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Donor conception

For anyone with experience of sperm or egg donation to share support and advice. Please remember this board isn’t for debate about donor conception.

Original poster

IVF for a girl

231 replies

Squirrelscanswim · 30/01/2017 15:50

A few questions ...

I want a girl SO much and being totally honest with myself I think this is so much my preference that I would worry about bonding with a boy.

So, has anyone had IVF for a girl? I know it's not done in this country - America?

OP posts:
Offred · 30/01/2017 21:40

So can therapy really in my honest assessment!

I had one bout of CBT to try to change my 'anxious thought patterns' when i was in a really abusive relationship... it basically focused on trying to get me to 'see' that my boyfriend wasn't abusive and that my feelings/thoughts were irrational...

Ridiculous and really damaging since at the time I hadn't realised it was abusive... I ended up in A&E sobbing at them to help stop me killing myself because I was bad and deserved everything I got and had no future!

Original poster
Squirrelscanswim · 30/01/2017 21:42

That's awful, offred Flowers I hope my earlier posts didn't sound too snarly Sad I read them in a different light now Flowers again.

Really, I do need to try and meet someone, it's just hard and I do feel Time is running out.

OP posts:
Offred · 30/01/2017 21:44

Oh god no, I'm reasonably resilient TBH. Mainly was concerned about you, probably came across haranguing but suspect you are actually quite resilient too...Wink

Original poster
Squirrelscanswim · 30/01/2017 21:44

I think we have more in common than first appearances suggest Wink

OP posts:
Offred · 30/01/2017 21:49

FWIW you seem like a really lovely person with a huge amount of value. It just seems like this age old story of a crap childhood leaving you in a sticky mess in some ways but ridiculously resilient in others - same here really...

My massive thing that haunts me from childhood is 'what have you done to enrich the world with your presence?!' My definite weak spot is feeling like I have no value in the world. I have got to a point with that where I know it is about my dad and not me but where I feel like I have no control of some of the things feeling I have no inherent value compels me to do...

So I sit in full self awareness, feeling completely powerless!

Grace111 · 30/01/2017 21:50

OP can I ask what age range you are?

Offred · 30/01/2017 21:51

It's like judging myself and finding myself lacking at virtually every opportunity is so deep it is virtually like an instinct like breathing...

IrenetheQuaint · 30/01/2017 21:53

Do you have male friends or family who you love? I get the impression that you think of men as very 'other'... especially as the idea of being in a close space with an adolescent boy clearly makes you feel a bit anxious and icky.

Do bear in mind that you will pass on your beliefs and assumptions (including the unconscious ones) to your child/ren... so worth interrogating them properly first.

Danglybits · 30/01/2017 21:54

OP, apart from the issue of gender selection which others have addressed, please think about depriving your child of a father -- half his/her genetic identity.

I'm donor conceived and even now, in my 40s, I grieve for the gap in my life of not knowing half of where I come from or why I look like I do.

It's really not something to be taken lightly. Please read up about it. I'm not the only one.

Offred · 30/01/2017 21:54

I've just enquired about more therapy btw 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣

I will refrain from making this thread anymore about me now!!!

Original poster
Squirrelscanswim · 30/01/2017 21:57

No, it's helpful Offred, it really is. I like the line about being left emotionally bereft but also resilient. I think that sums me up in many ways. My teens and early twenties were largely about survival and looking pretty, dating, were secondary to that.

Dangly I won't say I understand but I think this is a battle every parent who chooses to have a child this way has. Please understand for some of us it's the only way we can become parents.

Irene I don't have anyone, really!

OP posts:
Offred · 30/01/2017 22:05

My whole stupid life feels like it has been surviving - surviving parents, surviving men, surviving children (although they are lovely people)... I know I can survive almost anything but increasingly I have stopped wanting to survive...

Everything sounds so easy on paper - love yourself, be kind to yourself, vanish your inner critic, appreciate the things you have, don't sweat the small stuff, this too shall pass... hard to actually do... BUT I clearly do somewhere deep inside have some kind of hope that things can be better and happier for everyone who is sad and struggling (even me)...

Offred · 30/01/2017 22:08

(Just at the moment it seems to be in the form of anger at how unfaaaiiiiir it all is WAAAHHHH!!!)

I guess sometimes all you need is to connect with someone else in some way though and despite the start of the thread I tenuously feel a little like I have connected on an emotional level with some of the things you feel about childhood and therapy.

Grace111 · 30/01/2017 22:48

OP I think like most have said, I think it's therapy you need rather than a baby. Please get help first before even considering bringing a baby in the mix of all this.
Please get help or a cat.

Original poster
Squirrelscanswim · 31/01/2017 06:05

Grace, I'm replying to you purely to explain how rude you have been. But I think you know that.

OP posts:
CoolJazz · 31/01/2017 07:52

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Grace111 · 31/01/2017 08:10

It's just what everyone else is thinking. It's not at all to be rude or cruel. I think you should put of "having a girl" until you are of sound mind.
And agreeing with OP suggests you may be in need of some help also (don't take this rude or cruel, that is not my intention).

