Telling My Kids About Their IVF Story??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When should I tell my kids that they are IVF babies? Should I also tell them that we did IQ screening on the embryos or should I wait until they are adults to mention this detail? At what age did you tell your kids that they were IVF babies and how did you explain it?

It is so clinical and cold.

Imagine your mother telling you that you were concocted in a lab.

[Anonymous]

I would NEVER tell them about testing for IQ.

Are they biologically your (and your husband's?) children? Then you just tell them that a doctor helped me get pregnant using something called IVF. As they get older, they will ask what that is, and you describe what it was (my egg and Daddy's sperm were put in a dish, once the egg was fertilized, it was implanted in me and you grew!)

If you are single, then you will say: I wanted to be pregnant, but didn't have a husband so I chose to use IVF, and used sperm from a kind man who donated it for people like me.

If you are a gay couple, then you use something like the above - we used Mom (not Mama's) egg - or we used my egg for you and Mama's egg for your sibling - and then we used sperm from a kind man who donated it so we could have you and your sibling!

BUT YOU NEVER SAY YOU TESTED FOR IQ. Because what? If one of the eggs was a dummy, then you'd abort? Or not use that egg? It just makes you and your partner sound horrifying, and I wouldn't want to find out my parents were horrifying. But whatever.

Maybe in 25 years, if it's a common thing, then you'd admit it to your adult children.

But telling them about IVF isn't telling them about testing for IQ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op get a life and stop trolling. Do share the “scientific method” available to assess the IQ of a fetus.

There are companies that run polygenic scores for IQ on embryo DNA data. A few people have already done this and I’m one of these people. This practice is not common yet, but will likely become more common over time. This is a serious question and I’m asking for answers on what age it’s appropriate to tell the kids about it.

They will come to know that you are a eugenicist whether you announce it or not, in all likelihood.

OK, I disagree with the use of that term in this situation. Life is not fair and I do not think people should just accept genetic bad luck now that there is a way to tilt the odds in your kids favor.Why should people accept that they are condemned to an increase risk of Alzheimers (due to family history) when they can now screen to reduce the risk? This is no different than giving your kid a vaccine or antibiotics. It is just another way to decrease the odds that your children will suffer from a disease.

[Anonymous]

Some of these comments are wild.

We told our daughter we used IFV when we had "the talk" about sex, I think this was the summer before 5th grade. She read a book with the word sperm in it (a middle grade book the school assigned of all things) and that's what prompted this. We explained how the sperm and egg usually get together, and that in our case it didn't work. So we moved on to having a doctor to help, and that's how the doctor helped the sperm and egg meet.

We got a picture of her as a 10 day old embryo after implantation that we showed her. We added that life doesn't always work out how you think, we thought we would have kids the old-fashioned way and that we would have more kids, but in the end we ended up with the perfect family for us!

In fifth grade they had the sex talk at her Catholic school, and they could ask anonymous questions, and she asked "What is IVF" because, she said, she thought everyone should know.

Maybe it seems cold and sterile to people who have not done this but there is a ton of love, trust and hope that goes into building a family like this.

No comment on the IQ test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op get a life and stop trolling. Do share the “scientific method” available to assess the IQ of a fetus.

There are companies that run polygenic scores for IQ on embryo DNA data. A few people have already done this and I’m one of these people. This practice is not common yet, but will likely become more common over time. This is a serious question and I’m asking for answers on what age it’s appropriate to tell the kids about it.

This concept has a very Theranos vibe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op get a life and stop trolling. Do share the “scientific method” available to assess the IQ of a fetus.

There are companies that run polygenic scores for IQ on embryo DNA data. A few people have already done this and I’m one of these people. This practice is not common yet, but will likely become more common over time. This is a serious question and I’m asking for answers on what age it’s appropriate to tell the kids about it.

They will come to know that you are a eugenicist whether you announce it or not, in all likelihood.

OK, I disagree with the use of that term in this situation. Life is not fair and I do not think people should just accept genetic bad luck now that there is a way to tilt the odds in your kids favor.Why should people accept that they are condemned to an increase risk of Alzheimers (due to family history) when they can now screen to reduce the risk? This is no different than giving your kid a vaccine or antibiotics. It is just another way to decrease the odds that your children will suffer from a disease.

Avoiding a terminal illness is not the same as screening for IQ, height, athleticism, etc. and you know that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When should I tell my kids that they are IVF babies? Should I also tell them that we did IQ screening on the embryos or should I wait until they are adults to mention this detail? At what age did you tell your kids that they were IVF babies and how did you explain it?

It is so clinical and cold.

Imagine your mother telling you that you were concocted in a lab.

