To tell dh that if by some remote chance I get a job that's it?

[Lovedmywildway]

I've been a sahm since ds was born five years ago. When he started reception last year I didn't go back to work and instead we had three rounds of failed Ivf. I volunteered four days a week instead so that I was doing something and so that I could take time at short notice to attend appointments, have egg collection, recover from yet another failed cycle etc.

Dh wants to keep trying, we are now chasing this pipe dream by planning on going to Spain for donor embryo treatment, we can afford another three cycles.
However he is also putting a lot of pressure on me to go back to work. He doesn't see why he should carry all the financial responsibility which is fair enough. He earns approx £90k so we can afford for me to stay at home, it's more he thinks it's unfair that I'm at home. Well volunteering but not bringing any worth to the house.
I've applied for jobs and miracously have two interviews next week. We were planning to go to Spain in January but I've tried to explain that if I get one of these jobs it won't be possible. They are teaching jobs. I cannot start a new job and then ask for days off to go to Spain, particularly a teaching job. His blasé repsonse was "you'll just have to phone in sick" which I'm not doing, I can't cope with the stress of Ivf treatment abroad, ds and trying to organise a full time teaching job around it. I just can't. If I wasnt a teacher it wouldn't be so bad but I feel even if I get a job doing something else asking for time off at short notice is going to be hard when I've just started.

I've said we will have to wait for next summer and hope that my cycle fits in with the holidays, which it might but then it might not.

I'll probably be told I'm a lazy wimp, im sure most people could cope with the stress but I honestly feel for me it's one or the other. I can go back to teaching or I can pursue this fertility treatment further. I cannot do both. I genuinely think if I do I will have some sort of breakdown. Individually they are stressful, doing both together I just don't think I will cope.

So Wibu to say to dh if I find a job then that's it? No more?

[Topaz25]

YANBU. I understand that the process of trying for a baby has an impact on your DH as well but at the end of the day it is your body. You have every right to say you cannot go through any more interventions at this stressful time. He needs to seriously think through what he is asking. If he wants you to return to full time work you cannot just take sick days for IVF, what if there were complications? He hasn't thought it through and doesn't seem to understand the stress you are going through.

Have you told him this just as you've written it here?:
I can go back to teaching or I can pursue this fertility treatment further. I cannot do both. I genuinely think if I do I will have some sort of breakdown. Individually they are stressful, doing both together I just don't think I will cope.

[Lovedmywildway]

I just feel useless at the moment, can't get pregnant and not adding anything to my family.

I don't know what I want, I don't feel ready to give up on having another baby but I also don't think it's going to happen and I'm just waiting and wasting my life. At least if I go back to work I feel like that's decision made for me even though I know dh won't be pleased. He's hell bent on the Spanish trip.

[Nomama]

Shout STOP!

Sit down and discuss where you are NOW in your lives. It sounds as though you are chasing too many things and haven't sat down and worked it out between you.

If you don't make a determined effort to have that talk you might find he gets more dismissive and you get more pissed off... it might be worth an argument and then a calm chat to get it worked out before it becomes a BIG THING!

[Noctambulist]

Wow. Are you sure you want to have more children with a man that doesn't think you bring any 'worth' to the family unless you're working? He sounds like a bullying arse.

[cailindana]

I know this is just a snapshot, but from what you've said here your DH sounds like a total dick. Is he?

[Noctambulist]

'I just feel useless at the moment, can't get pregnant and not adding anything to my family.'

Fucking hell. It's not 1580 any more you know?

[Iggi999]

You absolutely do not have to do both, but I think it's not quite accurate to say you couldn't get the time off - teachers can get off for medical treatment, it's not a holiday, I've had time off for rmc treatment for example.

[Lovedmywildway]

It's hard to get him to talk about it rationally.
If I say anything he just says "fine we will give up on the baby" but in really clipped tones without actually talking about it.
When I said that as a teacher it is nigh on impossible to take off time during the term he said "go and get a job at McDonald's then" which wasn't the help I was really looking for tbh.

