Reply to thoughts on telling older child you're doing IVF?

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[quote=Anonymous]I've got an 11 year old. We're still trying to give her a sibling, which she DESPERATELY wants. We've had multiple failed pregnancies, one of which she ended up learning about because it was unavoidable. She's extremely invested in the whole process and a very intuitive kid. She notices [b]everything[/b].

DH and I have agreed to dip our toes into IVF and give it the old college try before finally giving up forever. I'm about to start stimming and I will soon have a refrigerator of injectibles. I hadn't planned on telling her what we're doing. First, I don't want to get her hopes up. Second, I just want to let her be a kid without worrying about stuff like this. (I know her, she will be stressed about it--worried about the shots, worried about the procedures, worried about the outcome.) Third, she's a kid. She tells her friends EVERYTHING. Selfishly, I don't really want every neighborhood mom to know what we're up to and, trust me, they will know about 12 hours after she knows. And I just don't feel like dealing with a collection of well-meaning busy-bodies into my personal fertility journey.  But... it's kind of a joke to think that I can hide all this from her. The shots. The side effects that are likely from the shots. All of the upcoming appointments.

Anybody else dealt with a similar scenario, i.e. your first kid is old enough to notice and ask questions about your IVF process? How much did you decide to tell? How much is too much/too little to say? How did you describe it? I'm thinking of just saying "mommy is taking some medicine to try to help her make a baby" and that's about it. But she's pretty mature and she's definitely going to know/tell/feel that I'm not telling her the whole story and she doesn't like that.

(And...in case it comes up, I will have no problem talking to her, or any eventual sibling, later that the second child was a product of IVF. It's not like I'm ashamed of it or don't want them to know. And it's not that I haven't been open with 11 year old about how babies are made. It's just that I'm not sure it'll be good for her to know the entire detailed process of it at her age. But maybe I'm wrong?)

THANKS![/quote]

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