I really empathize with those who are childless and would do anything to have a child of their own. Before I had my first, I was so eager to experience pregnancy and birth for myself, so I can't fault anybody else for wanting that. I do wonder why so many people dump $$$ into fertility processes, however, when they can adopt a child for the same or less money. In most cases, adopting a child is a surefire way you'll end up with one! Fertility treatments can't promise success. If we decide to expand our family, it will be done through adoption (and we don't have fertility problems).

I struggle with infertility and I think we do it because we desperately want a child of our own. One that looks like us. I'm all for adopting though. I would love to give a child in need a good home. I just wish either of the two options didn't cost so much. It's hard to see teenage mothers having children, or see on the news that people who have kids are abusing them, or murdering them. I'm still struggling to accept the fact that they are able to have children and I'm not. I'm not saying I'm perfect or anything, but I would never purposefully harm a baby.

If God wanted you to have a baby dont you think he would let you do it naturaly?

Some times he makes us work a little harder for the things we want in life so that we truly appreciate it more when it happens. When you cry, bleed, sweat and poor money into a cause it makes a successful out come so much more sweeter. This goes for IVF or adoption when you have a good out come you open your eyes to the miracle of God.

"If God wanted you to have a baby dont you think he would let you do it naturaly? "


Apparently God wanted me to die of pneumonia at age 3, luckily my parents didn't worry about what was "natural" and had some clever doctors intervene.

Thank God for medical science.

"If God wanted you to have a baby dont you think he would let you do it naturaly? "

That is quite possibly the dumbest comment I've seen to date. So, what, because I'm having trouble getting pregnant, I'm being punished in some way? Sorry, no. Our bodies are all different and some need more help than others.

There is a notion that if you sin you are punished. That is not true.

This technology is a wonderful thing. Any thing that allows women to keep the commandments and have children is a thing to be celebrated. Technology has allowed birth control to be used for too long to allow women to disobey the commandment to have children.

"If God wanted you to have a baby dont you think he would let you do it naturaly?"

Who says that infertility treatments aren't part of God's plan?

I'd like to know how it's part of God's plan to make married, financially secure people infertile, while teenagers continue to pop out babies like human Pez dispensers. Is that part of God's plan?

This is such a loaded topic -- an intimate family decision for many, an accident resulting from recreational fornication for many more. For some it's a selfish choice to have children or not to have them. For others, it's completely the opposite.

Science and ethics are in an impossible tangle here. I love that responsible couples, otherwise infertile, can give birth and become parents. I hate that we have frozen embryos that are "extra" and we can't decide what's appropriate to do with them. I hate that people can put off having children for convenience during their most fertile years just because science is able to compensate for many of them.

Emotions run wild on both sides of medical intervention, but life was much simpler when nature provided our only choices. I think nature teaches personal responsibility better than medical technology can with regard to both prevention and assistance, regardless of the miracles available today.

This was very interesting to me because I have been pondering this question lately and thinking of my grandmother and her era. Most likely if someone had said that there would be test tube babies or you could use a sperm bank, someone would have said back then that surely the Lord would come before that would ever happen. It might have looked wrong back then however we do have woman and men for whatever reason cannot reproduce without outside help. While I am all for medical technology (it saved my life a few years back), I do wonder how far we should go with it. It bothers me that some children might only know their biological parents only as donor number. However at the same time, these same children were able to be created and born. It is a tough issue. I do wonder if we will get so advanced in technology that one day a woman will no longer be needed to host an embyro. Something just doesn't feel right and yet how far is too far!!!

No. Fertility is less expensive than many adoptions.

But fertilty has it's problems. The case of the wrong embryo implanted into the wrong women. The parent of the embryo is the one who gets custody, not the one who gives birth. A couple adopted an embryo and had a gestational carrier carry it. The carrier decided she didn't like the couple and found out more about them. Even though they had a social worker approve them as parents, can be part of the embryo adoption process. The law is one her side cause they set it up like domestic adoption and the carrier as a birth mom instead of a gestational carrier.

Adoption is harder to do. There is a trend, a good one of keeping families together. We give SNAP cards, insurance, WIC to 12 year olds to raise babies. We try an feed the whole famiy and not just offer to feed and cloth children in feeding centers in poor countries. Adoption is also a risk. Take home a child only to find a parent suddenly turn up before the period to change their mind. Or another relative fighting for custody who was opposed to adoption.

Some people have the opposite problem and can't help but get pregnant. I think that instead of aborting fetuses, we should give them up for adoption to good families.

If we just encouraged people to not abort and to continue pregnancy without any fee (except for the cost of the hospital care, prenatal care, etc.), then there would be enough children to go out to people who are childless.

It's not a balancing act. Making sure every one gets a chance to parent.

I do not like abortion. But I'd rather see efforts first to see if the family can raise with support systems in place before looking into adoption.

Only 1% of never married women place. That's half the infant adoptions in the US.

Erin what fertility treatments do you call extreme? What's unethical? Someone will eventually clone an intelligent, self-aware human being who will grow up to be a normal person. This will definitely shake the entire foundation of all religious belief.

We had our son by IVF (roughly $12,000). We adopted our daughter with almost nothing unexpected financially for roughly $25,000. You want to try telling me again that adoption is cheaper?

Before you can even begin adoption, parents must answer hundreds of personally invasive questions, most of which have no bearing on raising a child. Unlike "normal" parents, we must undergo fingerprinting, background checks, and health physicals. Then we must sign up with multiple adoption services with their entry fees ranging from the very rare free to $15,000 or more. Once signed up, you then create personal advertisements, basically selling yourselves. Once selected (a process that could take months or years or maybe even never), you must continue to sell yourself to the birth mother, which may include paying her living expenses that include not just needs but also wants. You also pay the fees of a paralegal/social worker who acts as the mediator between you and the birth mother. The whole time, you are not guaranteed a baby, as a birth mother (as should be their right) can back out at any time.