[Lovedmywildway]

But how could I start a job and then two months in say I need a few days to go to Spain? It would be different if I'd worked somewhere for a few years but to start a new teaching job and then ask would be frowned on, God my last head frowned on staff even getting pregnant let alone having time off for fertility treatment.

[cailindana]

He's still sounding like a dick.

[ilovesooty]

I'm another who's wondering why you even want more children with him. He sounds horrible.

[AnotherStitchInTime]

Could you get something like temporary seasonal work. I once worked for Harrods from September until the January sales were over. Many companies take on extra staff for that period and if you go with retail you often get a staff discount which helps with buying the Christmas presents.

Or you could do daily supply as a teacher through an agency and leave the permanent job until after you have been to Spain.

[Lovedmywildway]

I wondered about supply, if I don't get either of these that's what I will look into doing I think.

I need something where I won't have to work evenings or weekends as dh travels away a lot and we haven't anyone to look after ds very easily.

[ChippingInLatteLover]

Love - read your thread as though someone else had written it. Do you not think you would be asking why the OP was staying with this selfish bastard and why she was even considering having another child with him? I know I am

:(

[Yarp]

Erk

i don't mean to sound judgmental, but he sounds as if he has no fucking idea.

It is sounding as if your being is linked only to conceiving this child. Working only to enable that, or to prevent him from being jealous of what he asumes is your lack of activity at home.

[Yarp]

Can you hear yourself? Talking about ow to make this work? Does he put anywhere near the amount of thought into your family life?

[whattheseithakasmean]

I can quite understand that it is too much to work in a professional role and undergo invasive fertility treatment at the same time. In fact, this is such a no brainer to me, I find your DH's position incomprehensible - especially when he earns enough for you not to have to struggle.

To my mind, you should set a time limit on fertility treatment & focus on that. If is is successful great - couple of years at home then look for a job. If it isn't successful, that is terrible - take some time to come to terms with it, then look for a job.

If you have 2 interviews, you will get interviews in a couple of years.

However, it is your body, so if you want to go back to work & stop the fertility treatment, that is also an understandable position. It seems insane and unnecessary to try & do both simultaneously.

[cailindana]

So, it's essential for you to be around so your DH can do his job, but apparently you contribute nothing to the family? How on earth does that work then? Either you contribute nothing, in which case it shouldn't matter whether you work all day every day, or your role is very important in which case it does very much matter when you work. Which is it?

[Viviennemary]

I think you need to have serious discussions about what you both want. What I'd think I would do is say well let's give it another two years and then that's it. I know you can keep doing this but you have got a good point in that why make things extra difficult if you feel you don't want the stress of fertility treatment and a new job. And it doesn't appear as if you need the money at the moment.

[Lovedmywildway]

He just doesn't think he should financially have to support me now that ds is at school and I'm not adding any value.

I did go through the ivf on my own though so where he carried the financial burden I felt I did my fair share. He came to egg collection but that was it. He didn't come to the other appointments or transfer or the follow up appointment. He was too busy and in some cases not in the country.

[cailindana]

"Not adding any value"? Seriously?

Do you genuinely believe that you don't add any value to your own family?

[Yarp]

I think in your position I would be focussing on the work, as you say. Give yourself financial independence. Show him ( since he does not seem to have the imagination to work it out) what it is you do contribute to the home and your child, by making him pick up some of that load.

[RobinEllacott]

How old are you, OP? Could you compromise by saying you'll leave it for a year or two and rethink once you've been back at work for a while?

For what it's worth, I think it is possible to do IVF while working - it's time off for medical treatment, not holiday. BUT to make it work you need a supportive employer and a supportive partner: you don't know yet about the employer, and you partner frankly sounds the reverse of supportive. Is he by any chance expecting you to go back to work and still do all the childcare?

[Lovedmywildway]

I feel very much at a cross roads.
I either decide to do one or the other. It's mythical baby or career. Not both.

Dh wants to do both but I think he's going to have realise I can't even though I know it will annoy him beyond measure.

[dreamingbohemian]

Your husband clearly doesn't care at all what YOU want, either work-wise or baby-wise. It's only about what he wants and is convenient for him.

Do you think that's reasonable? Why do you want to have another baby with someone so selfish?