To think whatever I do for ds it will never make up for being unable to give him a sibling?

[Notmymuse]

Sat here in tears again, I'm so so desperate for a second baby but we've tried naturally for three years and with assistance for two and it's not going to happen by the look of things.

Ds is 5 and I feel like we've missed out a lot of his childhood because we've been chasing this impossible baby. Yes we've done lots with him and I've taken him loads of places. At parent's evening his teacher said how knowledgable he is and you can tell he's had a lot of interaction and conversation with adults because his vocabulary is huge.
However I feel whatever I do for him and with him it will never make up for his lack of sibling. I feel like I've ruined his life. He's missing out on the most important relationship and he's never going to have that. I worry he will blame me when he's older. I try and let him have friends round and go to lots of clubs so he mixes well but it's not the same is it? He's not going to get the skills he'd have if he had a sibling.

Aibu to feel like no matter how hard I try it's all a bit futile? There will always be a big gaping hole in his life?

IF you have ever read a Mumsnet thread...It is rare everyone agrees..Therefore the fact everyone thinks you are not been fair to your son not not having a sibling but your attitude to it.

Do you really think parents with more than one child don't arrange play dates, Worry how they are doing socially.

Either you challenge your own thoughts or carry on the way you are. Ultimately you are making no one happy and aren't happy yourself.

I agree DrSeth

This is my parting shot.

There is all sorts of counselling out there, some of it is very involved and long, and therefore expensive. Others like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy are very short. Given that you are someone who catastrophises - who takes the negative and runs with it - I think that CBT would help you. I don't think it would address your underlying pain about not being able to have a second child, and it certainly won't cure your relationship, but in 4 - 6 sessions I think it could make a real, quantifiable difference to your and your DS lives. In my city this would cost around £750 but I've just clicked on two sites at random that offer significant discounts to self funded/low waged.

And now I'm out.

OP, I was slightly odd and struggled socially. (Still am and still do!) I'm one of six children...

I'm only one page one so I'm hoping by the time I've reached the end of the thread you will have been reassured and feel better, but it really is your pain that you are projecting on to your child. I have one, and yes I've heard negative things about that occasionally but anyone will get that. People with big families will be told their kids won't get enough individual attention, people with one other child will say that jealousy is a big problem and that the older will feel insecure of their place in the family, etc, etc. The point is there's always something moany that someone can say, whether you have zero children or twenty!

Just whatever else is going on in your life, remember to enjoy what you do have.

I have one sibling. He is 20 months older than me.

He was emotionally, physically and sexually abusive to me during our childhood. I am now NC with him and although my dad knows that (Mum died 16 yrs ago), I have given him a different reason why, although still a real and valid one.

Having a sibling massively sucked for me and there were numerous occasions when I wished I had never been born.

Being an only child is not the worst thing that can happen to someone - providing their parents don't make it so!!!

Have to say that, although I have heard some comments re siblings, I have never had anyone try to hint that me, DH and DD are not a proper family!

"I did say I didn't agree with the statement about it being between being childless and having children. It's a comment another poster made on the one child family board. I do think it's how a lot of people perceive one chilf families though. I've been told we're just a couple with a child rather than a family."

You say you don't agree with it BUT you went through to the only child part of the site and out of all the many many very positive comments on that part of the board you came away with just one negative comment. You must have actually had to look for that because most of the stuff on that section is really positive and looks at the good things about having one child.

There is no point posting threads and reading stuff if you don't want to hear the positives.

MN really can't help you. Not this board, not the Relationships board, not any board here. Seriously. No one here can offer you the help you need. If you have spent thousands on fertility treatments over the past couple of years, you can surely afford to spend money on private counselling if you don't want to pursue the NHS route.

Your thought processes seem to take you to some very dark places. You think a sibling is "the most important relationship" and yet you yourself are an only child. So is it something in your own childhood you are mourning and resenting? If so, why are you holding onto that?

You think your friends would enjoy how unhappy you are. Honestly, you really believe that? If they are your friends, they would probably feel only compassion for you. The fact that you think they would enjoy your unhappiness is very telling.

You have been told that your secondary infertility is due to a male factor but you don't believe it. Why on earth not? I would think the doctors have a better understanding of the issues involved than you do. It just seems that you want to blame yourself.

As for siblings helping each other when their parents become older, let me tell you it doesn't always work that way. I have siblings who have been worse than useless in coping with our parents' illnesses and the death of our father. In fact, their lack of support has been a source of great pain to me. I often think it would be easier not to have siblings at all than to have people in my life who cannot be counted on when the chips are down.

And one last anecdote. My DH is an only child, and both his parents were only children. I have never known more sociable, outgoing, friendly people.

