to ask how you cope if you can't have children?

[ohbigdaddio]

Just that really...did you adopt? Or have you accepted it and has your life taken a new, fulfilling direction? Do you ever really get over it? Or are you still finding it difficult years later?

DH and I have been TTC for nearly a year and a half, got another negative pregnancy test result this morning, both feel very down and deflated and considering giving up. I feel really numb today and not sure what I want to do next.

Not sure we can cope with emotional highs and lows (well, mainly lows!) for much longer and it's all we think about.
Age is not on our side, I'm 38, approaching 39 so not really got time to have a break from it all. Next step would be IVF, obviously with no guarantees.

Would love to hear any positive thoughts on a child free life, especially if you really wanted children at one point.

I do resent the snowflakes who make awkward situations at work when a baby is brought in by a colleague and am strongly against ivf being on the NHS but I digress.

Why would you come onto this thread, see all the pain that's been expressed and post this? I really and honestly think you should take a long look at yourself and think about how to develop a bit of empathy and compassion.

missdoings are you deliberately trying to be horrible? Isn't it pretty obvious why someone who desperately wants a child might be upset when someone at work turns up with a baby?

My mum has several brothers and sisters of which 3 don't have any children, for a mixture of reasons. So I grew up seeing these close relatives and their child free lives. As a result I always knew that having children was never guaranteed, and had excellent role models as to how a child free life might be.

If I couldn't have children naturally I would definitely look into adopting. I think an adopted child is just as much your child and its not a second best substitute as a way of having kids. However it is a very hard process getting assessed and of course you might not get a match. I can understand why some people choose not to go through that even if they love kids.
I do have a child and even though I like kids and in some ways would like more for quite a few good reasons we have decided to stick with one when it wasn't easy to have a second. But sometimes I do feel sad about not having more.
My dog is a bit of a baby substitute its not the same as a baby but it's very satisfying to that need for something to look after and love. I'm not saying a dog can replace a baby, but it does bring a lot of joy to my life and I feel taking good care of the dog is worthwhile in a small way.

Agh! Adopting is NOT equivalent to having kids of your own. That's one of the first things they need you to fully understand and accept. It's different in so, so many ways.

Can't believe people are still saying this nonsense! (No personal offence intended Tinsel but seriously!)

Adopting is completely different from having your own children. Fortunately if you started the process towards assessment you would soon learn that.

If I couldn't have children naturally I would definitely look into adopting. I think an adopted child is just as much your child and its not a second best substitute as a way of having kids.

So why didn't you look into adopting rather than having your child?

I do have a child and even though I like kids and in some ways would like more for quite a few good reasons we have decided to stick with one when it wasn't easy to have a second. But sometimes I do feel sad about not having more.

This is staggeringly insensitive on a thread about involuntary childlessness

Why is it so hard for people to have any empathy? It's an entire thread about asking for experiences of living a in voluntarily childless life

You have a child. Therefore you aren't childless

I don't know whether you struggled to conceive, but the point is moot. Saying you had a child naturally but adoption is OK for the rest of us is staggeringly unhelpful

You could have another child but decided not to. How is being sad about a life choice (which you're perfectly entitled to and is a valid choice) in any way relevant or empathetic to the posters on this thread?

Again. Would you come into a thread of women who'd had mastectomies and say 'well if I hadn't had my own breasts then I don't think reconstructive surgery is second best. But luckily enough I never needed a mastectomy'

Choosing not to have a second child and being a bit sad about it. On a thread asking for women's experiences of not being able to have children

The women in this situation keep saying please, please can people who thankfully will never be in this situation please refrain from chipping in with their well meant but incredibly hurtful comments

And yet still they persist

I think I made it clear that I think the process of adoption is very difficult and off putting and even someone who really wants a child might not feel up to going through it. Also both parents would have to feel up to it and if one didn't want to it wouldn't be possible to continue. So I totally understand why this may not be something the OP would choose.

When I said its not a second best substitute I meant the child will still be very much your child. I highly doubt anyone who has adopted feels any differently about their child than I do about my birth child. I know adopted kids can have challenges but a birth child could have problems they were born with and dealing with challenges is all part of being a parent.

Thanks banana you're vocalising what I think every time I read these sort of comments. It would almost be funny if this wasn't such a sensitive subject. I wonder sometimes if people read the OP!?
Thanks for all the comments, I feel a bit stronger for reading them and there are so many thoughtful, eloquent, kind people posting (in the main!) x

It's a bit like people on a thread about coping with blindness coming on and going 'oh I know how you feel - I only have one eye that works'.

It was very important to have children for me. If I had not managed I would have found out which of us were infertile and then if necessary use donor egg or sperm (ideally a blood relative of the infertile person so the donated egg or sperm were related to that person). If I could not have carried a child I would have used my egg in a surrogate abroad with the other half's sperm.
If I had no usable eggs I would have used partner's sperm with a donated egg either in me or if necessary a surrogate.
If both of us were infertile I would then have moved to using a relative's egg or sperm.
If all that failed I would have considered adoption probably from abroad.

Imagine a thread for someone potentially facing permanent deafness, asking for experiences from those who live with being deaf:

"I can hear just fine, but if I couldn't, I don't think a hearing aid would be a second best option "

"I have dodgy hearing in one ear - I could look into getting this fixed but I decided the treatment wasn't for me."