Now imagine your mother telling you the details about how your were conceived.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When should I tell my kids that they are IVF babies? Should I also tell them that we did IQ screening on the embryos or should I wait until they are adults to mention this detail? At what age did you tell your kids that they were IVF babies and how did you explain it?

It is so clinical and cold.

Imagine your mother telling you that you were concocted in a lab.

I thought like this before I actually went through IVF due to infertility. Once you’ve been through it, you realize that you (and any partner who went through this with you) invested so much time, effort, money, and physical discomfort in the process; you were so much more in tune with every phase of your menstrual cycle and every change in your body; you were so much more emotionally vulnerable; you and your partner were went through so many intimate experiences together, and shared the same hopes/prayers/fears/optimism/shock/devastation/despair/triumph/joy/gratitude; you had so many people working with you, encouraging you, praying for you, mourning with you, celebrating with you; it was all so intentional and emotional and all consuming that the experience was not cold and clinical at all. It was high drama, an emotional roller coaster, and it either seriously damaged your relationship with your partner or strengthened and deepened your bond through a trial by fire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When should I tell my kids that they are IVF babies? Should I also tell them that we did IQ screening on the embryos or should I wait until they are adults to mention this detail? At what age did you tell your kids that they were IVF babies and how did you explain it?

It is so clinical and cold.

Imagine your mother telling you that you were concocted in a lab.

Would you rather hear about how mommy was riding daddy cowgirl?

[Anonymous]

Both are equally stupid, no?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When should I tell my kids that they are IVF babies? Should I also tell them that we did IQ screening on the embryos or should I wait until they are adults to mention this detail? At what age did you tell your kids that they were IVF babies and how did you explain it?

Never
Why would you ever tell your children this?

Agree.. What is there to share?
Hard Stop

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op get a life and stop trolling. Do share the “scientific method” available to assess the IQ of a fetus.

There are companies that run polygenic scores for IQ on embryo DNA data. A few people have already done this and I’m one of these people. This practice is not common yet, but will likely become more common over time. This is a serious question and I’m asking for answers on what age it’s appropriate to tell the kids about it.

They will come to know that you are a eugenicist whether you announce it or not, in all likelihood.

OK, I disagree with the use of that term in this situation. Life is not fair and I do not think people should just accept genetic bad luck now that there is a way to tilt the odds in your kids favor.Why should people accept that they are condemned to an increase risk of Alzheimers (due to family history) when they can now screen to reduce the risk? This is no different than giving your kid a vaccine or antibiotics. It is just another way to decrease the odds that your children will suffer from a disease.

It is different. You are deliberately creating a bunch of embryos to see which one has the best genes and discarding the rest. It is selective reduction. It’s not that people should just accept genetic bad luck, you are making the choice to say this embryo meets my standards and that one does not. The embryo with the “good genetic luck” wins and gets to be implanted, the embryo with the “genetic bad luck” never has a chance to accept it or reject it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op get a life and stop trolling. Do share the “scientific method” available to assess the IQ of a fetus.

There are companies that run polygenic scores for IQ on embryo DNA data. A few people have already done this and I’m one of these people. This practice is not common yet, but will likely become more common over time. This is a serious question and I’m asking for answers on what age it’s appropriate to tell the kids about it.

They will come to know that you are a eugenicist whether you announce it or not, in all likelihood.

OK, I disagree with the use of that term in this situation. Life is not fair and I do not think people should just accept genetic bad luck now that there is a way to tilt the odds in your kids favor.Why should people accept that they are condemned to an increase risk of Alzheimers (due to family history) when they can now screen to reduce the risk? This is no different than giving your kid a vaccine or antibiotics. It is just another way to decrease the odds that your children will suffer from a disease.

It is different. You are deliberately creating a bunch of embryos to see which one has the best genes and discarding the rest. It is selective reduction. It’s not that people should just accept genetic bad luck, you are making the choice to say this embryo meets my standards and that one does not. The embryo with the “good genetic luck” wins and gets to be implanted, the embryo with the “genetic bad luck” never has a chance to accept it or reject it.

I did not deliberately create a bunch of embryos. I only did one IVF cycle and I used this information to prioritize which embryos to transfer first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When should I tell my kids that they are IVF babies? Should I also tell them that we did IQ screening on the embryos or should I wait until they are adults to mention this detail? At what age did you tell your kids that they were IVF babies and how did you explain it?

It is so clinical and cold.

Imagine your mother telling you that you were concocted in a lab.

But it doesn’t have to be presented in a cold way at all.

You could emphasize to your child, how,

mommy loved her and wanted her so much that she went through many many painful shots and uncomfortable tests just for a chance to have a baby. Then, she went to the clinic on that special day to have her baby put inside. And daddy went too that day. He did his part in a special room. Then he was with mommy every step of the way.

You can make the story about love if you try.