You are projecting everything onto your son, as everyone else has said.
You remind me of my mother, being vicarious and becoming neurotic about your sons future 'what if he doesn't marry?' So what? Stop playing the victim on his behalf.

The only thing you should be focusing on with regard to your son is his happiness and how he feels. Not if that conforms to your idea of what a childhood/adult life should be. If he wants to become a priest or a monk living in solitude; if he is gay or transsexual and wants a life outside your ideal of conventional. The only convention that matters is that he is happy.

Instead of concentrating on things that may or may not happen, just take a step back and actually realise the precious gift you have in your child. Value what you have. There are thousands of women who would like to have a child and never will.

My local NHS offers free counselling for depression and anxiety. You can self refer. With a little bit of googling, you can find out if there's any in your area. Anyway, go back to your doctor, tell them how badly it is affecting your life and therefore rebounding into your son.

Also consider why you even want another child with a man who cares so little for your state of mind that he won't pay for counselling.

I know a woman who was desperate for kids, had twins by IVF, then had a mental breakdown as she couldn't cope with them.

Please accept that until you get some counselling, nothing is going to change. Please, do it for your DS.

Actually I wasn't going to post again but I've realised that there is another point.

My mother was an only child and hated it. She lived in a house with her parents, her paternal grandmother, an aunt and her husband and 2 children. That's right, she had 2 cousins of peer age group living with her in the house, whom she could play with or not. Yet to her this "didn't count" and she longed for siblings.
Didn't get them.
So she made sure she had more than one child - and then spent most of our lives trying to guilt-trip us for "not getting on better, you should be grateful that you have siblings, I never did, I always wanted them" etc. etc.

I grew up really resenting my siblings; it wasn't until my sister was getting married that we developed any kind of closeness and that was because we bonded against my mother and her interfering!! My brother and I have nothing to do with each other - a mutual antipathy that was fuelled by my (primarily) mother's attempts to thrust us closer together. My father has now tried to do this too (mum died some years ago) and it's just as unsuccessful now as it was then.

My point - STOP PROJECTING onto your son.

And now I'm out too.

Just read back some more and seen this:
"I feel most of my friends would enjoy how unhappy I am and enjoy talking about it behind my back. "

If that's how you think your friends would react, then you seriously need help and some hefty drugs; OR new friends who really are friends. Friends do not enjoy their friends' troubles. They do not gloat and gossip about them. Friends support and offer sympathy. You maybe need to learn what a friend actually is, apart from anything else.

Or get the drugs for paranoia.

That's what women do to each other in my experience. The only person I trust is my mum!

Notmymuse - please get help!

In my experience friends do not gossip and bitch. Aquantances are usually mainly too busy with their own lives to do much of it.
Empty Hollow people may do because they have nothing better to do.

You need better friends. Some help to deal with your issues.

Thumbwitch and Kittymum03 - my DS recently asked me what grade out of 17 I would give myself as a Mum - I think I'd now give myself another mark, as I've never told my children they have to love each other, although I have tried to encourage them to see that the others aren't that bad really.

Well one close friend told me about another of her friends (not a mutual friend I've only met her a handful of times) who was having ivf treatment (which was successful after the first attempt) and expressed the view that being unable to have children was nature's way of saying you weren't compatible and shouldn't have children. Said friend was six months pregnant herself at this point. She said if you can't have children you should adopt. So I mentally crossed her off my list of people id be likely to tell.

I have another two close friends who are Catholic and disagree with assisted conception.

I have another close friend who knows we can't have more children but doesn't know the extent of what we've put ourselves through and she has always said 'just be grateful for the one you have.' However she has three easily conceived children herself so she obviously wanted more than one child herself.

And I have another friend who knows we can't have more but has two boys herself and regularly tells me that the fact she didn't have a girl is like being infertile and how she'd have another baby tomorrow if she knew for certain it wouldn't be a boy.

So generally I feel people aren't hugely sympathetic to secondary infertility. In fact they have no idea.

Just had to respond as I probably could have written this exact post a few years ago.

My miracle came to us through ivf. The second he reached 8 months we started trying for number 2 desperate to have 2 children. Several Ivf and miscarriage later I woke up on his 5th birthday bleeding after my last ivf. I was so sure I was pregnant and I just broke down. Like completely and utterly broke. I had a birthday party to get through for my son and I don't remember a second of it. I looked back at photos and mentally I just wasn't there.

That was the day i realised it had to stop. My baby was somehow 5 and I had spent his first 5 years chasing that longed for second child instead of enjoying the miracle I did have. Your family is the 3 of you and your child will have the childhood you make for them regardless of how many siblings they have. As an only child myself I did want a sibling but that is because I didn't particularly enjoy my home life - I make sure every day my child has fun and has friends to play with. Emotionally he wants for nothing.

