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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To have taken down all ds's baby and toddler photos because it causes me actual physical pain to look at them?

195 replies

Lovedmywildway · 25/10/2014 22:29

He was so small and precious and now that time has all gone. I look at him and it actually causes my heart to feel like it's broken, that precious time I will never get back.
I know it's completely linked to my total and utter infertility and that he will be my only one, I'm really struggling to let go. I look at the photos and think how lucky I was then, how happy we were and now everything's just horrible and miserable and dark.

OP posts:
Damnautocorrect · 29/10/2014 18:08

I don't feel like you do about another baby but I do feel like you about there being no joy, it's just existing. Even in 'joyful' times it's like I'm watch someone else or just acting. I suffer massively with anxiety and just 'exist'. I did start to see someone and it helped but at £50 a pop I couldn't sustain more then three visits. So for now I'm trying to fake it (although today was a very bad day), and remembering that ds needs me.

I was incredibly sad when my son got to 4 and I did things like go to our favourite toddler places as a final 'goodbye' to each one. It was sad, he'd grown out of that wonderful stage. But we are 2 years on and it's 'ok', I really try to engage and like his interests, they are still babies at this age. Get to your gp and get some help (as should probably I) for your sons sake.

farfallarocks · 29/10/2014 18:14

Loved when I found out I would need IVF to have another child I started getting all of these irrational fears that DD would die and be my only child. I had MCs before her and had some very dark times when I thought I would never be a mother. You are a mother to a lovely lovely boy and that is so special. I try and think of all the fun things we can do if we are only a family of 3, lots of travels, no money worries etc. Of course I want another child but this is how I try to make myself feel better!

Hugs to you. x

Pufflemum · 29/10/2014 18:18

Wild, don't write off your DCs childhood. I have a 7 year old son and he loves spending time with me. Today we played golf, last week we explored rock pools at the beach. Other times we have done the high ropes together at a park, or w might go in goal for him to play football. None of these things would of brought me pleasure before, but now they do because I see how much pleasure they create for him.

Also how about looking at old photos with him? My son loves seeing pictures of himself in a pram or a nappy, even better seeing mum pregnant.

You have at least 10 years of fun family holidays, maybe more, but you and your DH need to create that fun. Get to Dr and get yourself back on track and start creating those fun times and memories for your family. Flowers

LittleBearPad · 29/10/2014 18:24

Family holidays won't end at 7, I'm sorry to sound mean and I realise it's the depression talking but don't be silly. Please don't write off your DS childhood as a failure because he doesn't have a sibling. You need to speak to someone about how you're feeling and seek help.

Lovedmywildway · 29/10/2014 18:29

I know logically you are all right.

It just seems that the world is geared up for families of 4 or more. It seems pointless going on 'family' trips, it feels fraudulent. None of use seem to get anything out of it.

OP posts:
LittleBearPad · 29/10/2014 18:34

But that, my lovely, is because you're depressed and so you can't see beyond your sadness to a future which will be different to the one you planned and hoped for but nevertheless will still be happy and full of fun and happy memories and family holidays.
I'm so sorry that you feel this way. Thanks

MillionToOneChances · 29/10/2014 18:35

Please, get help. My kids are older and still love family holidays, and frankly sometimes they love it even more when I take only one of them out - or away for a weekend - and they're not vying with a sibling for attention or the right to decide what to do. You have a lovely son. Please get help so you can enjoy his childhood.

There is genuinely no way that a five year old is too old to enjoy holidays with you. He is responding to your depression and it will colour his whole childhood if you don't work through this with professional support and most likely medication.

RaspberrySnowCone · 29/10/2014 18:37

Loved I remember feeling very much like you about having counselling after IVF, why would someone who doesn't know me want to listen to me moan about not being able to have a baby, there are much worse things in life. I couldn't have been more wrong. My IVF failed last year and I really did fall into a pit of despair, I questioned my marriage, my place in life as a women, as a friend as I no longer fitted in with my group of friends who all had their babies so easily. It was heartbreaking and eventually I made myself ill to the point where I couldn't smile and in the end couldn't even work and ended up signed off sick.

In the end I caved in and I accessed support through my IVF clinic and my GP, I had a great GP and the clinic had an excellent fertility counsellor. The first session all i did was cry and basically sit there saying 'it's so unfair, I hate my body and I'm a waste of space." I was convinced my husband would hate me and my family would be disappointed in me for failing, and that my husband's family would resent me for not making him a father. several hrs of counselling over the next few weeks and lots of support from the GP literally changed my life. Please don't think you are being self indulgent or selfish for accessing that support, it really will help you.

