To think some people treat IVF like ordering a designer baby?

[MyHazelCritic]

Not all, obviously, but there’s a rising trend of turning fertility into a consumer project: selecting traits, planning sibling sets, documenting every step online. It’s not always about creating life, sometimes it’s about curating an image.

Influencers aren’t real life and a lot of what they do is abusive parenting. If everyone ignored family influencers they would have no influence. Watch them, it’s your fault as well.

You’re right that most people going through IVF aren’t doing focused on avoiding serious genetic conditions or increasing their chances of success, and that’s valid. What I’m pointing to is a newer, more niche trend that’s emerging in some corners of fertility tech and social media culture.

There are now companies offering polygenic risk scoring and embryo screening beyond just medical conditions - suggesting things like predicted height, educational attainment, or athletic ability. It’s not mainstream, and often raises ethical concerns, but it’s becoming part of the broader conversation around IVF and reproductive choice. My post isn’t a criticism of people who use IVF with care and intention - more a question about how far things could go as the tech evolves and how societal values around children and ‘perfection’ might shift with it.

I've never heard of anyone doing that before. I've heard ivf being casually talked about like saying "just do ivf" like it's easy though. That must be very annoying for people who have been through it.

I’m not following anyone specific, it’s more that I’ve noticed a growing aesthetic and tone in some IVF or fertility-related spaces where the process gets heavily curated, almost like a lifestyle brand. Not always a bad thing but it sometimes blurs the line between personal journey and public performance. The post wasn’t meant as a blanket statement, more an observation about how fertility, like so many things, can get shaped by image culture and consumer trends, especially online.

I've seen this and agree it's awful.
A woman I knew told me all this quite openly, they conceived first child via IVF because of infertility naturally but decided not to pay more to choose the sex. She was devastated when it was a girl and was saying how much she regretted not paying the extra. For the second one they did pay and got the boy they wanted. I knew her soon after first's birth and then a few years more but it put me off her hugely to hear this attitude. Especially because she made absolutely no secret of her distaste for eldest girl. Even now 10 years later she's posting #mumofboys #wefoughtforyou #beingaboysmomrocks type shit.
This was all occurring in an Eastern European country.

You do know ivf isn’t anywhere close to 100% successful, you can’t even guarantee it will work.

No one? Of course they do! I went through IVF 20 years ago and I knew arseholes back then who were using it to have a daughter 🙄. It’s not the majority by any stretch but you can’t deny it happens.

What traits are you talking about? There is no such thing in existence. I've spent years doing fertility treatment, and it simply doesn't exist in the UK. We can't even know the sex of our embryos.

Come off it, you can't even accurately select the baby's gender NOW, never mind 20 years ago 🙄

No one I know has ever been like this when they have done IVF. People often choose their partners based on things like looks and intelligence though. None of my friends chose to have children with the first boy they fancied, they tended to be a bit more picky when it came to having babies with someone.

Exactly. Load of goady and offensive nonsense. I'm out!

My post isn’t about typical NHS-funded or medically necessary IVF experiences in the UK. It’s more about a niche but growing trend I’ve noticed in private, influencer-driven, often US-based spaces where there’s more access to embryo sex selection, aesthetic preferences, or even sibling “matching.”

It’s not the norm but it is out there, and I think it raises interesting questions about how fertility is sometimes marketed or perceived. Definitely not a criticism of people going through IVF itself.

Yep, here ya go. You can all have a field day with these links. Pay a premium and you can get an Ivy League grad or a Miss Universe.

It’s not particularly new. However it is very, very, very niche. And there are never any guarantees for anyone despite what the ads might imply.

https://www.fertility-docs.com

donornexus.com/premier-egg-donors

Also I don’t see any of this coming to the UK any time soon.

I always think people who say things like this obviously know absolutely nothing about how the IVF process actually is. Yabu.

Watched a thing on adoption recently it was similar adopters had a list of likes and dislikes for this designer lucky child was not nice to watch it a child not an Argos order

This (eugenics) is illegal in most of the world. Places like some US states, Mexico and Northern Cyprus allow that or some of that. Some people are forced to do IVF with sex selection there (and pay $$$)! if they have a genetic illness in the family that passes down the male line for example. I might be wrong, but I don’t think it is legal to select sex even for this reason (in the countries where eugenics are prohibited).

Lol you have never needed to even consider IVF have you?

I assume this is happening in the US? I'm in a European country and it's certainly isn't allowed here - even surrogacy and embryo donation are illegal here. Before the war people went to Ukraine to find a surrogate and to Spain for donor embryos. When I was in hospital during my first pregnancy my roommate had been to Spain twice. None of the donor embryos had stuck though. She had ended up with a surprise natural pregnancy 4 years after they'd given up on fertility treatments.

I did IVF and it took 8 transfers to get my daughter - that was the one where a treatment had just been approved that they hoped would work for me. It did - finally an embryo was able to both implant and not end up being miscarried. I still ended up with a disabled child though (nothing to do with the embryo itself). My current pregnancy they did the same treatment beforehand and the first transfer actually worked this time. I'm now 29 weeks and thankfully everything looks fine - no sign of the disability my daughter has or any other anomalies.

Would you like to know how much 9 embryo transfers costs? Plus all the IVF meds that health insurance doesn't cover. Oh, and the additional progesterone injections I had at the beginning of this pregnancy that I had to pay for myself because insurance would only pay for the pessaries I was also on until 13 weeks. We certainly didn't go through all of that just to get a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes (which my daughter happens to have, but then so do my mum and sister and my partner's sister).

Yes you can if you test them and go to Cyprus.

Absolutely. When I (finally) told my wider family that we were undergoing IVF they acted as though I was already pregnant and that a baby was the inevitable result. They thought the odds were much higher than they actually are. I did three and no baby. I gave up after that.

@MyHazelCritic how was your IVF journey? Do all clinics offer these services?

I have had four transfers. One negative, one miscarriage and two children so not too bad.

For God's sake get off SM and live your life. Whatever you are reading is either bullshit or in another jurisdiction so has no relevance here and isn't topical. You are just trying to start a pointless debate.

Super rich people might be doing some sort of selection.

But most people if they are doing IVF with their significant other- aren't doing any of this screening.

How are you supposed to check the predicted intelligence or height of an embryo from the same two people. At this point in time it's just marketing.

Unless specifically choosing a specific sex of the embryo or choosing a donor with specific traits.

The rest will be just marketing. Especially if they are using their own gametes.