To ask my friend to please stop trying to have another baby

Agree when the time is right to say you’re worried and gently suggest therapy.

I think the modern fertility industry has a lot to answer for, is irresponsible and exists to claw money out of often very desperate women. Allowing the industry to run amok has been a complete state failure.

As a pp said, she now feels she needs another baby to get closure - what an awful indictment of what the industry has put her through. Years ago women would be sad, but as you say, would count their blessings or draw a line under it. The endless “but what if next time” means women keep flogging themselves in to the ground.

Often on these threads posters suggest surrogacy or egg donation. Please don’t go along with that. Gestational surrogacy is 3x higher risk for severe pregnancy complications, and babies bond with their mothers in utero. Donor eggs can be taken from women as young as 18 in this country - for a flat payment. A brewing future scandal.

I often think we need to accept that if something is not happening without a moderate degree of effort, then there's a good reason to leave it well alone.

For me, that moment came after 3 rounds of IVF, I suddenly felt that if I persisted and got pregnant, something could go horribly wrong.

Unfortunately there is nothing you can say to your friend to hasten this process, that won't result in her turning against you.

All you can do is encourage her by reassuring her she has an amazing child and if it doesn't happen it doesn't mean that her family is incomplete, it means she has more energy to give the child she has.

Definitely not your place to say!

Exactly this.

You seem to be mixing up your understandable thoughts and feelings about ‘reaching your limit’ on listening to and trying to support her about fertility issues, and your opinions about the reason(s) for her health / personal situation and choices.

You could address the former by changing your own behaviour / choices, without giving her those opinions, which probably won’t help and based on your posts seem to come from a judgmental viewpoint.

Even if she quits now she won't instantly snap back into happiness. She is grieving. It also sounds like time is running out for her so there will be a natural stop at some point. She's gambling basically, but it's a gamble that could pay off and would to an extent make it all worthwhile.

Honestly OP, I still think it would be better for both your sakes, to simply step back a little bit to see if that helps you, without the chat at first.

You are definitely not unreasonable to be feeling dragged down after all these years and to be at the end of your limit now. All the posts telling you that you should remain her good friend and be there for her are unrealistic now that it has reached this point where it is affecting you so badly. You are not obliged to be there for her every single time she needs you. You definitely should look after your own health and well-being first. She isn’t in a state to recognise her own child’s sad predicament so she is hardly going to recognise the way it is affecting her friends. I think she is so ill with the obsession that she has no care for anybody or anything except her goal and it’s even possible her goal won’t make her happy if and when she should ever reach it.

I think that you both might benefit if you could wean her off you, tiny steps at a time and only to the extent that she hardly notices and that you can cope better when you do see her. You don’t have to be in her life, subject to her sad obsession quite so much. It’s perfectly natural to pull away a little bit. Stepping back in very small steps isn’t unkind ghosting as some posters have suggested. If she notices and asks why you aren’t always readily available to support her, then that’s the time you can suggest that you feel she needs more professional help than you can give, you no longer know how to help her, and that her sadness is beginning to affect your own health adversely.

If she has already lost friends over this, I fear a chat to explain how she affects you, before trying to step back a bit, won’t help her at all and may even be more detrimental if she takes offence and suddenly decides you aren’t a friend.
It doesn’t have to be all or nothing but I sincerely hope you can have some peace over worrying about what to do for the best.

This is not your business.

She is oversharing by telling you each time she's had a positive test. She should really wait until 10 weeks. So many people have chemical pregnancies and don't even realise. She is obviously obsessive about testing and that's unhealthy. Most people ttc are discreet about it. She seems overly dramatic.

I’ve just tried for 3 full years, DS is 6. 5 IVF transfers, 4 miscarriages, an ectopic pregnancy and stillborn twins.

I would’ve told someone to f*%# off if they’d said what you’re considering. And I kept at it and now have DD who’s 7 months after IVF, and am randomly 4 months pregnant with DD2 naturally. You don’t get to say it won’t happen and it’s up to her if she wants to continue. Stopping would’ve made my mental health a lot worse. I’m sure my friends thought I was mad and should’ve been happy with DS but they never said so. You haven’t been there, you haven’t walked in her shoes.

at first I read your post and thought you sounded quite selfish, but after reading your updates on how all consuming this is for her, to the detriment of her only child, I think you need to say something. As you say, maybe it’s the thing that snaps her out of it. Maybe not, but it’s difficult being in a friendship like this. Good luck

I think part of being a close friend is trying to give a kindly worded reality check when you think it's warranted. I'd definitely talk to her about it.