Regardless of whether you have had a baby, what people who have not suffered infertility (primary or secondary) don't always realise is that you are grieving a loss. If someone you loved died people would understand your grief. Infertility is just hidden and for some reason people just think you should get on with it. Someone once made a comment (not specifically at me as they didn't know I was having IVF) that infertile women should just be grateful they don't have cancer. Hmm

You are feeling grief for that second baby you always assumed that you would have. It all becomes completely irrational and consuming and you just feel overwhelmed. This comment is so relevant blueemerald - "I eventually realised that the worse thing that ever happens to someone is the worst thing that happens to them, regardless of how it compares to your worst thing". I spent a long time telling myself worse things could happen and I nearly drove myself into the ground. Once I started counselling I began to see that I was feeling a very legitimate grief.

Please, please seek some help through your clinic. It really will help and hopefully will help you through some of the fog that it probably feels like you are living in at the moment. You deserve better than to beat yourself up over someone you have no control over and your little boy will love you regardless of whether he has a sibling. I'm sure he adores his wonderful mum and will be very happy to have your undivided attention. Please don't make yourself feel worse by feeling that he will resent you for not giving him a sibling, he really wont.

Infertility really is horrendous but but will be light at the end of the tunnel. Please do think about seeing a counsellor, as I say, it changed my life and got me back on track and I can honestly say that, although I still have times when i feel sad, I can cope with it and am really enjoying life. It's ok to grieve, it really is.

Sorry for the essay!

RaspberrySnowCone · 29/10/2014 18:40

Sorry that should have something you have no control over, not 'someone'

PacificWerewolf · 29/10/2014 20:04

Wildway, I still enjoyed holidays with my parents in to my 20s well, they did pay Wink

Do not project your unhappiness about not having the size of family you hoped for on your DS. He is 5. You are still the Centre of His Universe.
Your inability to enjoy your time away as a family is a symptom of not being well (google 'anhedonia' - 'tis the inability to enjoy normally enjoyable things) - it's like a deafness or blindness: your sense of 'I am having fun' is not working - not your DS's.

He is clearly a much loved child and is likely to have a great childhood which is at risk of being affected by his mother's unhappiness Sad.
Even if YOU don't feel you need or want help, consider it for your DS's sake? Your DH's? Your family's?
Thanks

Lovedmywildway · 29/10/2014 20:44

It doesn't help that dh's niece is pregnant with her second. Her first ds is only 1 and she announced the second pregnancy on FB with pictures of her first dc holding signs saying 'I'm going to be a big brother!'
The second baby is another boy and everyone is commenting that they will each have an 'inbuilt friend' and how much her first child with love having a brother and a playmate and I just feel so badly I've let ds down. I feel really really guilty.

OP posts:
PacificWerewolf · 29/10/2014 20:48

Wildway, there is NO guarantee that siblings will be friends, or even be able to stand each other.
Don't buy in to the hype - it's half wishful thinking and half sentimental claptrap.

Also this is HER life; don't compare - there madness and unhappiness lies Sad.

I am so sorry that you are feeling so bad. You have nothing to feel 'guilty' about.

DisgraceToTheYChromosome · 29/10/2014 20:48

OP, we're a family with an only DD and we have been having fun as such since she was about 6 weeks. We had to stop at one when the menopause arrived when she was 3. We grieved, but we kept going with help, including MH professionals, family therapists and not least the cheerful little person who would pat or tickle whichever of us looked gloomy.

Please, get help before your DS stops trying to cheer you up. He does try, doesn't he?

Alibabaandthe40nappies · 29/10/2014 20:58

You think by 7 or 8 it will be the end of family holidays? Now you are sounding silly - he's a little boy, you are his parents, of course he wants to be with you.

However, if you are sad and moping all the time and wishing he was a girl, or that you had another child etc then he is going to pick up on that and withdraw from you.

It is for his sake, as well as your own, that you need to seek help for your mental health. He deserves to have a Mum who can love him and enjoy spending time with him.

I have suffered from PND, and more latterly from anxiety. I know how it feels when you are trapped in a cycle of feeling awful about life. You must, must seek help.

