thoughts on telling older child you're doing IVF?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The excuses you mention are not a big deal. She interrupts you in the morning? Guess what, the bathroom door has a lock on it. You can say that something at work will require you to leave early, end of story. Adult stuff is for adults, do not come up with excuses to burden an 11 yo with all this stuff. She is too young and can't be your support system in this.

I don't get the impression OP wants to burden her daughter with anything. She has an extremely observant kid. Did you see the part about how she knew her mother was pregnant within weeks because of weight gain? I have to assume those pregnancies did not end well, so I imagine this kid is already feeling burdened by knowledge and that can't really be erased. I think the OP will do what she can to mitigate the burden on her kid, but I think it's unrealistic (in this particular situation) to think she can hide everything.

Why would you not deflect that kind of question and observation from a 9/10/11 year old? Why does a kid that age even know you're trying to get pregnant? Too much.

"Mom, you look like you've gained some weight." or "Mom, you look bloated."
"Thanks for noticing Caroline! I must have eaten too many chips and guacamole at lunch."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The excuses you mention are not a big deal. She interrupts you in the morning? Guess what, the bathroom door has a lock on it. You can say that something at work will require you to leave early, end of story. Adult stuff is for adults, do not come up with excuses to burden an 11 yo with all this stuff. She is too young and can't be your support system in this.

I don't get the impression OP wants to burden her daughter with anything. She has an extremely observant kid. Did you see the part about how she knew her mother was pregnant within weeks because of weight gain? I have to assume those pregnancies did not end well, so I imagine this kid is already feeling burdened by knowledge and that can't really be erased. I think the OP will do what she can to mitigate the burden on her kid, but I think it's unrealistic (in this particular situation) to think she can hide everything.

Ok. But some stuff is still none of the daughter's business and in fact, it's not emotionally healthy for her to be involved. It's ok to draw boundaries and not answer every observation or expression of curiosity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The excuses you mention are not a big deal. She interrupts you in the morning? Guess what, the bathroom door has a lock on it. You can say that something at work will require you to leave early, end of story. Adult stuff is for adults, do not come up with excuses to burden an 11 yo with all this stuff. She is too young and can't be your support system in this.

I don't get the impression OP wants to burden her daughter with anything. She has an extremely observant kid. Did you see the part about how she knew her mother was pregnant within weeks because of weight gain? I have to assume those pregnancies did not end well, so I imagine this kid is already feeling burdened by knowledge and that can't really be erased. I think the OP will do what she can to mitigate the burden on her kid, but I think it's unrealistic (in this particular situation) to think she can hide everything.."

Yes, I got that part. I also got a sense that OP likes to overshare with the child. You can either deflect when questioned about the weight or confess. OP made a choice to share about the pregnancies too early. Unless she had a late term loss, which is impossible to hide.

[Anonymous]

I agree it's too much for your daughter to handle, regardless of how mature and observant she is.

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure how many cycles are involved in giving it the old college try before giving up forever, but if you tell her won't she wonder why you didn't do more

[Anonymous]

OP here. I guess I asked for this kind of crap when I posted, but seriously people. I don't have some inappropriate/cruel/immature relationship with my child where I "overburden" her with my adult issues. You know why she knows about ONE of my THREE pregnancy losses? Because I miscarried during a road trip right in front of her and we had to stop along the road and go to a hospital. And she was told by a nurse, not me, while I bled and cramped up in a room far away from her. Please don't make nasty assumptions about why I've told my daughter what I've told her.

And as for why she even knows that we're trying? Because she wants a sibling more than anything in the world. Because she prays at night, every night, for it and we aren't even church-goers. Because every Christmas since she was 7, she has asked Santa for a sibling and nothing else. So yeah somewhere along the way, when barraged with 1,000 entreaties as to why we weren't expanding our family we sat her down and said something like "baby, we want you to know that the reason you don't have a sibling isn't because we aren't trying. Some people try and get one and some people have to wait a long time before they get one and some people try and try and never get one. But we're trying." And no, we didn't inappropriately say much more than that. Sorry. You can't convince me THAT was oversharing.

