to be ANNOYED at the suggestion that women have ivf because they've 'left it too late'

[twinterror]

AAghghghgh!!!

journalist on the conception thread suggests that women 'leave it too late' to have a baby and then have ivf. Most women having ivf are indeed older but thats because they have been trying naturally for flipping years normally! People do not have ivf because its an easy option or they couldn't be bothered to have a child earlier on in life.

Drives me mad

fluffles loads of men want kids young. We had our first at 23 but my husband was talking about how much he wanted kids from when he was 18. I know loads of men like that 37 would be seen as a very old first time parent imo. Also I know loads of people that have been with their husbands or wives that have been together 8 years or more and have been together since their teens.

Like most women, my reason for putting off having children has always been to try to position myself so that I am best placed to support and provide for any children I eventually have. I give it serious thought all the time and in my considered opinion, waiting is still by far the best thing to do for the good of my future family, and the risk is reasonable.

Let's not forget the dreaded NHS waiting list, too. When I started IVF in 2007 there were many patients at the clinic who had had to wait to be 35 to become eligible for IVF, were technically in receipt of an NHS-funded treatment cycle but as the PCT coffers were empty, funding for IVF had been frozen so these girls were facing an 18m wait with no guarantee that funds would be released even then.

Many of them, well aware of the ticking time-bomb which is their ovarian reserve, scrimped and saved and borrowed to fund a private cycle or two while they were waiting but with success levels so low it is NOT a route which anyone would choose to take. Sure, I wanted a baby, but I wanted a baby with my husband, not the man I was with at 23-28. He would have been a lousy father and I, unemployed and miserable, would not have made a good mother either. I am now married to a good man, pulled myself up by the ears work-wise and have a wonderful IVF baby to bring up in a stable and committed relationship. Those are the choices I made. Yes, it was a gamble but in point of fact I would not, in retrospect have found it easy to conceive without IVF at any age as my earlier cancer treatment had left scarring.

Also, let's not forget that IVF is not always because of a fertility problem on the woman's part: male subfertility is a huge problem too so a couple with a woman aged 25 and a subfertile man (of any age) are still going to need to resort to IVF (well, ICSI in this case) which will cost around £4,500 per cycle.

"BUT the stark truth is you can't see your life without a baby then you have to consider trying earlier than you might want to - to be sure ifyswim!"

but that's not how life is. i didn't want children in my 20s (and nor did my then partner) but in my 30s I did. You can't expect people (men and women) to do something they don't want to do just because they may change their mind later.

"I tell all 20 something women at work not to hang about if they want a family"

this would really have pissed me off when I was in my 20s. I pissed me off enough when friends of mine told me in my early thirties that if I didn't have a child then, I'd end up having one with Downs Syndrome! Also, how do you know you are not saying this to someone who is indeed trying but not having any success or who is keen to start but can't because they have no significant other or their partner is dead against it?

"If you want to bake the best cake you have to use the freshest eggs"

jesus, I dispair.

It a bitter thing to hear because people don't think of the back story.

I married DH at 24, started TTC at 28, spent 2 years having no success, 1 year of inconclusive fertility investigations, 3 years on an IVF waiting list, 2 failed cycles and that took me to to age 35 and people (not in the know) going " haven't you left it a bit late to have kids?"

But then if it ever came up in conversation with friends who were starting TTC later I did say, if you think you want kids don't leave it late because fertility treatment is slow, expensive, miserable and doesn't usually work.

As someone who was told last year that she would need IVF to conceive, it's a straw man that pisses me off too. My eggs are perfectly okay. DH and I conceived for the first time with no problem at all, then sadly I had an early miscarriage. While I was recovering so that we could start trying again, DH was diagnosed with testicular cancer. We were told that the treatment would almost certainly damage his fertility, and IVF with his frozen pre-treatment sperm would be our hope.

We got very lucky - we conceived naturally this year and I'm now 16 weeks pregnant. If things hadn't turned out so well, I'd have hated the assumption that we needed IVF just because I'm over 30 (only just!).

It's a lazy and stereotyped angle. Why does no one ever write about couples needing treatment due to male fertility problems?

