At the start of my pg I didn't - I kind of felt embarrassed, I guess. But as I slowly started to mention it, generally when someone else said they're having trouble, or they've been trying for a while, I found it easier and easier to tell people. Now I feel that it's important to mention it, because it shouldn't be a taboo subject, and so I feel like it's almost a responsibility to not shy away from mentioning if it's appropriate. I usually say now, 'Well, we needed a bit of help to get this one, so... (we're not sure when the next one will be, or so I can recommend a good FS if you're interested, or so you can feel comfortable telling me more of your story, or whatever.)
Because i have worked in a private maternity hospital for years I know how many babies are ivf, so to me its just fairly common. I totally agree it shouldn't be taboo anymore, the more we talk about it the more understanding there will be
Funnily, when we were TTC I didn't mind telling some people that we were doing IVF. Now that my children are here I am very protective of them and their privacy. I so often read of people saying that IVF is "messing with nature", "unnatural" etc which I find incredibly hurtful and I don't ever want that sort of judgement to be levelled at my kids. While I wouldn't expect that people would ever say anything to my/their face, I never know deep down what people think.
I don't even know if we will tell the kids down the track if that's how they were conceived, so I don't think it's right to tell everyone something about them that is their personal history.
I guess also I feel like I just want to be a normal family, I want to put all that trauma (it was very hard on us) of conceiving in that way and pretend that we were able to conceive our babies in the throes of passion rather than the circumstances that it was.
They are my reasons for not, but that is because I associate such awful stress and memories to the process. If you do not, and feel a huge sense of pride over what you went through to get your child, then I think that is fantastic and by all means shout it out
All of my family and friends know that Quinn is an IVF bub. When people ask about him I usually just say that he took a lot of time, money and tears to get and that we are over the moon to have him here. Generally that gives them the hint that he is IVF. We have male factor infertility and the amount of people that have said (including our ob ****!) "oh you watch now that you've had one, you'll fall pregnant naturally". UHHHHHHH NO!!!!!
Bookmarks