[Anonymous]

I would tell her OP, but I would also limit how much I share. I think a pp's suggestion about padding the time frame for when you would know if it works is a good idea. I think I'd also set pretty low expectations. "Mommy will need to try a bunch of different medications to see which ones might work. It often takes lots of tries for these things, so I'll be doing a lot of this for quite a while. I don't want you to worry about me. This is very grown-up stuff, and as soon as we know anything for sure we will tell you. Ok? This is also something we won't talk about with most of our friends so I want you to know so we're not hiding anything, and then I want you to just ignore it and not worry about it."

Set her up to be included but not burdened, promise her she'll be the first to know when you have anything definite to tell, and ask her to not talk about it outside the family. She will probably take significant non-verbal cues from your own tension around the issue so try to be breezy and light about it (though writing that as someone who is a veteran of infertility issues that sounds absurd. But still....)

Good luck OP.

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure if this is helpful to you, but I remember that when I was a kid, I knew that my dad underwent some sort of procedure "so that we could try to give you a baby brother or sister." I'm not exactly sure how old I was at the time. My dad was in the hospital overnight, and I remember going to visit him there. It's fuzzy.

I do understand with IVF, the concern may be the ups and downs over the course of a few weeks, which would be different. My parents certainly didn't keep me appraised of every development in their attempts to have another kid, and we haven't really talked since about the fact that they had fertility issues. I remember they seemed excited, and I think they asked if I had any questions, but it wasn't as though they opened the door for continuing status updates on the subject. It may be different if your daughter is watching you take the shots every night and it becomes a family project.

But for what it's worth, I have never really had any feelings one way or another about knowing my parents sought medical intervention to have another child. I didn't feel burdened. I didn't spend a lot of time worrying about why it didn't work. (And in the end, it didn't; I'm an only child).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would tell her OP, but I would also limit how much I share. I think a pp's suggestion about padding the time frame for when you would know if it works is a good idea. I think I'd also set pretty low expectations. "Mommy will need to try a bunch of different medications to see which ones might work. It often takes lots of tries for these things, so I'll be doing a lot of this for quite a while. I don't want you to worry about me. This is very grown-up stuff, and as soon as we know anything for sure we will tell you. Ok? This is also something we won't talk about with most of our friends so I want you to know so we're not hiding anything, and then I want you to just ignore it and not worry about it."

Set her up to be included but not burdened, promise her she'll be the first to know when you have anything definite to tell, and ask her to not talk about it outside the family. She will probably take significant non-verbal cues from your own tension around the issue so try to be breezy and light about it (though writing that as someone who is a veteran of infertility issues that sounds absurd. But still....)

Good luck OP.

This is really good advice. Best of luck OP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I guess I asked for this kind of crap when I posted, but seriously people. I don't have some inappropriate/cruel/immature relationship with my child where I "overburden" her with my adult issues. You know why she knows about ONE of my THREE pregnancy losses? Because I miscarried during a road trip right in front of her and we had to stop along the road and go to a hospital. And she was told by a nurse, not me, while I bled and cramped up in a room far away from her. Please don't make nasty assumptions about why I've told my daughter what I've told her.

And as for why she even knows that we're trying? Because she wants a sibling more than anything in the world. Because she prays at night, every night, for it and we aren't even church-goers. Because every Christmas since she was 7, she has asked Santa for a sibling and nothing else. So yeah somewhere along the way, when barraged with 1,000 entreaties as to why we weren't expanding our family we sat her down and said something like "baby, we want you to know that the reason you don't have a sibling isn't because we aren't trying. Some people try and get one and some people have to wait a long time before they get one and some people try and try and never get one. But we're trying." And no, we didn't inappropriately say much more than that. Sorry. You can't convince me THAT was oversharing.

OP, from your 12:46 post: "She has noticed my previous 3 pregnancies within WEEKS because of bloating."

I think your previous comment may have been what led people down the rabbit hole.

Best of luck.

[Anonymous]

When I underwent IVF, my husband and I were open about the process with our then-7-year-old daughter.

If my daughter was nearby when it was time for shots, she watched me administer them. Whenever she had questions, we openly answered her.

We let our older child know that the shots could help, but not guarantee, that she'd get a sibling.

Our daughter is deeply intuitive, empathetic and bright, and letting her know about the IVF process was the right move for our family.

