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.

@Prettydisgustingactually no your missing the point.
IVF like ever other NHS treatment should be available or it shouldn't be. No postcode lottery no means testing.

Maybe stop thinking about it is treating the couple but forming a new life. That little person having the chance of life. Maybe getting a chance to be formed has as much right as and old life the chance to be extended.

It's always about what the prospective parents want-that's exactly what posters are getting at. How did her daughter feel having to lose her mother so young and to such a horrific disease? Not even a mention of that, ever. The mother got to fill the void she had, that's all that ever matters.

Er no, living breathing people take precedence over non-existent people, bloody hell! Maybe the non-existent person wouldn't even WANT to be born?

Oh ffs you really are entering *** territory, aren't you. 🤦‍♀️

So, ask who, exactly? No one asks to be born.

@Mumtobabyhavoc God forbid anyone would ask how a literal child is coping with the shit hand they were dealt. Have you ever sat at a parent's deathbed? Bloody traumatic is what it is. And all anyone can say is "the mother was happy she got a kid", I mean really?

So, ask who, exactly? No one asks to be born.

Well it's about as logical as saying people who haven't been born have the same rights as those that actually exist.

What a bizarre argument.
How do you account for any child losing a parent?
Surely, any child who has lost a parent has been dealt a shit hand, as you say?

Adding in, Have you ever sat at a parent's deathbed?, is really unnecessarily dramatic.
How about any parent who adopts? Any foster parent?
Reel in your wasteful use of emotional imagery. P

@SerenePeach

Thst is why I asked you the question about what if only one pot of money was available and two patients needed it, one to create a life and one to save one. However I can see from what you’re asking now that you think these things are equally deserving.

I understand the hell of infertility. I had it for nine years before I got lucky twice. However I cannot sit here and say that if I had been told that my IVF treatment was up against someone else’s life-saving cancer treatment, I would take that person’s chance to live away from them, in order for me to create life. Ethically and morally I could not have done that.

I was absolutely desperate to have children and every day my entire life since I have thanked god for my beautiful children. I am beyond grateful and I remember every single step of my journey as though it were yesterday. However, cannot, despite everything see IVF on the same level as life-saving surgery for cancer. Luckily I could pay for treatment , because my authority deemed me too old, by the time I’d reached the front of the queue at 34.

Thete are so many tough questions surrounding funded IVF which is still why I believe that those who can pay should.

Indeed. I have four transfers, three pregnancies and two children. I would say that is good going.

Why is it an issue that she had IVF to get pregnant?

I don't understand your concern? IVF didn't cause lung cancer. And she wasn't infertile because of it.

Because she died young she had no right to have IVF?

I adopted my son. If I die young does that mean I should not have adopted him?

That’s indeed good going. Four transfers, no pregnancies here unfortunately.

The success rates are available on the HFEA for all to see. They’re not hidden.

Those are just numbers. You don’t get to hear the human stories behind the failures.

Having spent a lot of time in the hospital system and also having 5 rounds of IVF I have the following comments

IVF - the absolute vast majority of IVF cycles are privately funded. For most people the first round, which for us was our only NHS funded cycle, is just an experiment to see how you react to the drugs. We have spent more than £25k on our treatment which luckily resulted in my nearly 6 year old twins.

both of my twins have needed various hospital treatment over the years, sepsis, severe croup, hip displasia among other things. For those that have spent time in hospitals you will know that the waste is absolutely chronic. I was shown a very very basic kitchen that was fitted out staff. A few base units, probably 2 metres of worktop, no corners just very straight forward. They were charged £10k to just fit the kitchen. My dad is a joiner and would have done this in half a day for a fraction of the price. Another hospital they spent £50k and new theatre machinery only for it to be too big to be sterilised so it just sat there being unused.

The staff in SCBU constantly complained that they had to buy a £10 jar of coffee that they could buy online for £2 - but they weren’t allowed to and when they complained “management” told them to stop causing trouble. The list is absolutely endless

I love the NHS with all my heart but it needs a total reform. If it did we probably wouldn’t be having these sad conversations about whether it is a choice between one treatment or another.

That’s just silly. You don’t not have children because of the possibility of getting a terminal illness in the future. It’s different if you already have a condition that you know will shorten your life.

