to actually plan to have a child in that situation is awful. Things can happen in a child’s life that can have a negative impact on them, like parents divorcing etc, but to plan to have them in a situation which you know can have have a negative impact on them at the time of planning/creating them them doesn’t sit right with me. Personally I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking that chance with another persons life. I tried to make things as ideal as possible when planning my children to minimise the chance of them having to deal with problems in future. If I’d have chosen a partner who was violent towards me at the point in time they were conceived, I know I couldn’t have coped with that guilt, just like if I’d have used a donor and my children went on to have identity issues etc, I wouldn’t have coped with the guilt. You can obviously justify it to yourself from what you’ve said, which is fine, people are different, but that’s not something I could do. I don’t mean for that to sound judgemental, I just can’t think how to word it better.

My friends parents feel so much guilt now for their decision which is something my friend struggles with too. Part of her understands that they desperately wanted her but part of her resents that they would/could make this decision that has caused her so many problems. For years she hid how she felt because she didn’t want to upset them until it all came to a head and they’ve had a lot of difficult conversations over the years.

That all sounds very negative but it’s just my take on it as someone watching a friend go through it. I genuinely hope things work out well for you and your daughter. I’m sure some people breeze through it.

Absolutely. The NHS IVF is (rightly so) very much no frills. I almost never saw a doctor, one did my egg collection and one did my embryo transfer but the rest of the time for appointments and scans I saw nurses. Anything that wasn’t totally necessary wasn’t done.

unfortunately- pregnancy is a massive DV trigger so women believe they are bringing a child into the world with a loving partner only for a switch to flick . The sheer amount of LTB posts on here shows how many women have children- and even multiple children - in what they believe to be good relationships, only for that to turn out to be not the case (even if it’s not a DV situation )

I do think that’s been a factor in my decision - I can’t control the actions of my partner but I can choose to be the best mum possible but I appreciate it’s a trade off. I look at women who take the more conventional route and ‘risk’ that and I can’t imagine doing it myself (given the divorce rates in the UK it’s reasonable odds things could go that way)

I am sorry for the experience of your friend! I don’t know how old she is but I also wonder if age is a factor - it feels like when I was growing up it would have been a much bigger thing? Whereas for children nowadays- it’s even taught in school so there’s a lot less stigma socially (except on this corner of the internet but thankfully we’ve not encountered it in real life). It does sound like she never got to meet her donor? I think there’s definitely a push to make sure children can meet if they want to - he sounds amazing, id love to have someone like that in our lives (i thought that the whole time I was choosing donors - even times when I didn’t think they’d be a good fit, I still wished i could go to coffee with them because they just sounded so kind and interesting. )

and thank you- I’ve somehow given birth to the most incredibly happy and confident child- she absolutely radiates joy. I feel if anyone will sail through this, she will. (And hopefully when the baby is born next year , they will be the same!)

But with a bereavement there isn’t an option that might bring your loved one back. With grief over not being a mother there is an option which should be offered which might make you be a mother and therefore heal your grief. Plus it’s an unresolved grief if you’re still having to TTC because IVF isn’t an option. If you’ve been through IVF and that has not worked then there can be a finality point that otherwise would not come until menopause.

I accept that unsuccessful IVF treatment will either worsen or at least not improve any mental health problems, and for those in that situation I’m very, very sorry. However just because the treatment very sadly won’t be successful for everyone doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be offered. IVF on the NHS usually has good success rates as criteria are very strict on age, BMI, smoking, STIs etc and attempts are made to test for problems and try other things where possible e.g. clomid for ovulation issues, clearing blocked tubes.