I think you can take a step back but still be her friend.

There's nothing you can do about the way she lives her life. It's out of your control, and I think it's best you don't say anything.

When you are together, you could try distraction, like funny stories or going to watch funny films at the cinema. Or maybe you could do a book club of two. Tell her that you've been wanting to read more, and ask her if she'd be up for the two of you both reading the same book and then discussing it. Another idea might be to do some activity when you see each other, instead of just talking. You could go on days out to a local stately home or London or wherever's near you. Or you could bake together, or some kind of evening class together. It really sounds as if she could do with some distractions. If she won't be distracted, you could gently say that you think she could benefit from giving herself a break from it all for a few hours occasionally, and ask how she feels about going to see that new play/musical. Then there are concerts and gigs, which are too loud for her to talk!

There are other ways of being a good friend than just listening endlessly.

P.S. If she's depressed, she really needs to see her GP, and I'd encourage her to do that, in your shoes.

Was wondering about something like this. Is she getting medical support? Have they investigated if there’s any reason for the repeated miscarriages?

Well said, @TempestTost

It's too bad that woman can't focus on her existing child.

None of us can have all the things we want, terrible things happen every day, a child dies, a spouse runs off, our health deteriorates, we get fired, or life's goal turns out to be out of reach.

Goals and hope are great things, but obsession that destroys isn't great. There is a reason there are loads of literary examples.

How do you think their child feels about the fact that the parents are spending a all their time, energy, physical vitality, on the hope of another child? A story about parents so focused on the possibility of a child who doesn't yet exist, to the point they can't engage properly with the child they have, is a tragedy.

I do think that sometimes people can destroy the good things they have by chasing after something they don't have, and probably will never have.

Your instinct IMO is correct, she is almost certainly negatively affecting the child she has, which is so, so sad.

I do think that sometimes people need someone who will say the hard things to them. And IME that is usually not a therapist.

Of course acceptance is very difficult, but the relief that it brings can also be staggering.

The problem of course is, she may well not listen and worse your friendship may not recover. In some ways the ideal person to bring this up is someone like her mother. OTOH - if you think the friendship is already compromised, maybe you should just go ahead and say the hard thing - that she is destroying her health and impacting her child chasing a second pregnancy.

@Sessili it's not your place to give any opinion. If you can no longer be a shoulder to cry on then suggest counselling and tell her the emotional toll is to great for you. If she takes that badly just reiterate it is very emotional, you are struggling with it and you know she is and that your best advice is to recommend counselling as you are not equipped to handle it any longer. FGS do not tell her what she should do otherwise.

There's only so much support you can give until it starts to impact your life too.

Be prepared to lose the friendship. She's in a bad place and I seriously doubt she will welcome your advice.

It is desperately sad.

Do you think it's all magically going to get better if she stops trying? At least she has a glimmer of hope. If she stops trying, it could get even worse.

She knows how painful it is, so hopefully if she’s a good friend back, she would understand if you say you can’t take the emotional rollercoaster anymore. It is too difficult for you. That is not judging her choice, just saying you can’t cope. It sounds like this is where you are with it?

It’s affecting the woman’s actual child that she has.
It’s not fair on the child she has-it sounds like an all consuming obsession where nothing else matters.

She’s lucky enough to have one child-some women can’t even have one child.

There's a special place in hell for "friends" who say you should not want what you want. She's killing herself because she wants something . Who are you to tell her she's wrong?
(She may be, and she has to accept it at some point - by herself. How dare you decide it for her?)

It sounds like it has become an obsession now.
Years ago there was a TV programme about women who were unable to have children.

They featured a wonderful Vet who spoke so eloquently about it, and her deep sorrow-

I took our dog to vets and saw this wonderful, kind woman. She was on Locum duty .
I didn’t say I’d seen her on TV.

She had no child. Probably never would.

I feel very much for women who cannot have a child- but to get int such a state when one already has a child!
To the extent that the child she has is suffering- surely this now steps into mental illness?

Giving up work because of it?

She needs help- For the sake of her existing child, not a nebulous dream child.