Dear Fertile People,
You are not a doctor. Please don’t play one.
There isn’t much worse than a person pretending that they know what they are talking about when they clearly don’t.
Why don’t you just do IVF?
Don’t say this. It’s ignorant. IVF is not the be all and end all of fertility treatments. IVF doesn’t work in cases of unexplained infertility or in people that just don’t ovulate, even with meds. It’s also dangerous for someone like me who has polycystic ovaries. Even massive amounts of hormone injections do not get my stubborn ovaries to produce any follicles. We run the risk of Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS) if we just keep dosing up and up. OHSS can be fatal.
Multiples are a very real concern with IVF.
IVF is expensive. The meds alone can be over $5000 per cycle. There’s no way that you can do an IVF cycle for under $10,000.
IVF is rife with difficult decisions. How many follicles are too many? Not enough, should we cancel the cycle? How many embryos should we transfer? What are our beliefs on selective reduction should we conceive high order multiples? What do we do with the left over frozen embryos? Do we store them indefinitely ($$)? Or donate them? Or destroy them?
So yeah, it’s not “just doing IVF“. Don’t say that. Instead you could say, I’m sure that these treatment decisions are really hard to make. I’m here if you need to talk. Can I bring you a pie? Or some brownies?
This is right up there with “Why don’t you just adopt?” Thanks for getting the message out about these kinds of hurtful comments.
One of my personal least favorites is referring to the decision to have kids as a lifestyle choice. The reality is that it is only a choice for *some* people. I just blogged about this recently. http://fertilitylawmatters.com/a-lifestyle-choice/.
Your comment reminded me of something that’s been on my mind lately is how Julia Child has been held up as this example of a strong woman who so boldly led a childfree life and chose to not let societal pressure to have kids dictate the direction of her career and relationship… when that’s not exactly how it happened. That choice was thrust upon her by circumstance, not because of some grand feminist statement.
While I applaud her success in her field, and I support anyone who chooses to have kids or not to have kids as a lifestyle (provided they aren’t condescending and superior about it, as some can be on both sides) I don’t think it’s fair to automatically put Julia in with the childfree group as a social/political statement and it bothers me when I see people do it. That choice was taken from her, which is an entirely different experience, and should be respected on its own merit and for the strength and heartache it represents.