I don't think that analogy is correct banana. Having a hearing aid is a second best substitute. Adopting a child can't be compared to that.

I guess not everyone has hundreds of thousands of pounds to throw at the problem Lucy.

And adopting a child can't be compared to having your own. I'm just about to have children placed with me and the process, feelings and logistics are completely different.

The way others welcome them into the family is different, how people talk about you and your family can be very different, the way I parent them will be different to how I would have parented birth children because they're coming to me at an older stage and with very complex needs. The level of scrutiny you experience, length of process, uncertainty are all different.

You're right in that it's not a second best or less than experience but it's by no means just the same as.

I fully admit to being childfree as opposed to childless but I'd like to offer support regarding having a life without your own children. Oh and I haven't read the whole thread because I feel like hitting my head off a wall at some of the responses.

My DH and I have nieces and nephews. TBH I'm not so good with the younger ones but I do go to birthday parties, baby sit for them when it suits and chat to them I see them. Once they become a teenager though I like to think we kinda become a positive influence on them. We both live super hero films so offer to take them to the cinema. They know they can drop into our house if needed. We tutor them through exams. They may not be our children but they are family.

I also volunteer with kids in care as a mentor and it's great to see them grow and progress. A lot of them find having an adult they can speak that isn't involved in their care arrangements to be really helpful. Funnily enough I wouldn't be able to donate the amount of time I do to this if I did have kids.

I also think that it's important to not compare your life to someone's who does have kids although I appreciate that's a very difficult task. You aren't doing things in your life because you don't have kids, you are doing them because you want to and it makes you happy in your life which happens not to have kids.

Maybe you could look into things that you can do because you don't have kids to focus your attention somewhere else. Go travelling or take up a hobby that requires time or volunteer, anything that you think would really interest you and give it a go. I ended up starting to retain for a new career.

Again - so why didn't you adopt rather than have your child? Why are only people who struggle with their fertility expected to consider adoption? Since you're so sure you could have done it, and admit that it's not suitable for everyone, wasn't it tremendously selfish of you to have a biological child instead?

This makes me so cross because it's yet another case of fertile women telling infertile ones 'by the way, just so you know, hypothetical me would deal with his better than you are'. To use bananafish's excellent analogy it's like me going into a thread for women with mastectomies and saying 'i've never had cancer, but if I did I would look for the positives and never get down about it and be really dignified and strong all the time'. I don't have a fucking clue what I'd do if I had cancer and you don't have a fucking clue what you'd do if you couldn't have children that you badly wanted.

Lucysky2017

What you may or may not have done in a hypothetical situation which you're not in is irrelevant to this thread which is about coping with not having children. Your comment it was very important to have children for me is staggeringly insensitive and implies that if the OP cannot do whatever you'd have done in the hypothetical situation you mention it's because having children isn't important enough to her.

Lucy do you have any idea of the cost in both time, emotion and actual money of that little plan you've set out? By the end of your list you'd have spent what our house is worth and then some. Unless we wanted to raise the child that you imagine would result from this in a cardboard box we'd have to stop a lot earlier than you're suggesting, and we're in a position of reasonable financial security. Believe it or not sometimes people are both poor and infertile.

By the way, odds are high you might have failed at the first hurdle in your list - a large percentage of infertility is unexplained, which means you can't tell 'which of you is infertile'.

Lucysky2017 this is such an incredibly insensitive thing to post, it's hard to know where to begin.

It's one thing listing all the things you would do to have a child.

It's an entirely different matter doing them. You reel off the processes without consideration of the emotions involved, the physical pain, the agonising conversations, the constant shaking of your relationship, the outside questions and unhelpful comments... These are all factors infertile women on the thread have had to endure, and they're bruising and painful. They're the reason the OP is looking for reassurance that there is life without children, that she doesn't have to keep going through this if she runs out of strength.

I can sit here and tell you how I'd run the London Marathon. It's a piece of piss! I'd just train several days a week, I'd eat a special diet, I'd commit to wearing a Mr Blobby outfit. Oh, no wait. I'm not entered into the London Marathon. So I don't have to do all that. But that's totally what I'd do, anyway. Take notes, ladies.

I've enjoyed the discussions of how people without children are perceived, and the expectation that they have to do something spectacular.

I know several childless women who have spent their additional resources - mental and financial - on basically having a more rounded life; they enjoy their relationships, read newspapers, they travel a little more, they make time for friends, they garden or take classes or volunteer, they plant themselves firmly in their reality.

I like this. Just having a normal life. Not saving the world or creating a legacy.

I've just had to post again on this thread in solidarity with those women on here that get it, have lived through it and are still trying to explain to other posters how insensitive they are being.
It strikes me that there are posters on this thread that seem to want to play the victim: "Oh poor me I only have one", "oh poor me I went through x amount of years of treatment before having children", etc. I don't mean to belittle those posters experiences, I'm sure that has been very hard for you. But you have a family. Trying to trump the experiences of those women that have lived through very similar circumstances to you and remain childless is callous. If you want to share your experiences and talk about your own grief then great, crack on, but not on a thread where women are discussing infertility and how to cope. Because you have no idea about that.
To the posters that are happy to tell us all about what they'd do in our situation, you have no idea. You sound daft.