To think Fake babies & their mothers are weird??...

[Mumcentreplus]

What the heck??...they are dolls!!

If you have a child you can't understand the pure grief if you apparently can't have one. It's looking like I can't, the NHS won't help me, and won't even help me with the psychological impact of the grief I feel at all - and it drives you insane completely.

I can understand how people grab at anything to stop the pain just for a short while, and if these dolls do that, then it's pretty harmless rather than my way of coping which is just to avoid any situation possible where I might encounter a baby (I've literally ran out of shops before when there's been a pram in there). At least these women are functioning in society I guess.

If you're lucky enough to be able to sit and pour scorn on it all because your life worked out to plan - can't you just count your blessings instead of judging? Or are you all on the Daily Mail website complaining that IVF is an abomination too?

empty......so sorry to read of your situation. You're completely right too.....these poor women obviously have a reason behind what they do and are probably deeply troubled. I think mocking them is cruel and out of order tbh.

I have fertility problems and they completely overwhelm you and become an obsession to the point where nothing else matters. I have been lucky enough to have 2 DDs but so many couples aren't that lucky. Live and let live and no one is getting hurt.

Empty .

I think it's really sad (sad sad not pathetic sad). For whatever reason they have a hole they are trying to fill.

If it helps a woman in some way, then so be it. I know lots of women who nurture something as a baby substitute, whether it's a dog, cat etc, it doesn't seem that different to me. I think a lot of women aren't getting the counselling they need, and if this is what they need to do to cope, well, who am I to judge?

oh God I saw a documentary on this once. They were all seriously odd.

One grandmother who had one made to look like her grandson who lived in Australia.

Seriously not healthy IMO.

i talked my bf out of buying one of these for her dd (9) to play with. she was keen but the price tag put her off. dd was happy with baby annabelle as far as i could see!

sorry, just re-read this thread and I don't really mean "odd". I can understand that utter desolation of not being able to have children and wanting to fill the hole.

The majority of the women on the programme I watched had children, or grand children. And collected these dolls as I used to collect teddies from ever city I went to.

Don't want to cause offence to anybody who is dealing with not being able to have children, as some here have explained.

And I certainly do not think IVF is an abomination. I think it should be free to all who need it, regardless of whether they smoke / are overweight / over 40 / have tried twice already.

I suppose they have less of the sharp, pointy, bed/sofa/house hogging bits that my three-legged cat cuddle/baby substitute has. Actually the cat's more of a dotty maiden aunt than a baby - but I still love the demented furball nonetheless.

It's the same sort of thing but more extended than obsessional pet ownership really - a subsitute to fix your love and affection on. One of the hard parts of infertility is being locked out of so much of the world - I scurry past the baby clothes Tesco nastily have on the aisle end, I look at the kids section in Ikea longingly and would love a more legitimate excuse (I'm a primary teacher so I'm still allowed to buy puppets and picture books) to go in there - I guess a concrete "baby" object means they CAN buy prams and carseats and all that stuff they'd love the chance to shop for.

It can mess with your mind so much though -
in the aftermath of miscarrying when I finally DID catch, I remember thinking, quite rationally I thought, that if I curled up and hid under the dining table things might stop hurting; if I stopped eating I HAD to end up pregnant - all sorts of stupid insane stuff goes through your head, including seeing over the road leave their pram out and just have the fleeting thought of taking it... you DO go completely nuts.

I've never really seen the problem with them - I've never seen one out in real life.

I dont think ALL people who own one have deep seated issues - many have children of their own and wouldn't go back to having a "real" baby that wakes you up and pukes on things, but enjoyed the really tiny newborn stage where they are in tiny lacy cardigans and that kind of thing, and it is a hobby for them being able to dress up a "baby" in these things and buy these things for it. Yes, its a bit odd, like a grown up doll hobby, but I suspect the majority are not so much issue based as hobby based but they dont take them outside, just maybe have a basket for it and that's the end of it.

Every time I used to search eBay for hand knitted stuff for a newborn (people stop knitting for you after your first child! And I had a winter baby so I wanted some nice hand knitted cardigans which are easy to get on and off) I'd see a load of stuff for "reborns" come up. So there must be quite a market for it. Yet you dont see them out and about much so its only the real enthusiasts that risk scorn by taking them out and about.

I think it is worthy of sympathy if it is due to a loss but to be honest, its a pretty harmless thing, a victimless indulgence!

empty - so sorry for your loss. I don't think that anyone feels IVF is an abomination. The thing with these dolls though is that they are not really helping these women to come to terms with the things that have happened in their lives.

I really did feel for that grandmother. She'd spent two years bringing up her grandson not to mention thinking she might lose her daughter.

I found the woman who went to the US to pick up her latest "baby" odd though - the way she rejected it because it wasn't perfect, it was all "ruined", in the same breath as talking about how happy it was even though is was injured

empty I have a ds (who'd coming up for 10) but very much want a second dc. DP v.much against. So it's painful, but surely not a patch on how it must feel to want but not have a child at all. I had an unplanned pregnancy which ended in MC last year. Again, painful, but surely not a patch on how it must feel if one doesn't have a child already. I swing fron avoiding babies to worrying that I get overinvolved. It hurts and it does mess with your mind.

