To think some older women having tax payers funded ivf are hypocrites?

[Spiderbug]

There seems to be a substantial group of people who are ok with calling teen mums a waste of their tax money but then leave child bearing too late and expect the tax payers to foot the bill for their multiple ivf cycles which costs the tax payer up to 100 million a year.

Hypocrites!!!

The debate skills emanating from you are mind blowing.

She’s awful, I’d ignore her/him.

We could just go Brave New World and be done with it

Here is a breakdown of where the money goes (not IVF).

The largest area of NHS day-to-day spending is typically staff costs, equating to 50% of day-to-day expenditure. Other areas of significant spending include primary care (general practice, dentistry, etc), procurement (supplies and services to deliver health care) and non-NHS health care (independent, local authority or voluntary, community or social enterprise sector providers).

What an absolutely inane analogy. What does ‘deliberately delaying’ even mean in relation to TTC? Delaying until you feel ready, until you have a suitable partner, home, or are at a point in your career where a break isn’t going to mess it up? Whatever decision a woman makes on TTC is a gamble. How odd to judge someone for ‘deliberately delaying’ a really important and irreversible choice.

Resentment is just like judgement, not something to be proud of but something we can all feel at times. Are you ‘vile’ as well?

I'm wondering why you got out of bed this morning and decided that this was the thing you were going to post.

Have you felt that you or teenage mothers around you were negatively judged? Personally I've never seen what you're talking about coming from those with fertility issues.

Not sure if anyone has pointed this out but this covers all UK IVF births, not just those which are NHS funded.

OP you seem to have got angry about a phenomena that IF it exists will be in very small numbers.

Most people who abuse teens mums are likely to abuse mums like me who had DC late 30s/early 40s after a horrible decade of infertility and baby loss after spending eye watering amounts on IVF.

But you do you with the divisive bullshit.

Are you aware that cosmetic surgery is available on the NHS?

Weird kids ? Yeh you have just lost all credibility there. You really don’t have a clue what you are talking about at all. Do some research

Well, the way it’s all going, all IVF will need to be paid for by those who want it.

100% agree. I didn’t have a suitable partner until I was 28. And I unfortunately needed an operation / medical intervention that would have made pregnancy beforehand a very bad idea. I’ll (probably) be cleared to TTC this January.

At which point I will be 33 years old. and hopefully everything goes smoothly (the odds are pretty good according to my gyno).

But 33 is the earliest sensible / possible point to TTC for me. During uni? And even post-grad / at the beginning of my career without a steady partner? Intentionally choosing to become a single mother without an established career or any financial security? And then the (non-fertility related!) health issues came, which I needed to deal with before even contemplating TTC.

So this whole talk of intentionally delaying pregnancy seems incredibly silly and strange to me.

It‘s not as if I - or most other older would-be mothers - were sitting around thinking: „oh yes, I’m in a relationship with the perfect man, we’re financially stable, physically healthy… but let’s just delay pregnancy for as long as possible!!“

'knocked up'? Where are we Grease?

Deliberately delaying means just that - not TTCing until you're already running out of viable eggs. There's nothing wrong with not wanting to take a break from your career, for example, but you need to own that choice. Your eggs aren't going to say, "Oh, we'll hang around until you're ready."

Again, what do you think of people who leave studying for exams until the last minute and then resent people who pass?

Cosmetic surgery is not routinely available on the NHS - If the goal is purely aesthetic “I don’t like how this looks”, the NHS will not fund it. Only if there is a medical or psychological need. My mate lost 17st naturally, excess skin weighing 2.5 stone and the NHS would not pay for the skin removal until he had repeated skin and urinary infections as a direct result of the excess skin - 12 years before they decided they could remove the skin and 12 years of his life hiding.

Are you taking the piss?

my children are perfectly normal thank you. No illness, no mental health problems, both very academic and play multiple sports.

I had IVF because of minor health conditions on both mine and my husbands side that effected our fertility levels. If one of us had the issue it would have been fine, but both issues together we struggled. Our kids are genetically ours, we haven’t used donors (not that this matters) , we literally just needed help getting the sperm to the egg!

It seems apt.

The kids I know born through IVF are all fine, I can’t say I’ve noticed any higher level of disability or impairment in any way really.

I don’t really agree with providing IVF on the NHS though. I have a friend going through it right now who is absolutely skint, living at home with her mum, has no pension or sensible provision for herself (late 30s) - should the taxpayer really be paying for somebody so under equipped to have a baby? If it was an ‘I want a baby, I’m living with mum and have no money or job, AIBU to get pregnant’ the replies would be that she was massively irresponsible.

I think this post raises the question of what is the role of a state provided free healthcare.

Personally I see it as a means to treat illnesses, injuries and most importantly life threatening conditions.

Being able to have a child is none of those things. Of course people should be free to spend their own money on other medical interventions be it boob jobs, nose jobs or fertility treatment, but this should not come at a cost to the NHS where it only serves to reduce overall funding available.

I know someone who who paid for IIRC 7 unsuccessful rounds of IVF. But a couple years after she gave up, there was still one embryo left, so thinking ‘nothing to lose’, she had it implanted, and lo, finally, a healthy baby. She was by then late 40s.

I can’t help wondering whether the lack of anxiety/stress, since by now she absolutely never expected it to work - could have had something to do with it.

That’s an interesting scenario and unfortunate. But at the same time I disagree . I had ivf and that’s fine I could pay for it and afford it and did pay for it myself . But going through infertility was horrible I can’t imagine how hard it would be for someone with infertility to not be offered anything and not be able to afford it themselves. That would make a divide that people with money can have infertility treatment and people who are low income are left to suffer with no help . And I don’t agree with that.

It’s not ‘unfortunate’ it’s reckless. She’s an intelligent person but has just utterly failed to look down the line any further than the next few months and has lived her life on a day to day basis. There are plenty of things people with money can afford that people without money can’t - private healthcare, the best food, nice holidays and treatments. This is no different.

It isn’t the same as not being able to afford a nice holiday , that’s not what its like at all

Whatever it’s like I don’t think the taxpayer should be paying for people to have babies they won’t afford if successful.

Sorry to quote you, but I wasn't going to quote that poster again ! Weird kids wtf is that about, personally, I know 3 adults who were conceived using infertility and ivf treatments different families and they were just "ordinary " kids who grew up to be "ordinary " adults !

I don't have any skin in the game, I wasn't a teen mother and I haven't gone through IVF. And let me just say, I know that both those things are really hard. I have friends who had a kid at 15, and those who have gone through IVF, and I think they are all wonderful people. But I think the main criticism of teen mums is that they require more benefits and tax funded support, and that seems to be your point too as you mention the cost of IVF on the NHS.

I wanted to look at the cost from a bit of an objective stance but I had to hypothesise a lot as no two women's stories are the same. But, let's say we have mum one, a teen mum claiming Universal Credit while working 30 hours a week who is able to get a housing association house. On the other hand we have mum two, a woman who built a career and in her 30s realised she was unable to get pregnant and so sought IVF on the NHS.

Mum one might receive around £13,000 in Universal Credit a year when all components are included and depending on area.

A round of IVF for mum two costs around £5000.

So I don't see how it's hypocritical.