Replies

As someone who has dealt with infertility for many years, and by the grace of God been given a much-loved child through IVF, I've also traveled this road with other IVF parents, and while I've heard of selective reduction, IMO it's not 'routine'--in over 10 years of participating on several internet infertility support groups, I've only seen it happen twice, with the same woman involved in both instances. She underwent IVF and became pregnant with quintuplets--had 4 of them 'selectively reduced' (i.e. IMO murdered), and wound up miscarrying the remaining baby. She went through IVF again and got pregnant right away with twins and a singleton. I and many other participants on the group were horrified that she chose selective reduction of the twins again, and we tried desperately to talk her out of it, but she was adamant that she wanted only the one baby, and went through the procedure. She miscarried the remaining baby as well, and we never heard from her again.

"Routine"? No, I don't believe that. You'd have to look at the statistics for successful IVFs (not that high)--the majority of successful cases are singletons. I've only heard of selective reduction being offered in cases where there are quintuplets, sextuplets, septuplets, octuplets--and frankly, there just aren't that many cases that come along involving those high numbers of successful pregnancies.

I've *never* heard of twins or triplets being selectively reduced since I've been online (1994). I believe fertility doctors are becoming much more careful about how many embryos they replace to avoid the higher multiples pregnancies, which carry many, many health problems, etc.

I just checked your freep page and saw your little blessing--what a beautiful little angel.

there are 2 sets of fraternal triplets at my sons school in the first grade. Both were I believe concieved by IVF. They are all beautiful healthy looking children.

Maya Grace is such a beautiful blessing from the Lord. I love her just from seeing her pictures on your freep page.

I have mixed feelings about IVF due to the chance of multiple births and the possibility of selective reduction to avoid it. I am the mother of twins and I honestly don't know how anyone could deal with more than two at one time!

Thanks to IVF, however, I have a beautiful grandniece and a handsome grandnephew who are turning three this year They were the first babies on my mother's side of the family since my twins were born almost 26 years ago. Although their mother had no problem at all conceiving, both of my nieces had problems and had to resort to IVF. Oddly enough, the mother of my grandnephew had started the treatments again about this time last year, but got too busy at work and was going to try again after Christmas. She is expecting her second child (a girl), this one conceived without IVF

I have mixed feelings about IVF due to the chance of multiple births and the possibility of selective reduction to avoid it. I am the mother of twins and I honestly don't know how anyone could deal with more than two at one time!

Thanks to IVF, however, I have a beautiful grandniece and a handsome grandnephew who are turning three this year They were the first babies on my mother's side of the family since my twins were born almost 26 years ago. Although their mother had no problem at all conceiving, both of my nieces had problems and had to resort to IVF. Oddly enough, the mother of my grandnephew had started the treatments again about this time last year, but got too busy at work and was going to try again after Christmas. She is expecting her second child (a girl), this one conceived without IVF.

I know a family who had multiple births which I am sure was due to IVF. They had triplets, and one of the girls had cerebral palsy. They've organized their life around her, starting a foundation for her, and working to raise money to cure and treat cerebral palsy.

I'm sure they did not intend to be leaders in raising money for health purposes before they had the triplets. Funny how Providence guides a family.