Ivf
When I gave birth to my second gorgeous son six weeks ago, the first question some asked when they heard our happy news was: “So are you going to try again for a girl?”
Umm, how about you give the epidural time to wear off and let me enjoy my beautiful, healthy baby boy before telling me that somehow my world is not complete because I have only produced babies featuring both an X and Y chromosome.
Admittedly I have only had two children of the same sex, not seven like Tumut couple Andrew and Jodi McMahon who appeared on 60 Minutes on Sunday night documenting their desperate bid for a baby girl.
Continue reading "Choosing your baby’s sex is selfish beyond belief" »
There is no ‘right’ to have a child. This seems a callous thing to say, but wrapping any conversation about children up in cuddly pink fleece-lined jumpsuits doesn’t help what has to be a serious policy debate.
While it must be devastating for couples who, for whatever reason, are unable to conceive, there are limits to society’s obligations to help them. Like most controversial health decisions, this is a tale of clashing rights and finite resources.
Last year the Federal Government made changes to the Medicare Safety Net, effectively capping the amount they would pay out for assisted reproductive treatments.
Continue reading "I’m sorry, but society doesn’t owe you a child" »
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Lee says:
@Adam, it amazes me that our parents, grandparents, great-great grandparents and so on back through time, managed to breed without government handouts, so they may have done it tough, they may have had to work thier whole lives to support thier children, but they managed it. But now we have… Read more »
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Alannah says:
If our Government can’t support us then why are we sending millions of dollars overseas to other countries?? Why aren’t we sending boat people home rather then splashing out thousands of dollars each year in goods and services, if I break the law i’m punished yet if Aslyum Seekers come… Read more »
After nine years of trying to conceive, Manchester couple Lesley and John Brown gave birth to Louise, the world’s first test tube baby, this week in 1978. A newspaper paid £300,000 for the family’s story, which inspired thousands of people. By the time Louise was 21 in 1999, hundreds of thousands of women had concieved using IVF. That same year, Louise’s younger sister Natalie became the first IVF baby to in turn conceive - Louise followed soon after, giving birth to a son in 2004.
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Anthony R says:
There are plenty of sweet people who don’t have jobs Read more »
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The Badger says:
Cancel my subscription to all this. Read more »
Ninety-four year old actress Zsa Zsa Gabor’s ninth husband, Prince Frederik von Anhalt, reportedly wants her to have a baby using his sperm, a donor egg and a surrogate mother. Yes, he does. He visited a Beverley Hills fertility clinic for sperm analysis and blood work.
There have been no reports of him also having his head read; however, Gabor’s daughter, 64-year-old Francesca Hilton (a product of Gabor’s second marriage to hotel magnate, Conrad Hilton) has denounced the story as the latest in a string of wild publicity stunts by her seventh step-father.
And while the Gabor-Anhalts gallivant around celebrity baby clinics (if gallivanting is possible when you are just shy of a century, with a partially-amputated leg), my friend – a single mum of two young children – has announced that she has successfully battled cancer at the age of 38. Facing her own mortality, she had to put in place a plan for the care of her children, which involved her parents and her sisters.
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Katharine says:
Well said. What about cases where the woman in her 40s or 50s is married to a much younger man, eg in his 30s? You don’t see people mentioning that, either. If people react to older mums with disgust, why not the same disgust when older dads procreate? It’s hypocrisy. Read more »
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Jane says:
In reply to Sunny, well, my husband’s mother must have been a terrible, terrible role model for him. His mother had him at 18. My bogan husband and I were 31 and 29 respectively when we had our first child. Read more »
In Victoria alone, almost 500 single women and lesbians have used IVF and other fertility treatments since a law change in January last year made it easier. Some see this rise in fatherless parenting as a violation of children’s rights. Others say kids can cope without dads - although they still need male role models. Susie O’Brien’s story is in the Herald Sun today and she will be blogging live.
Do we really need dads?
Absolutely. In an ideal world all children would grow up with both male and female adults to care for them.
But in the absence of a father, a father figure who might be a close male relative or family friend can do the job just as well. It just takes time, love and commitment.
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here's for fathers everywhere says:
It would be a little difficult to bring a child into the world if you didn’t have a sperm to fertilise the egg. Yes I agree fathers are required for the human race to continue. I think all children need a father figure some one that mum wakes up beside… Read more »
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HeidiM says:
It’s too bad that many people are confusing marriage equality with child rearing. You don’t have to be married to have children - as proven by the many straight unmarried women that fall pregnant to a straight, unmarried man. You don’t have to be straight to have well raised kids.… Read more »
Should we play God? It’s time we dumped that question. It only shows how deluded we are about where we’ve already got to.