I work in NHS and see people with fertility problems. The vast, vast majority have not selfishly left it too late to have kids while having loads of fun but I have met the occasional entitled loon who assumed it would be fine - usually someone/ a couple with plenty of money who have got used to getting everything they want in life as a result. I am amazed when they make that assumption. I have also met women, married and settled still on the pill at 38/39 who say they want kids one day but not yet and obviously there could be all sorts of reasons for that but 2 years later when they come back wondering why it isn't happening I do feel a bit . I assumed the opposite and got pregnant last year at 37 very easily and babe due any day now. It's all so unpredictable really.

but there is some truth in it, many of us start mid 30s, peak fertility mid 20s

nuff said

peak fertility is in your teens not mid 20s

I think some people are getting too caught up in the perceived value judgements and away from the facts.
If you delay having children til your mid to late 30's, you have left it quite late in fertility terms. It may be that you had no choice, or that you had a good reason, but that doesn't change the fact that the odds are not as in your favour as they would have been 5-10 whatever years earlier.

You're right runnybottom, but the impression that I got from the original post is that the journalist was suggesting that 'leaving it too late' was the main or only reason that people need IVF.

It's a horrible situation to be in; to be told that you no longer have any control over your own fertility, and that your only chance involves an expensive and invasive procedure with an iffy success rate. Endless articles in newspapers and magazines implying that it's usually / always the 'fault' of the woman don't help.

Is there any woman out there who doesn't know that her fertility declines in her 30s? I feel like I'm bombarded with the fact all the time from all sides.

It's a regular Daily Mail thing that they run this, then it's always backed up by the battle cries of "you can always adopt"... "selfish women"... "having it all" stuff.

I'm, well I thought I was infertile after three years of trying - but concieved and miscarried almost exactly a week ago today, so now I don't quite know what I am.

I never wanted kids when I was younger because I was so sure I'd repeat the mistakes that had gone on in my family, went through an abusive relationship and wouldn't have inflicted that nutcase on any child, and then finally met a wonderful man who rocked my world - by which time I wasn't all THAT old - I was about 28 when we started trying... takes a year for the NHS to accept there's any problem, then time for the run of tests to be done before they accept there might really be a problem - it's very easy for the clock to tick over into your 30s just sitting at the mercy of the system if you don't have the money to go privately.

In my case there's no hope for help for us - my BMI's too high so it's a point-blank "go to jail, do not pass go" card. We're three years on, three stone lighter (but still don't meet the criteria for any help) but with no answers and, being frank, no hope. It's hideously painful and every single smug article that gets run painting me as some mercenary hedonist wanting to join the mummy train before my eggs shrivel up and die is another stab into my heart - and after three years and a miscarriage - there isn't much heart left to stab at.

Adoption: Around here - unless you want a really really difficult case of an older child with extreme behavioural difficulties and attachment disorders... you need, to put it brutally, to be black or mixed-race. There is no hope for white adoption of a young child and there is no way you'll be allowed to adopt a child outside your own ethnicity.

Having it all: Nope - I never wanted it all - it just took me a few years to find the right man because I played life by the expected rules - went to school, went to uni, got a job, got a man, got a cat (ok the cat came before the man) and waited for the 2.4 children... exactly where in that did I slot into the wanting a fancy house, three holidays in Tuscany a year and a designer wardrobe? Just a normal couple with lousy luck.

I'd urge any woman not to co-operate with these journalist requests - they don't want to hear your story, they don't want to know about the horrible pain of infertility - they just want to run yet another scaremonger about silly selfish women leaving it too long because they value material goods more. There'll be nothing in there of how truly and horrifically dreadful it feels to be infertile in a world made for the nuclear family, there'll be nothing about the circumstances that push women who start trying in their mid-20s into the over 30 bracket before they start being able to access any support... it's just yet another story for those Boden-clad Daily Mail mummies to pat themselves on the back at how nice their lives are and how silly and selfish these poor childless women are - it always is.

emptyshell
I'm so sorry for how you're feeling. Apart from the fact that you have miscarried (I'm so sorry about that) I have been exactly where you are - and what you said about feeing dreadful to be infertile in a world made for the nuclear family, really hit home.
I remember feeling just like this. I hope you find a way to mend your heart - is adoption really not for you? Could it be something you might consider - adopting out of your local authority or internationally?
Good luck, and I hope things work out.

where do people get this idea that 'leaving it too late' means your 30s?

Women in their 30s have a 50/50 chance of becoming pregnant after a year of unprotected sex. For women between 20-24 86% will become pregnant. So ideally women should have the minimum number of children they want before they are 25.

I don't think it is women who are to blame for this, though. I think if more women in this age group were in relationships with broody men then they would have children younger. It is the men who usually put off having DCs- fullin the knowledge that they can wait until their 40s or 50s and go off and have a family with a woman in her 20s. Women dont have this luxuary.