Exactly I had 2 transfers, 2 embryos each time, 1 baby 👶 and still had 3 in the freezer. (The 3 went to research bless them 😘)
And I was 40 so low odds anyway. We'd been trying for 4 years by that point.

Didn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to see the irony of saying about one group of people It's bloody insulting and invalidating to tell someone their feelings are wrong and then saying about another group of people I wonder why she has had so much trouble. Perhaps some mental health issues.

Your curiousity was couched in judgemental terms, while telling other posters they are not allowed to judge someone's feelings.

IVF success rates aren't that low when you consider a fertile couple will only have a 25% chance of getting pregnant in their first month trying.

There are a heck of a lot of IVF success stories for it to have a low success rate.

@Needanewname42

A fertile couple will have 12 opportunities per year of becoming pregnant - the most cycles of IVF I had in year was 2. My chances of success were not 25%.

A fertile couple will not have stress, anxiety, the undertaking of injections, scans, travel to & from clinics to contend with on top of their 'chance' of becoming pregnant either.

Have a look at fertility friends forum to see what the low success rate looks like.

A fertile couple will have 12 opportunities per year of becoming pregnant - the most cycles of IVF I had in year was 2. My chances of success were not 25%.

Indeed, and a fertile couple can have sex up to 31 times in a month! I’ve always thought it disingenuous of fertility doctors to compare fertile couples having sex with infertile couples having IVF.

Exactly this.

Surrogacy is child trafficking.

Yes and very often exploitation of women. I hope it is never legalised in the UK which, of course, doesn't stop people doing it unofficially or abroad.

and many people who haven’t been DC also have mental health issues - let’s not conflate the two.

I’d be inclined to hazard a guess that nowadays, DC people actually enjoy better mental health than their peers because it’s been part of the conversation so long, there’s a real need to be open with parents, and frequently parents will have better financial resources for therapy if it’s needed. The parents of a DC child are also much Morley likely to more research about bringing about their child in a mentally healthy fashion than someone who hasn’t felt the pontential need to consider it

Sadly, it’s only recently that people have been more open to therapy/mental health and I think that does have a real impact on how positively people can engage with their mental health - some of my older clients still say ‘lessons’ or ‘classes’ because they don’t want to acknowledge that they are in therapy to their friends- I’m somehow approaching 40 and I really clearly remember not wanting anyone to know I was seeing a SALT when I was at primary. My teen clients will actually bring all their friends over to meet me if they see me at an outreach event which is such a big shift in attitudes.

I hope your friend has access to a good therapist - it can make all the difference. And can connect with other DC/IVF families. That’s the other big change I’ve noticed - when i had my first failed round of IVF, several older family members/family friends came forward and shared their own experiences and my mum had no idea they’d tried- whereas now, I go to the park with my little one and five minutes later I’ve met another IVF mum so it’s really normalised these days (and I live in a rural village) . I wonder if it’s a combination of biology (as I plan to foster/adopt as well I can imagine in our particular family structure the ‘love makes a family’ message will be particularly evident) and the sense of ‘othering’ - I can imagine it might feel quite isolating if she was the only DC /IVF person she knew growing up.

(and equally it isn’t wrong for other DC people to feel proud or neutral about their conception so it’s possible for both stories to co-exist- and to be grateful that your friend’s story is increasingly the minority)

I see why you feel that way and I'm so glad you got your children and your happy ending.

My infertility was caused by endometriosis which was left undiagnosed and untreated for 15 years because the NHS doctors kept fobbing me off. My life was ruined by chronic pain, then by infertility and if I had been treated properly sooner I wouldn't have needed IVF. I also paid privately for my endometriosis surgery to get diagnosed in the first place so in my mind the NHS owed me the IVF to fix the hell that they had put on me in the first place. They didn't give me any though because I ended up paying for that too. They also didn't give me any of the therapy I needed to deal with the depression because the waiting list was so long so I paid privately for that too because I was on the verge of losing my job from just not being able to function anymore.

I personally think it's inhumane to refuse IVF to people, especially when infertility is caused by illness a lot of the time and we treat the symptoms of any other illness so why not infertility. I also think it's wrong to means test any NHS treatment because it's a slippery slope and if there is not enough money for life saving treatment the budgets for silly things that are overspent on like coffee and laundry should be cut before any treatments including IVF.

Surrogacy is legal in the UK.