Playing God is taking over responsibility for the things that once could only be committed to prayer, ritual and trust in the Almighty – the things that couldn’t be controlled, including most things to do with the health of you and those you loved.
You become responsible for what was just “in God’s hands”. A hazard of life becomes a risk you accept. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the matter of starting a family.
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SB says:
So the world exists for you and how dare people have children because it means you have less resources. As a mother, you contributed to over population just as mouch as any other mother. Anyone who believes anything other than you must be stupid. What a naive comment. Read more »
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Lisa H. says:
Hasn’t the one child policy been relaxed over the past years? isn’t this partly because the gender imbalance was becoming obvious to the central planners? I cannot believe that the gender imbalance in China is simply a bizarre myth propagated by ‘anti-chinese’ forces. I can understand why a poor Chinese… Read more »
My attempts to write something in response to news that a Victorian couple - desperate for a daughter - had aborted twin boys conceived through IVF, met repeatedly with failure. I had a dental abscess when the story broke and I couldn’t think about the scenario without gnashing my teeth.
In the end, I had to stop writing, take two Nurofen Plus, lie on the couch and watch inane TV to calm down.
Toddlers and Tiaras would do the trick, I thought, wrongly.
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gzhdxt says:
Xl6luS rpbuxfxuyvub, algmmiodipti, [link=http://hpbnkrvczbpz.com/]hpbnkrvczbpz[/link], http://ticyuwyjzutl.com/ Read more »
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daniel says:
@Mr GG: Never accept any medical care, medicine, technology, burn youir house, and go live in nature and “just accept what life gave you” then. Read more »
A Melbourne couple’s decision to abort twin boys conceived through IVF – the weekend’s flashpoint news story – is a can of worms, a hornets’ nest and a Mandelbrot set of ethical complexity all in one.
The couple, after the death of their first baby girl, wasn’t happy with the twins’ gender and is now in the midst of legal action to pre-determine the sex of their next IVF baby.
Which, you might be surprised to learn, we can do nowadays. Some medical industry smart arse has even rebranded it ‘family balancing’.
Continue reading "Playing with nature - the ethics of sex selection" »
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Nay says:
Im a mother of two amazing gorgeous boys. My husband and I would love a 3rd child but he is recovering from cancer and we are unable to conceive naturally again. IVF will be our only option for conception if we try again. If it were put to me ‘do… Read more »
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Terrin says:
I do believe you are referring to a state law (can’t remember which state), in which a man was charged with manslaughter after causing an accident which resulted in the miscarriage of a baby at 8 months. As the baby, if delivered in a hospital, and not from severe stress/trauma… Read more »
Call me a bit of an idealistic Charlotte from Sex & The City, but if I have experienced something amazing, I want the world to experience it too.
So now I am a mum, I’d love the whole world to experience the joy of motherhood, particularly the women who are having difficulty falling pregnant. That’s why I am so supportive of IVF. Strangers (even friends who have dared not ask for fear it’s too private) assume I had my twins via IVF. I did not. And I would be willing to shout it from the rooftops if I had.
I have seen people close to me finally get their wish to be a parent thanks to this miraculous medical procedure. A few of the beautiful mums in my twin prenatal class had their multiples thanks to IVF and I know just how eternally grateful they are that the procedure exists.
Continue reading "Choosing a baby’s sex: the next great leap for parents" »
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Clare says:
i totally agree with Jazz. If you don’t believe in the gender selection, thats your opinion, but it doesn’t mean that you should restrict others of the right to choose the much wanted sex of their child. its inevitable that some parents want a certain gender when they are having… Read more »
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jazz says:
Funny how the people who try and say this is an unethical procedure try to bring up sex-ratios. If you were to use evidence from ‘extreme cases’ such as china, maybe you should consider the fact that the chinese sex ratio has been out of balance for a while now.… Read more »
One in six people in this country will encounter problems conceiving and need medical assistance to have a child.
It’s a startling figure and it probably explains why most of us know someone who has struggled to start or add to a family.
In the past there was little that could be done for these couples, but thankfully science has provided options that many only dreamed of previously. Sadly it seems the Government is about to take those options away from many Australians.
Continue reading "IVF for the rich and infertility for the rest" »
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Dee1983 says:
I’d like to know whether the people who make hurtful and insensitive comments about infertile couples have actually ever suffered from this problem. My husband and I are both 28 and are experiencing infertility problems. We live in the country, keep fit and are within the healthy weight range. There… Read more »
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Dreaming for a money tree cause the gov doesnt giv says:
Its just not fair, Im 37 my husband 30 I have PCOS, he has 1% count. We need IVF-ICSI most places want to charge 11-12k. I work PT he cant work due to illness. We have tried for 8 yrs to naturally concieve with no luck. We started IVF on… Read more »
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