to be a bit annoyed about a friend that thinks woman should not be allowed to have ivf on the nhs?

[CarrieDaBabi]

this friend, she is 33, and is planning on trying to start a family in a years time.

she said she doesn't agree with ivf etc and if it doesn't happen she will just accept its fate/not ment to be

then she went on to say she doesn't think that woman should be allowed to have ivf on the nhs.
i was a bit and
at her comments and attitude

she is nornally very left wing

i said, i thought women only got 1 go at ivf on the nhs and i think it should be avavlible on the nhs as its something that could cause depression pyschlogical issues

and that your on dodgey ground ruling things out as where would it stop, fat people people who drink or smoke not being able to get treatment
or people with depression not getting treatment.

to which she replied depression os an illness, i know it is, i said but not being able to have a baby can make you depressed

i felt really shocked at what she was saying

Don't let it upset you though Lougla, whatever you do - you've got quite enough to worry about. Best of luck with your treatment.

I started to ttc seriously following a misacarriage at 34 years old. I didn't deliberately leave wanting to become a mother later in life - I married at 32 and we had no money and no stability. My first pregnancy was an accident.

We were then told we had issues and were recommended for IVF - no issues that they could find with me - but they did with dh. We were on the IVF list but I was not keen as I felt so low that I didn't feel I could deal with the emotional and physical pressures of IVF I was terrified.

Luckily I somehow got pregnant (at 37) just before we were due to start IVF.We have just the one and although I'd love more I'm so so grateful for him.

IVF is not an easy option (Louglas post refers) that people leave as a reserve so they can head up the career path. I'm sure there are many many women of modest means who are scraping together the cash for treatment.

Good luck to them I say.

And best of everything to you Lougla.

Really diff to comment so don't know why I am! It would be hypocrytical for me to say I agree with your friend as ds 3.5 was concieved with nhs paid for ivf cycle1! At 25 found out had poss fertility prob spent 5 yrs Ttc and tried other less invasive treatment first! I know how lucky I was and I thank my lucky stars that they put me forward and I now have my son.
Since then I had mc and now have dd1.5 concieved naturally.

I am truely blessed and want everyone who is going through it (my dsis) to be as blessed as we have been

Have my fingers crossed for lougla I remember that wait well! I lay in bed for the whole two weeks praying to a god I know not of! I thought the more rest I could give my body the better for implantTion also read positive thinking book and spent whole two weeks visualising implantation!

I have you in my thoughts and pray for the right result xxx

My Mum died of cancer which could possibly have been treated so that she lived longer if she'd had more expensive drugs. I would always put saving lives before creating them.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion which is going to be influenced by their own situation - if I'd been unable to conceive, or not lost my Mum, I would probably feel very differently.

To want a baby and be told you can't have one is absolutely heartwrenching.
It's true, some can shrug their shoulders and carry on, but for many it's an important part of their lives.

I just hope your friend has no problems...

I don't think that's the choice here is it though? How about saving lives set against giving antibiotics for minor ailments that would clear up by themselves? Saving lives set against free prescriptions and dentistry for all pregnant women and children regardless of financial circumstances?

I would happily forgo free Calpol and E45 for my DS, for example, if it meant the chance of a child was not taken away from a woman with a serious medical condition. I do realise the cost differences here are ridiculous, but it all mounts up.

I was 36 when I had my DS through IVF. We spent £17K to try and have another child. We were not successful. The prospect of a life without being a mother would have broken my heart (I felt shredded after 4 years of treatment before I conceived my DS). I am grateful for the fact that we were able to fund IVF treatment. I do not begrudge others having it paid for the NHS if their circumstances mean they cannot afford the cost and accordingly subsidised by me/my taxes. IF is extraordinarily painful.

And let's not forget that the absolute maximum the NHS will fund is 3 rounds of treatment (is that right?) Some areas only fund one, and of course some people aren't eligible at all (we wouldn't have been).

I would argue that the worst waste of money of all is funding only a single round of treatment for a couple who can't afford to go on and fund further treatment themselves. The chances of success after only one round are pretty darned low, so not only is there a serious risk that it is money down the drain for the NHS, it also puts a hugely unfair amount of pressure and emotional strain on that couple for whom it absolutely has to work. They should either fund a sensible amount of treatment or not at all tbh (I choose the former).

I agree, gaelicsheep. We had 2 children and were 8 years trying for third. Because of having children already, we weren't entitled to IVF but were entitled to 3 cycles of IUI. The IUI didn't work. We later paid for an IVF cycle privately and found that, had they tested a bit more instead of saying "you have children, this is your only option, we'll do this for you", they would have discovered that IUI was never going to work for us because hubby's sperm couldn't fertilise the egg. So, an example of economising that actually was a complete waste of our time and of NHS money. The would have been better to have either funded IVF for us or to have funded nothing at all. It would have saved us years of heartache either way.

I don't think IVF should be on the NHS. There are many things the NHS doesn't pay for, cosmetic dentistry for one, despite how much the person may feel something needs doing and how much they feel it may affect their life.

The NHS is not there, IMO, to fund absolutely everything. The priorities need to be serious illness, life threatening conditions etc. A real tragedy is the NHS not being able to afford new types of Breast Cancer drugs or funding for hospices.

I love the comparison of cosmetic dentistry with infertility which is (generally) a medical condition .

I think all non-life threatening treatments should be barred from being treated under the NHS. So before you can get an appt with your GP you will be triaged to decide whether what you have is potentially life threatening, if not then pay or suffer (your choice). No treatment for anyone injured playing a sport or whilst drunk, no treatment for anything drink, drug, smoking or obesity related. No antibiotics unless the infection could potential become fatal. No NHS abortions, which might have the efficient side effect that more children would be available for adoption for all teh couples who can't afford IVF.

