I feel ambivalent towards having a child. Is it selfish to try?

[miserableandworried]

After 4 years of unexplained infertility, my DH and I had a frank conversation this afternoon about how we now feel about having a baby.

We’re both 42 and I personally feel like I’m too old to carry on trying for more than another year. When we were first struggling to get pregnant, it was all I could think about, all I talked about and all I wanted , but now, I just feel like it would be nice, but I don’t have that burning desire anymore.

I don’t know if this is just fatigue from the situation, acceptance or a change of heart. I like our life as it is and have come to terms with the idea that it’s not happening.

Do I give it another year or just call it quits?

You're right to ask the question. I don't think I'd ever like to find out my mother didn't particularly want me. If you're having significant doubts I'd say stay as you are.

This is very relatable. I think the pain and effort and sadness of trying for a long time can become overwhelming and I sometimes think I would feel relief at the uncertainty and disappointed hope ending and just accepting life without a child. I am not there yet though and think that would feel tremendously sad for me at this point. I think it’s very very personal and only you and your partner can know how you feel (and I can imagine sometimes couples have different feelings on this). Sending you empathy.

Thanks @Sodukuchess it’s not that I don’t “want” a baby, I just feel like Taht burning desire has dampened and I’m not sure if it’s fair to have a child if I’m feeling this way.

To be honest, it’s obviously not going to happen anyway, but there’s always that chance.

@TheDustyLeaf that’s how I feel. I don’t want the uncertainty every month anymore. It would have been easier if I’d had a diagnosis because that would have taken away the uncertainty and made the decision for me.

Good luck with your TTC x

I assume by your age you know whether or not getting pregnant is possible. So I assume you have both had fertility tests, considered IVF etc?

If you were certain you wanted a child when you started trying, then I wouldn’t discount the possibility that your present ambivalence is partly your brain trying to protect you and manage any disappointment you feel.

When I thought I couldn’t have children, I spent a lot of time working on why it might in fact be a good thing. It was a coping mechanism. Then I got pregnant, which was a total surprise, and had to remind myself why I wanted a child in the first place. And now I have my daughter, I wouldn’t change a thing!

Good luck OP. Ultimately only you can make this decision.

Yes all testing done for both of us with nothing medically wrong. We had a round of ivf that failed but as we have unexplained infertility, the drs explained that there is still a chance of a natural conception.

Thank you @CuriousKangaroo I have started to plan my child feee life and I don’t hate it. Maybe it is my subconscious protecting me.

Cheeky question from me but can I ask if you had these done privately or via the NHS? The reason I ask is that we went into our NHS funded round of IVF thinking we had unexplained infertility. Once we went privately we had additional tests which provided us with an explanation.

It was nhs. What additional tests did you have provided by the private clinic if you don’t mind me asking?

Oh it's so tough to be in the 'maybe' zone - it could happen, it might happen, it might not, do I even want it to happen? I spent years agonising over the baby issue and really struggled to move on. I'm nearly 46 now - I didn't have a baby and I'm so relieved and grateful. Life is good, I have so many great things that I wouldn't have if I was a mother.

It's your decision of course, but I can reassure you that life without children can be really great. There may be a lot of relief for you in making the decision to be childfree

Not at all. They were mainly on DH's side - we had a DNA fragmentation test done which showed that DH had incredibly poor sperm DNA quality and we were quite frankly never going to conceive naturally. This is separate to the standard sperm analysis done by the NHS. This was originally attributed to a varicocele (which again the NHS won't treat). Unfortunately our journey got a bit more complicated as we found out that DH had cancer but this is rare - most people go in for a straightforward varicocele repair. We would never have known there was an issue with DH's sperm if we hadn't gone privately to a urologist.

That’s interesting. Maybe we could look a little deeper in to the reason why it never happened. I might get my head back in the game if I have a specific diagnosis for either of us. Or not, as the case may be.

It sounds like you have been together a while, presumably having regular sex without contraception so something is amiss.

If you want to investigate further and you're able to afford the tests (they are not cheap!) then I would honestly recommend it. We found it very psychologically freeing to have a reason and it helped us let go of the dream of having children naturally - once we saw the results and compared them to the benchmark example we knew there was no way we would make it without help. We were subsequently successful, but even if we hadn't been, having a reason would have helped us accept being childless. We learnt that 'unexplained infertility' doesn't mean there is no reason, it's just that a) either the right tests haven't been done or b) medical science hasn't advanced enough to create the right tests.

If you decide to look into this further, I would really recommend Jonathan Ramsay, who specialises in male fertility issues. He treated DH and was absolutely brilliant - incredibly knowledgeable, a brilliant diagnostician and a genuinely nice and kind person. We initially wasted money on a local urologist who wasn't a fertility specialist and he added nothing to the process.

I completely get it. I've been through baby loss, miscarriages and a long time of nothing happening and at the start it was painful and difficult in every way possible but now I've got to the stage where life can't be tough all the time. I can't keep putting everything into wanting something that might never happen so I began to enjoy life and appreciate what I have. It's not necessarily not wanting a baby but realistically more of a self defence mechanism to help you accept it might not happen.

That sounds so hard OP.
We had a reason for not getting pregnant (PCOS, newly diagnosed once we started TTC) and were under the local NHS fertility clinic on clomid. I think we were about 3 cycles away from needing IVF. Luckily I got pregnant the cycle after my tubes were flushed, I can't even remember what that's called. If we were approaching IVF, we would have had a conversation about how far along that journey we'd be prepared to go (easy for me to say when we didn't reach that point).
DH was keen to have kids. I was on the fence but not a hard no, really quite ambivalent, but initially happy to try to see what happened.
What I'm getting at is you're are not selfish either way. You are allowed to change your mind at any moment with no explanation. In your shoes I'm pretty sure we would have had a cut off age or stage of treatment /number of IVF cycles and accept it wasn't to be so we could move on. I found it soul destroying getting my period every month and there was no fun/romance in the sex by then either. I've had a large glass of wine, I hope this makes sense.
Good luck, whichever path you choose.

I was ambivalent about having a baby, but keener to have a child, teenager and adult son/daughter. How do you feel when you think about those stages? It might help to think forward a bit. They don't stay as babies for long.

Thank you x

I think about all the stages of their life. Wasn’t looking forward to maybe age 3-6 but baby, school, teenager, young adult etc I could imagine all of it.

@miserableandworriedits a horrible feeling to have every month. In my experience, having a diagnosis (endometriosis) hasn’t ruled out the possibility of natural conception- although it apparently does make it less likely. It has meant I’ve been given two rounds of ivf on NHS.
Have you considered another round of IVF? I know it’s gruelling, stressful and expensive. It does feel very unfair doesn’t it, the things we have to go through when it can feel like it’s very easy for many women to start a family. Wishing you good luck too on your journey x