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.

Access to ivf is incredibly unfair in this country and it should’ve made more widely available.
It is another example of where the nhs treat woman’s problems as lower priority.
for example if a woman’s partner has a child with someone else she is not entitled to ivf even if it is needed for a medical problem of hers

There is also the point that people are infertile for a reason nature wise. There is a reason two people cannot breed the same as any animal.

Abit like how some women try for years with a partner. Split and are pregnant instantly with a new man. Just incompatible biologically for a reason normally. Couples who only ever have males/females not the other is because that’s the best genetics they have.

Are we just building up problems creating humans that where never meant to exist. A bit like how most males with down syndrome are infertile while the females tend to still be fertile, why it’s male older ages that have started to be a factor towards sen in todays population.

@Ohhbaby can't you see how dangerous the thinking behind your post is?

There are so many posts on this so I don’t know if anyone else has said this but generally the donor has had IVF themselves and over produced eggs which are then frozen for potential donation.

Maybe somewhere some donors may go about it without needing IVF themselves, but most likely they are spare. It’s adopting an unused egg, it’s not creating one on purpose.

Of course if some women are paid for those eggs that’s a bit strange. As it’s an incentive to share something you may not have wanted to.

But I think that in the depths of IVF, if you are lucky enough to have overproduced eggs, and you realise the pain other women are going through - especially those who can’t produce good quality eggs, you do start to feel pretty altruistic towards others.

Why?
why shouldn’t a woman be untitled to ifv if for example she has a medical issue that meant her tubes had to be removed

if she is well off she gets to have a child if she is only working class she doesn’t?

I had my child via IVF. I live outside the UK and they make it incredibly difficult for anyone who isn't a citizen of the country I live in to adopt, so no matter how many children are in care I would have ultimately ended up childless. (Surrogacy is actually illegal here but wasn't an option we ever considered)

Some of the comments on this thread are absolutely bananas. I am an ivf baby and have two siblings who are too. I have no health issues and conceived myself with no problems, as did one of my siblings and the other hasn’t tried yet. None of us has any health issues and our parents are still fit and healthy.

My parents were unable to have children naturally due to my father having some form of varicocele and needing assistance with his sperm getting to the egg. They were lucky they could afford ivf and are very happy with the outcome. They are excellent parents and have given us a wonderful life, much more so than plenty of “natural” conceptions.

I have never seen any credible evidence to suggest that IVF babies are more likely to have health issues.

Like smoking and obesity and people who break limbs doing dangerous sports?

Yes it is. I don't have the figures the fertility network quoted but it was a significant percentage struggled with mental health.

There is. I had stored embryos & once they reached 10 years of storage the HFEA ordered them destroyed. (this was in Scotland in 2016). I was 48 & my NHS clinic said I was 'too old' anyway (though this may vary clinic to clinic).
I found it very upsetting & an unforseen side issue of IVF, for which I am very grateful or I would not have my children.

Very easy for you to say unless you experience the pain of infertility. I'm fairly sick of the "why don't you just adopt brigade" (who generally have their own biological children) commenting on topics that they don't understand.

Is it just the case that money talks?

100%. The NHS spends far more on the consequences of other lifestyle choices.

I think egg and sperm donation should be banned because children have a right to know who they come from.

IVF I'm fine with.

Parents who adopt aren't heros. I adopted because I wanted to be a mom. I needed a baby, and my baby needed a mother. Simple as that. He's the great love of my life. 💖

I'm also adopted.

In the US it's very common for classifieds pages in university newspapers to list 'egg donor wanted' advertisements. The more prestigious the university the higher the pay. I briefly considered doing it: $5000-$10000 for donating a few eggs was pretty tempting to 21-year old me.

Surprised to see so many comments about infertility being nature's way of controlling the surplus population etc. By that logic is cancer or other terminal or life-shortening diseases also a way of controlling the surplus population? There are treatments available to support such conditions. They end life, infertility prohibits life being created. Infertility is a disease, IVF is a treatment.

Equally, for those talking about "purchasing" a baby through surrogacy, you do know that in the UK it's against the law to pay for surrogacy (beyond out of pocket expenses)?

Finally, for those doubting the devastating impact of fertility on a woman's (and often a man's) mental health need to listen to the women on this very board who have experienced it and especially those who have been through IVF. It's a gruelling, incredibly invasive and emotionally, physically and mentally exhausting process and no one would put themselves through it were they not suffering with the impact of the disease of infertility.

It's very easy to say "I wouldn't do it" or that you don't agree with it being funded on nhs but unless you've lived it you'll never know how it impacts every aspect of your life.

I'll bite. Smoking is a lifestyle choice
Drinking is a lifestyle choice
Eating too much fatty food is a lifestyle choice
Lying in the sun for hours getting sunburnt and skin damaged is a lifestyle choice
Cycling a bike is a lifestyle choice, hope you don't get in a accident
Running marathons and needing a knee replacement - lifestyle choice.

Where exactly do you suggest we draw the line.

Many children are born with medical issues. Nothing to do with IVF.

Standard IVF is mixing eggs and sperm up, just like in a womb, and seeing which sperm make it to the egg.

Sometimes if the sperm look lazy they’ll catch a few and get it them in the eggs just to make sure. They need explicit permission to do this.

This hopefully creates blastocysts which are graded after 3-5 days according to the strength and speed of cell division.

Then they pop the best one/ones back in. Freeze the others.

Nature decides the rest. It’s all still random luck.

Eye colour etc is a whole different ball game and not standard IVF.

Perhaps but viagra is available for men?
and piles will not kill you but nhs will give a cream for it

I had IUI three times. It worked once (but I miscarried in the second trimester - nothing to do with the treatment, just random bad luck). After that my doctors advised moving on to IVF, which eventually worked after I was offered a new (at the time) treatment for my mild adenomyosis. Personally I think the success rate of IVF depends on what the actual problem is in the first place. If the uterus is the problem it's more likely to fail than if the issue was male-factor.

The comments on this thread are wild and ridiculously uninformed. Is everyone who is against life being made in an "unnatural" way also against other medical treatment, all of which could be considered "unnatural"? Does the PP who believes that people are infertile for a reason (wtaf?!) believe that children who get serious illnesses that would be terminal without medical intervention were "meant" to pass away? Do people who think the NHS shouldn't fund IVF because it's a "lifestyle choice" believe that the NHS shouldn't offer treatment to people who are ill due to obesity or smoking or lack of exercise?

I can also guess that most of the posters commenting in line with the above have their own biological children and have never had to deal with infertility.

I think ivf would worry me from a heath prospective, as I’ve heard of health links to cancer etc. Surrogacy I think has a negative impact on bonding but so does adoption with babies moving between foster carers at times. There is no ideal solution in my view.

I never even knew people had a problem with surrogacy before reading this thread.

While those with serious health conditions are refused medications or treatment on the NHS I’m against IVF being offered by that route.

Welcome to mumsnet! I've never encountered such anti surrogacy feeling in the real world.