Dear iVillage, Why your IVF post made me so mad - Bianca Dye

On Sunday, we published an opinion piece about a UK survey that found most people believed women over 40 should not have access to IVF. Understandably, the writer’s stance angered a lot of women, including radio host Bianca Dye. Here is her right of reply…

I wasn’t even sure how to start this article. When I read Cinthia Pierce’s article, I had this sick feeling of ‘maybe she is right’ – this chick who threw me into one of my pissed off spins.

I’m quite good at these “spins” – I can work myself up into quite the lather when I read something that has hit a core value of mine and triggered me. I lash out like a caged tiger and say hurtful things to numb away whatever cruel card I feel I have been dealt.

I started thinking, maybe this chick who wrote the story is right.

You know that moment in time when it's suspended because you think, "Hold on, are they right?!" Am I the selfish old cow who decided way too late in life that I really did want a family and now I'm supposedly one of "those" selfish over-40s clogging up all the IVF funding and clinics? Is that me? Am I a bad person?

I am not. Life ain't no bag of friggin' Freckles for everyone and some of us get a really crappy raw end of the "life stick". I know that - you know that. We do the best with what we've got. I'm not saying I got any crappy ends of sticks myself, but I did have a childhood that made my ability to have normal relationships with men (heck - anyone!) a little awkward. (That's putting it mildly but I know my mother will read this and I just don't need the grief right now.)

What I'm getting at is it took this little duck until I was 40 to even find a guy I wanted to have a family with, let alone wanted to be with me, and I'm now supposed to feel "bad" about that and guilty for wanting to use IVF to help my dream come true? Gimme a break, lady.

I ain't buying it for one minute.

The argument suggests I am too old and selfish to clog up the system because it receives such little Government support financially. It goes on to say that the Medicare funding should be more available to the young women who actually need the IVF due to serious fertility issues, and not for 40 years old such as myself who clearly were too busy gallivanting around the countryside and having way too much fun to even think about kids when they "should" have been.

Are. You. Serious? Has this in fact taken the feminist debate we all fought for so strongly (well, I bought my copy of the Female Eunich so that counts, yes?) about a billion years?! I thought the whole reason we now have the choice to have a baby when we want - a career, a family - to be whatever we want was so we bought ourselves some time so we didn't have to hurry up and have a "family" early on and sacrifice a career to choose a family instead. That we can now wait 'til we meet the "one", whenever that may be?

What the real argument here should be how disgustingly expensive IVF is and how having a baby is out of reach for so may couples via IVF, no matter what age they are. The price is so insanely high and Medicare only covers such a tiny amount.

We need to stick together, because the real enemy is not our fellow sisters who happen to be older and want babies later in life (as is their right!) but a government that is not giving us a true helping hand to bring a life onto this earth.

Dramatic? Perhaps. But you get my drift.

Do you agree with Bianca that IVF is too expensive and should be more accessible for all?

Bianca will be appearing on the Weekend TODAY Show on Channel 9/WIN TV this Saturday morning to discuss this controversial topic in detail with a panel. Tune in to the conversation at 8am.