Emptyshell, can I just ask, Why do you come onto Mumsnet, isn't it very painful to do?

Is there no form of counselling available for you?

I was told I couldn't have children following what I thought was a suspected miscarriage, so took the opposite view and assumed as it wasn't going to happen that I had to look for a different life.

I'm on here in the conception and miscarriage forum generally. I come onto this bit because I teach and so have an interest in some of the threads from the other side.

The tone of your comment though tends to imply that I shouldn't be here - want to go tell the whole Miscarriage and Conception forums they have no right to be on here too?

No, no tone intended, am merely typing.

Just wonder that reading threads like these must surely inflame the pain that you are currently feeling..? Especially as you are obviously very raw and grieving. Not everyone had a formulaic life plan involving children, and not everyone on here is calling for the closure of IVF, they are merely commenting on a program.

But, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and people with children are entitled to complain occasionaly and voice their opinions.

My son is a miracle to me, but there are still times when I need to get things off my chest.

I don't have parents, and often read threads regarding people slating their MIL's, FIL's for buying too many gifts, being overindulgent, wanting to take over etc which could make me cry - it's a huge hole in my life. However, I don't live in their shoes so just leave them vent on here.

I just have to live and let live...

i watched the programme as well.... is it wierd that i noticed that the car seats were the wrong sort for a baby that size? i told dp when it was on and he said does it really matter? lol

I was explaining how it can make you feel. Me sitting there pretending I don't exist, perpetuating the fallacy that those suffering from infertility should just suck it up and be silent, hiding away because of a miscarriage - I'm not going to do that. I refuse to sit hidden away in one forum and deny that these ugly truths go on in the world... too many people believe that that's how we should behave and I won't do it.

Infertility affects a massive number of couples. Miscarriage is more common than you'd ever realize - both of them remain silent stigmas, things people feel they HAVE to hide away because the feelings they provoke are pretty socially unacceptable for some to stomach - responding to pregnancy announcements by going and sobbing in the loos after smiling and making the right kind of noises, making yourself scarce when colleagues bring in babies, blocking scan photos posted on facebook. No one would berrate a bereaved parent for acting in such ways - yet the infertile, those who've miscarried - they're expected to hide away in shame time and time again. I guarantee you, among your group of friends there'll be at least one who's suffered from either infertility or miscarriage - it's THAT common and that well hidden.

I won't do that - it's hypocritical of this site to try to run miscarriage care campaigns and the like and then for there to be an expectation that those who DO suffer difficulties aren't to be let out onto the main forums. That's wrong.

I'm a woman, I have the same biological and emotional urges as many - but for some reason, either within myself or my partner - there's something that's not quite almost there going on with the plumbing. I won't be ashamed of that and I'm not going to hide it away in silence. It's like mental illnes - if you don't talk about these things, and the feelings they provoke - how is society ever going to move on and understand?

I'm going nowhere - you can sit and mock people coping with the massive grief in whatever way they see fit - but at least a fake baby ain't gonna hog the bed and snore like my cat does at night!

ES, I don't think the poster thought that you shouldn't be here because you make her uncomfortable. Rather, that it must be so hard for you. Many of us have taken a while to conceive, or have had miscarriages before we went on to have children.

For those who read your posts, you play a valuable part on the forum.

They bring bastard fleas into the house, either

I mean they don't bring bastard fleas into the house. Sheesh!

Thanks Cretaceous. No-one is asking anyone to hide away and be something they are not.

Emptyshell, I've had 3 miscarriages since having my son. I certainly did not hide away in shame, even when someone actually accused me of bringing it on myself because I had used a diet plan 6 months before. What I was actually saying is that unlike the choices we are assuming these women make (and we are generalising by assuming they are all grieving for a child they can't have - maybe some of them just like fake babies), I took a different route.

I was told the chances of me conceiving were minimal, I decided to focus on what else I could do in my life to make it positive. When I got together with my partner, the fact that he had 3 children from a prior relationship was almost a relief as I felt he had no expectations from me. I have just watched my cousins go through an expensive, exhausting and useless set of IVF treatments.

To me, having one of these reborns in that situation seems like putting salt on a wound, it seems to me like a daily reminder of what you feel you are missing - only harder. It can't communicate, develop or grow, making the interaction with it all the more painful. How can you ever move on?

So, if the man on the other program bought a living lifesize doll, married it in Vegas and then bought a reborn baby and lived like a family would this be acceptable?

What if he had had relationship issues in the past, or couldn't father a child?

i had secondary infertility after my son (now 8 ) was born, so i know how it feels to want a baby but not be abke to (although its different because i did have ds) ive also had 2 miscarriages

i now have a 15 month old and i'm 34 weeks pg