 Bringing up an IVF baby
IVF
is in the news again, as a surrogate mother carrying twins sues the
American couple who have backed out on the agreement. This controversy
raises many questions, not least how the twins will be affected when
they are born. In this feature, we focus on how parents cope with the
pressures of having an IVF baby. Dawn
Robinson-Walsh investigates...
Other people's expectations
Parents who undergo IVF and other procedures feel that they are
treated differently, not just through the tentative months of pregnancy
but also once the baby or babies are born. Such parents feel they are
expected to be eternally grateful for having their dream realised by
medical science, whereas having babies is something most of us simply
take for granted and as a right.
Samantha had four attempts at IVF. The first treatment gave her a
little girl, the final IVF resulted in twin boys. Her family is now
complete, but Samantha explains that she felt she never had a right to
be miserable or unhappy with motherhood. "I got the impression that
because I had children through IVF, I should always be happy," she
says. "We paid a lot of money out and went through a lot to have them,
so people tended to think that I should always have a smile on my face
but it can be very hard work with my one-year-old twin boys and a four-year-old girl."
This expectation of the all-singing, all-dancing happy mother is hard
to live up to in practice, with the realities of colic, sleepless
nights, and teething
–
alongside the huge sense of responsibility.
Despite increasing numbers of successful treatments, mothers themselves
feel that prevention of infertility is better than cure. Some successfully treated mothers find, difficult as it is to
admit, that motherhood is not all it’s cracked up to be
– babies are not a route to 100 per cent fulfilment.
Moral judgements
Moral judgements about fertility are commonplace, and often expressed
vociferously. General attitudes to fertility are often irrational
–
it's 'unnatural' not to want children, yet it's also 'unnatural' to try to achieve them by whatever means possible.
After trying unsuccessfully for a baby for nearly five years, Valerie
had a difficult time during her first pregnancy following IVF treatment,
but gave birth to a son. Two years later, she wanted a second child and
this time pregnancy was very straightforward.
But she remains aggrieved by general attitudes to IVF: "It makes
me so cross to hear people saying IVF is wrong, that it's interfering
with nature. The criticism seems to come from people who either don’t
want children or who have babies easily.
"How could anyone look at my boys and tell me what we did was
wrong? These people seem to have no idea of what it's like to want a
baby so badly, only to find that it seems an impossible dream."
Infertility treatments will increase in number and success; not as
an easy option, but an expensive, often painful route taken by
those who desperately want to be parents.
Can those who have not been through the IVF process really sit in
judgement?
Dawn Robinson-Walsh is co-author of Infertility & IVF – facts
& feelings from patients' perspectives, Scarlet Press, London,
1998.
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