Why do lesbians have IVF?

[Kendodd]

Not gay parent bashing, if they want to have children, fine, good luck to them. But, IVF seems the most expensive and intrusive way to go about it, not to mention all the drugs the mother has to take and the potentially fatal side effects. Is donor insemination not easier? is this done first? Only interested because I saw a couple on TV and with money being tight I expect donor insemination is a lot cheaper, maybe I'm wrong.

I expect I will get a lot of biscuits (if I get any answers) not having a go at anyone just nosey curious.

One of the couple may still have fertility issues - they may have already tried donor insemination & encountered the same obstacles (conception wise) as a male/female couple.

Lesbians have IVF for the same sort of reasons other women have IVF - because they have fertility problems.

What made you think it would be any different?

What made me think it would be different is because surely it would be a lot harder to find out about fertility problems given that neither of them would be having regular sex with a man. First stop might well be a fertility clinic which could be seen as just a big shop steering people towards the more expensive options. Maybe I'm being a bit hard on fertility clinics but I know three couples (male+female) told that they had a less than 1% chance of having children naturally, all three have had children naturally (one has now had three). Also maybe more low tech measures are exhausted first or maybe IVF actually works out cheaper if it has a higher success rate.

How do you know the history of people trying to have children? If a couple is having IVF, are they likely to have told you everything else they have tried first? And that goes for all people trying to have a child, irrespective of their sexuality.

I actually think that the OP has a point - certainly my experience of fertility clinics (not in the UK, mind you) has been that they are pretty keen to get lesbians to stump up for IVF. Two reasons: usually they have no known fertility problems (obviously, some of them do) so they do great things to a clinic's statistics, and second, it's a great money spinner. A lot of lesbian couples also decide to go for IVF on the grounds that the success rate is much higher than IUI.

I know lots of gay mums here, and I reckon that between them they have spent millions on IVF. DP and I used a known donor, and it cost us plane fares and hotel rooms, plus small expenses (petrol, parking, a meal here and there) for our donor.

I agree that lesbians sometimes use IVF at a stage when I would be expecting to still be trying low tech solutions. I suspect it's because the clinic is pushing them along the IVF conveyor belt, and maybe because they share a common misconception that IVF, precisely because it's high tech, is a more effective way of getting pregnant.

My pregnancy was even cheaper than drivingmisscrazy's: the cost of a plastic pot and a syringe.

oh, yes, forgot the cost of the monster box of syringes (there's still some left! we will not be using them, except possibly to give medicine to the cat). The DIY solution, if you ask a fertility doctor, is allegedly almost certain not to work. I beg to differ :o and it's hardly as it DP is a spring chicken, either this time or last

as if, ffs

Well, I was ancient: reckon I was almost on my last egg!

I still have the pot. Not quite sure what to do with it. It was such a big part of my life for so long - and was the piece of kit that changed my life - I'm reluctant to chuck it in the bin. On the other hand, I'm not sure dd will thank me for hanging onto it...

um, she won't! we were having the conversation about the 'special cuddles' euphemism for sex (hello? what?) and sniggering about how we could tell her that daddy had a special cuddle with himself...how mean is that?

Almost 4 years of temping, booking flights, worrying about missing ovulation, two week waits, hoping that pregnancies would continue, etc. still a way to go. But really, that's quite enough. DP and I always said that if we'd been straight we would probably have had 3, and then eldest would be about 10 by now.

don't think that we could have afforded more than a couple of goes at IVF as we would have had to pay for it. We were about to go the clinic route this time, but then DD's dad said he would help (male pride, I reckon) - but I had some money put aside.