Our second child did come along a few years later through adoption. Life has changed for all of us and yes it's great but what I do notice is there is so many advantages to having a single child that you don't appreciate until there is 2/3/4. The time I used to spend chatting to ds and playing with him is now usually spent refereeing the latest argument or trying to find a few extra hours somewhere to give each child individual attention. Wouldn't change things for the world but I look back in fondness of the time
It was the 3 of us.

Please stop hurting yourself with the feelings you have. Let it go and enjoy what you have. We forget how hard these children are to get for some of us and you and me are the lucky ones to have someone to call us mummy. Enjoy him and let go of what is not to be. Easier said than done I know but please try.

I have to agree with others OP that you're being massively offensive to people who are, or have, only children. MASSIVELY. I am an only child and am perfectly well adjusted. I went through a phase of wanting a sibling but it was just that - a phase. Being an only child I am very independent and self sufficient - I don't rely on anyone else to keep me entertained or make me happy, which I think are huge gifts to give a child. MY DH and I intend to only have one child, because we know we'll be able to give him/her a better lifestyle and because we have a strong friendship group whose children we know we can introduce him/her to growing up.

If your friends are all so bitchy and judgemental then you should get some new ones. You're creating a self fulfilling prophecy by choosing to associate with these people, although given your own narrow minded judgemental attitude perhaps there's a reason you do.

The only thing that's going to make your son unhappy is you - not being an only child, YOU. Now stop being so rude and get yourself some help - and some new friends.

So generally I feel people aren't hugely sympathetic to secondary infertility. In fact they have no idea.

To be fair OP you don't show any great empathy to others yourself. Others on here myself included have told you stories of loss, total infertility, children like mine with additional needs and no partner, siblings who have abused them or cut them off and your response has pretty much been to continue bewailing the fate of your poor child who has such a gaping hole in their life.

Now most of us haven't posted in order to gain sympathy so I'm sure it's not that big a deal for any of us but you don't know that, you just don't much care because you're too bound up in how your own life is. Just like your "friends". Most of the world didn't much care about my repeated failed IVF treatments, they didn't "get it" either. Frankly most of my friends didn't either, why would they? They haven't been through it. Some people are better at empathising with things they haven't been through than others, either your friends are shit at it or based on your posts here I suspect a great deal of it is you grasping any possible sign that your friends don't understand the depths of your despair and using it with a stick to beat them with. Frankly the only person who even got close to understand how it felt to have repeated failed fertility treatments and the horrible sinking feeling when the last one failed was my mum. And she didn't really understand either - she had three children easily. And I would say that is the norm rather than the exception without wanting to sound like I'm trying to hit you when you're down you aren't particularly special or unusual in that respect.

Most of us have posted to assure you that whatever shit life throws at you and some of us have way more experience of shit throwing than you, you really can move on with a happy life with or without 2 children if you choose to

But you have to want to. And at the moment you are too bogged down in the disaster that you believe you are living. When you are ready to help yourself then come back and ask a question about the best way to help depression and/or anxiety until then I'm out.

Good luck.

Well op, YANBU - nothing you do will make up for your ds not having a sibling, because you're his mother & not his brother or sister.
If all goes well, having a sibling probably is better than not having one - there's always someone to chat to, play with, argue with - but it doesn't always turn out well ( in our imagination everything is wonderful because we have total control, real life on the other hand....... ) I know plenty of adult siblings who rarely see each other. ( out of choice ! )

Concentrate on making your sons life as happy as you can, because if you can't change a situation, you have to change your attitude to it.

All the very best.

Not read thread sorry.

I found that there wasn't much empathy for the utter heartbreak of secondary infertility.

I have two seperate friends who are only children. Both are like siblings to me. Closer then siblings even! Both are also best friends with their mothers and have exceptionally great relationships with them. I think there are positives and negatives to being an only child.

"That's what other women do to each other in my experience".

I think most of the posters on this thread are women.

I do not think anyone here is enjoying your pain. It must be worse for you and your son.

Prozac will help, honestly, as it will help address the imbalance of whatever it is.

Counselling, which is universally and freely available may help if you listen.

Please listen.

Does anyone else see the irony in the fact in her last post the OP is dismissive about the mum with gender disappointment?

I'm not dismissive but dear god not getting the preferred gender is not the same as being infertile! How can it be?

She was saying she wouldn't risk a third child in case it was a boy and she wouldn't want it. She was joking about having it adopted. It is not the same as being infertile and being desperate for a child, any child.

And people never make jokes to mask pain do they?