Luckily that would cover my ITP, pernicious anaemia and sleep apnoea but I would have suffered through mouth ulcers, low iron and I guess I would still be in agony with gall stones because removing them wasn't life saving. But that doesn't matter because quality of life isn't something the national health service should be expected to cover only saving lives.

I broadly agree with the OP's friend. As heartbreaking as infertility is, the NHS works to a limited budget. As such, IVF is not a priority when people everyday are being refused life saving drugs and waiting lists for ops, appointments and treatment are so lengthy.

'There are many things the NHS doesn't pay for, cosmetic dentistry for one, despite how much the person may feel something needs doing and how much they feel it may affect their life.'

But they do! They do pay for a lot of this stuff. As I said, I personally know two women who have had tummy tucks and laughed about how they fanagled them out of the NHS by 'laying it on thick' that their post-childbirth/weight loss tummies (no csections, either) were making them 'depressed'. Neither was clinically depressed, they just wanted it for free and made that abundantly clear.

The weight loss gal also managed to get a boob lift in, too.

LondonLottie, that was a fantastic post. It's not about the right to a child it's about the right to have a legitimate medical condition treated. Which infertility is.

The only legitimate aspect of IVF that is up for debate is its efficacy. In Australia we fund up to 3 cycles and 40 years old because the statistics show that if you're over 40 and have been through 3 unsuccessful cycles, your chances of success are really, really tiny. So it makes sense to withhold govt funding at that point, just for practicality reasons.

But to say that someone with a serious medical condition (infertility) doesn't deserve funding, when no-one would blink at me getting treatment for sleep aponea...well, I hate to break out the dungarees, but just possibly do we think this is another example of women's issues being marginalised as 'lifestyle choices'?

Kewcumber, I take your point about people talking about their infertility and then going on to talk about their children, but at the time you're going through it the sadness every time your period arrives and you realize that you haven't fallen pregnant, again, is still real. And the anxiety if you have to go that step further and take chlomid does bring out the fear that it may come to the point of ivf or even the point of childlessness. After all it's not that common for people to be sent straight down the IVF route.

There is also the matter of secondary infertility, a huge amount of couples do conceive one child and then discover they are unable to conceive again. This was the case with me, and going on the reasons why it is actually somewhat of a miracle that we were ever able to conceive at all.

And while I do agree that if you already have one child then it is certainly worth bearing in mind and trying to consider the things you do have, if you do have one child and aren't unable to have any more, having one child already doesn't make the hurt of being told you can't have any more any less signifficant.

And people do need to get over this notion that others are judging. Nobody is judging you personally if you've had ivf on the nhs. What people are judging is a system that will essentially allow someone to die so that new life can be created.

For me it's not even about life-saving treatment. It's about treating the people we already have, and saving, and in some instances bettering those lives, rather than creating new lives.

I certainly don't think that tummy tucks or boob jobs should be available on the nhs, either.

So StrictlyKatty and HalfTermHero - do you make use of your GP's services or not? Because you shouldn't really you know - you could be denying life-saving treatment to somebody else. Especially if your consultation doesn't result in you paying a prescription charge to reimburse some of the cost to the taxpayer.

It feels to me that the majority of people on this thread saying it shouldn't be available on the NHS are those who have already been able to have children, without intervention. This is something I am very envious of, believe me and I'm sure you all realise how lucky you have been.

However, for me, the question you need to ask yourself and being truly truly honest with your answer is whether if you hadn't been able to have children naturally would you genuinely say you wouldn't use the NHS for IVF if you had to, if it was your only way of becoming a mother?

If we'd had £6 or £7K in the bank then yes we would have paid for it ourselves, but we didn't. In my adult years I've made very little use of the NHS generally, although I've always been grateful for the thought it was there and so I feel I had a right to use it for this genuine medical reason.

Ignore me wannabe - I do understand really after all when I was waiting for each period I didn't know I was going to be truly infertile and the devastation when I had to accept that it really wasn't ever going to happen for me didn't make the pain of those waits less anxious. Having said that I can now say with hindsight that the pain of the finality of it was greater than the anxious wait with some hope left even when it failed (not really relevant to whether the NHS should fund IVF).

I'm a bit confused tortoiseshell about your sleep apnoea point - I have sleep apnoea and treatment for that is undoubtedly life saving and its not a male condition (last time I checked I was a woman!)

I think your friend should be allowed to have opinions and if you find those opinions incompatible with yours to such an extent that you have to post about it maybe you shouldn't be her friend.

As for the right to IVF - I am at present of the mind that people should all go through a test to make sure they are actaully going to be decent enough parents to even get pregnant naturally.

Thank you Madame - for voicing what I feel too! It sounds a bit sour grapes ish when you've had to go through the whole "consent form" thing to wish it on anyone, but yes, how about it!

I have two kids littlebylittle - my views come from seeing the parents that have messed up so greatly that their kids are just so damaged it breaks your heart.

Sad thing is that it is normally the parents who have had a shit life and it just goes on and on round and round.

I have said absolutely nothing about medical incompetance actually Madamdeathstare.

lougla, obviously I can't speak for others but I do think that this is perhaps where the thread has become a little confused.

For me personally there's a difference between people obtaining treatment on the NHS, and the NHS providing treatment, iyswim.

Currently the NHS does provide IVF in some areas, and it would therefore IMO be silly to suggest that people needing such treatment not take it up. Why should they after all - the nhs funds ivf in their area so it is totally their right to use it.

So in answer to your question yes, had I decided to go down the IVF route, and had the nhs in my area provided funding for it then I would have used it.

But my issue is that the NHS provides the funding at all. I don't think that people should be paying for their own IVF if the funding is offered. But I don't think the funding should be offered, iyswim.

My issue is not with the recipiants, but with the system.