Original poster
Squirrelscanswim · 31/01/2017 08:14

I said you were rude, rather than cruel.

If we accept and I am willing to accept this by the the way - that I have an anxiety about loving and raising a boy that stems from past experiences - then Getting Help seems to involve a doctor and then some form of therapy.

How long do you think the NHS will indulge my boy aversion? Six weeks? Long enough?

So it falls to me to pay for it. If I had any faith in it working that wouldn't be a problem but three (actually four!) attempts and no difference. I'm as ugly and as male avoidant as ever!

'Help', even for easily defined MH difficulties isn't straightforward and treatment isn't always (or often) successful. It's often more about management than cure.

So the above happens (or doesn't happen) and I get a cat.

Would you replace your children for a cat?

OP posts:
CoolJazz · 31/01/2017 08:15

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Mungobungo · 31/01/2017 10:14

Grace, your eyes being rather rude!

OP has expressed that she's already tried to get help and has had no relief from her feelings. She has recognised that she has some deep seated issues which affect the way she feels now.

She's repeatedly stated that this is something that she's just in the process of gathering information over. Whether anyone agrees or disagrees (and their mental states) is frankly none of your business. This thread has been tough on OP, yet she's managed to calmly and reasonably explain her position without being inflammatory or rude.

Carajillo · 01/02/2017 13:17

Hi,

I do have to agree with the other posters. Have you thought about the wider issues of being a single mum by choice? e.g. if you go abroad will you be able to choose identity release donor sperm which may be important to your future child (regardless of their gender?).

I don't personally think you are ready to be a parent if you are so fixated on the gender of that child that you will take no advice even from a trained counsellor. There are support organisations like DNetwork which will give you access to other solo mums who can talk to you about going ahead etc.

I am a single mum by choice who has a boy and a girl. The issues you raise are not ones I recognise tbh. I think that there is much to be gained from support/counselling before you go ahead.

IVF with gender selection is quite rightly illegal in many countries.

Best,
C

Carajillo · 01/02/2017 13:50

Sorry - when I mentioned trained counsellor I meant one from the British Infertility Counselling Association. Certainly, if you are considering donor conception in a UK clinic you will be offered a free session to talk about implications of being a solo mum with a donor conceived child (as well as your issue about only having a girl).

I meant the Donor Conception Network who are a support organisation with lots of single women who you can talk to .

If you go abroad, you may not be able to have an ID release donor. The countries that do offer sex selection tend to be unregulated and certainly don't offer counselling or care very much about the welfare of you or your child. Please be careful.

C

Ponderingprivately · 01/02/2017 14:01

I feel so sad reading this thread, I really do. I find the term 'boy aversion' a bit offensive. Baby boys are as lovely as baby girls, I have both, but there's not really any point in saying that to you as you are fixated on having a girl for no clearly explained reason.
I don't wish to be unkind to you at all, but I don't think you are ready to parent if you are not ready to parent a boy or a girl. I have a few single friends raising a boy or boys - they all have lovely relationships with their DSs

HopingForALittleOne · 02/02/2017 22:15

Wow squirrel I think you have been really polite in your answers when you have asked for advice and people who do not agree with you decide to become personal and judge you and throw out hypothetical situations. Wow!! I've found MN threads to be supportive but it feels like you have had to spend your time defending yourself.

No one knows you or what's has led you to want a daughter but I do know anyone who mentions wanting a specific sex on MN normally gets shut down.

I am not sure why people who disagree have to keep coming back in the thread to comment again and again and again

Hope whatever happens you find happiness xxxxxxxxFlowersFlowers

CritterPants · 14/02/2017 03:01

OP, I'm in the US. Morals aside, I can give you an idea of cost. With no insurance, a round of no-frills IVF will prob run you around $9-10k a cycle, not including medication (which can run into thousands of dollars). For PGS (when you test the embryos to check they are normal before thawing and implanting - this can tell you the sex too, although not all clinics will disclose it to you) you'd pay prob another $2k for the clinic's fee to do the biopsy plus the lab fee to do the genetic testing. Then the freezing fee is around $1.5 - 2k. Then a whole new frozen embryo transfer cycle to transfer the thawed, tested embryos (maybe $5k)? Plus maybe $500 fee for ICSI, which they do for PGS testing. A friend did it without insurance and I think it cost her about $40k total.

I lost my first son full-term shortly after birth due to a cord accident and very much wanted another boy afterwards (which by pure luck I ended up having - I did not do PGS, although both my boys were hard-won IVF babies after infertility). I have other friends who lost a child at birth who also long for another child of the same sex. So I understand.

But IVF is not a fun process and I don't know anyone who'd go through it just to ensure a child of a particular sex. If it were cheaper and easier and guaranteed, maybe, but it isn't. You might, for example, do a full round of IVF and end up with only one or two normal embryos of the sex you didn't 'want', or worse, none at all. It's a lot of money and stress on your body and soul.