[Anonymous]

OP, your daughter sounds very sweet, but I think you need to do a better job with boundaries generally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. PP nailed it on the head by mentioning the ups and downs that I'm trying to protect her from. That's exactly my worry. But the practical suggestions you shared just wouldn't work. I work and since the shots have to be 12 hours apart there's no way to do them all at work. I need to take one in the morning when she's interrupting me 5 times to ask me what to wear and one at night when she wants me to watch Dance Moms reruns or help with homework. And we only have one fridge at home. (And our neighbors are not people I want to involve in this and be randomly bothering them in the am or pm.) And in fact, I will be having to leave my house before she goes to school on all my monitoring days so I can do it before heading to work. And if there is any weight gain, she'll be on me like a hawk. She has noticed my previous 3 pregnancies within WEEKS because of bloating. She's like a Seeing Eye Kid, this one. Hiding the shots is frankly going to be impossible. Hiding the appointments, impossible. I guess what I'm trying to figure out is which is worse for her... watching her stress out from not knowing what's really going on and feeling like she's only getting half-truths from us or giving her an explanation that might be too much for her to be able to mentally/emotionally process and having her go through what is very difficult emotionally for adults, let alone kids.

She's smart, you're lucky. But you are the parent. Go in the bedroom/bathroom and shut the door and give yourself the shot. I had one type of stim that needed to be refrigerated all the time, the other..Menopur I think, only the left over mix in the vial needed to be, so it was a small bottle in the door - up high. And I hate to say it, but that 12 hour thing isn't hard and fast. I never knew about it until after having my first DS. I definitely did shots every night, but it wasn't at the exact same time. There was probably a 3 hour window where I did it nightly. Except for the trigger shot, I didn't observe a strict regimen. When you go on the Ganirelix -- the AM shot, I ran out at one point and the doc just gave me a syringe at my monitoring appointment, which had to be as solid 2 hours outside of my normal injection time. OP - give yourself a break, the stress of dodging this kid isn't good for you...

[Anonymous]

OP here. I guess now I'm one of those annoying people who keep responding to the responders, but here goes.

I did say my daughter noticed each pregnancy. I didn't mean to suggest that I spoke to her about them or let her know she was right. Either she's just one of those sensitive, empaths who can pick up on stuff or what, but she knew. Each time, she knew. And she would tell me I knew. And I would deny. I would deflect. I even tried the whole "it's not polite to point out weigh gain" line once. She winked at me and said something smart-alecky like "it's not polite to lie to your kid about not being pregnant." I know, people are eye-rolling that I think I have a special snowflake. But she's... special. She sees things people don't want seen. She pays attention to everything. And still, I've literally lied to her face about it all. Except for vaguely finally giving in one Christmas day when she was crying while playing with her legos that it was going to be yet another year with no sibling to play with. Maybe it was wrong. But it felt right just to tell her that we were still trying. And I literally had no choice about one of the miscarriages. I wouldn't have told her the truth but a medical professional took that out of my hands.

My gut told me to maybe be vaguely honest about medicine, since she's going to see it and I have no intention of buying a mini fridge and trying to hide it. Our house isn't so huge that she wouldn't notice something like that. I don't have a "walk in closet." And we don't have locks on any doors in the house except the front and the back. But my gut was also telling me not to say anything more because I do want to protect her heart from the ups and downs. I just wanted some thoughts from the community on whether I should actually say more. Other threads have people telling their kids at 3 and 4 that they came from a donor egg, which I get is a different situation, but it still made me at least wonder whether I should tell my deeply invested pre-teen a little more than what I had been telling her. I'm frankly shocked at all the judgment getting thrown my way. Thanks to those of you who have posted thoughtful suggestions. They are deeply appreciated.

[Anonymous]

First, I suggest installing a lock in a bathroom and keep g the supplies akin a box in the veggie drawer. I've been through ivf, and there's much less to it than I think you have in your mind.

Also, I would consider not only your privacy concerns, but also the privacy concerns of any child you conceive through ivf. I have two living, breathing children, both born through ivf. I have not yet had reason to tell them (they are mid-elementary school), but I think that it will really be their news to share. I definitely would not want my older child understanding that we conceived are younger child through IVF before the younger child is fully prepared to understand the reproduction system and complexities. This really seems like over sharing on your part, and in a way that does not recognize that, hopefully, there will be another person involved who may not want this information communicated to his or her sibling.