Pipbin · 29/10/2014 21:01

Please get help.
Infertility is dreadful and it is so hard for people who have never been through it to understand.
I know where you are as in half an hours time I am going to do the trigger injection for my third and final IVF.
If this doesn't work then the closest I will ever get to being a mother is the pictures of my day 5 embryos.

Like others I am shocked at the clinic doing 3 cycles in 9 months. I've done my 3 over 2 years. I am don't think I could have coped with 3 in 9 months, physically or mentally.

Contact the clinic and your GP as soon as you can.

merrymouse · 29/10/2014 21:04

Please remember that people say any old thing on Facebook.

I agree very much with raspberry that you are grieving.

Thebodynowchillingsothere · 29/10/2014 21:10

You need to get help love not just for you but got your little son.

I think you are withdrawing because you are stealing yourself against further heartbreak.

I suffer with dreadful anxiety after one of my children was badly hurt. It's all consuming dread.

Please plesse get help. Your ds deserves it. Do go you.

My kids are now teens and older and we chat every single day and all of us went on holiday last year.

Grin
Lovedmywildway · 29/10/2014 21:15

Good luck pipbin xxx

OP posts:
Vanillepudding · 29/10/2014 21:27

Another one joining in saying please get help!

I have a 5yo, she loves being with us, we are the centre of her world.

Even if you had another one, there is no guarantee they would get on. I know plenty of siblings who made their parents' life hell by hating each others' guts.

Please listen to the wise people on this thread. They've been there. I've been there (depression and anxiety) and recognise your thoughts.
This is not normal, and you are missing out on your child's best years.
I was never a baby person and look at the baby pictures with a profound sense of relief (that this phase is over), now the fun times start, the proper holidays they will remember.

Please get help, therapy, maybe ADs, they can be a crutch for a while to sort your feelings out, there is no shame in getting help.

Don't let this ruin your life Flowers

Thebodynowchillingsothere · 29/10/2014 21:35

And to add op you are literally at the beginning of your dss life.

He needs you now but he will need you more and more as he gets older.

Pipbin · 29/10/2014 21:52

Thank you Loved - please get help for yourself.

Thebodynowchillingsothere · 29/10/2014 22:35

pip hugs and Thanks

Lovedmywildway · 30/10/2014 07:50

I lay awake thinking about this thread last night and I've concluded that being miserable and disappointed is just part of life. I'm not going to the dr's. the nhs is stretched enough, I feel their resources should be used for people that really need them. Not someone who is just experiencing life. It won't change anything, because there genuinely isn't any point to anything. Not just for me, for anyone. It's just one looonnng uphill struggle and time matches on regardless. Sorry if that sounds melodramatic but I just can't believe anyone feels differently. Generally life is pointless and bleak for everyone.

So I will put on a happy face for ds's sake and just keep waiting for time to pass.

Thank you for all your kind words. Xx

OP posts:
SurfsUp1 · 30/10/2014 08:11

Ooh you sound just like me when I had antenatal depression! I was convinced, CONVINCED I was just sad but justifiably so because I was having a baby I didn't want and so, obviously, my life from then on was bound to be just struggle and survival.

I was wrong.

Go and get some help. You will NOT be able to be the best Mum you could be if you refuse to address this issue (speaking from experience) and your son deserves the best of you. Do it for him if not for yourself.

Keep in mind that you will probably have grandchildren one day, and my DM reckons she feels exactly the same way about her GC as she did about her own children, so you may well get to experience that lovely baby feeling again. Get yourself sorted out so your a lovely snuggly granny one day and not a miserable, bitter and twisted old scone who no one wants to be around.

Sorry if I sound harsh. I just wish someone had given me a kick up the rear-end when I was down there.

PacificWerewolf · 30/10/2014 08:20

Wildway, I think you need to re-read this thread again.

So many people on here sharing their experiences of depression WHO GOT BETTER WITH TREATMENT.

You need to make that leap of faith and believe us that you do not need to feel like you do forever.

Wrt the NHS: this is exactly the kind of thing that the NHS is for. I am a GP and 1/3 of my workload relates to MH issues. You sound iller than many people I speak to. Go seek help.

I am saying this with kindness and sympathy for your plight, but you are sounding a bit 'scared' about reaching out for help tbh.

Many people deal with adversity but many of those are NOT depressed.
There is a difference between being unhappy and being depressed - you sound very depressed and not 'just' unhappy.

Please read the thread again, particularly those posts of PP with personal experience of depression and how they got better.

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