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'm off to watch love island and eat doritos too

Stopfucking, I reckon that as long as you weren't bobbing about going 'You'll be fine! You're not going to die! Have a coffee enema/an avocado and urine shake/a transfusion from a Guatemalan vampire bat!' you were doing well.

I haven't posted on this thread, as I have a child, and it's not my space to inhabit, but in reading everyone's experiences (and some monumentally insensitive responses), it occurs to me that there are all kinds of parallels between well-meaning but insensitive responses to someone having an illness from which they don't recover, and involuntary childlessness. Both buck the preference for happy endings which allow people to reconfigure/retrofit the story of grief and pain into a 'battle' which turned out all right in the end, see! Which is why people keep suggesting solutions ('Why not relax and stop trying/try IVF/adopt/stand on your head after sex/do it on the Cerne Abbas Giant at new moon?) that the most dopy person must know are completely unhelpful, and that the infertile woman hears every ten minutes.

My own generally sensitive and well-meaning mother could not cope at all when a good friend of mine entered end-of-life care under a hospice home team after a long illness. She was days way from death, and my mother was still trilling 'Oh, you never know!' and cutting articles about miracle cures in the US out of papers, which she thought I should be passing on and being chirpy and positive, rather than just being with C. and not trying to tidy her illness and death into some kind of Box of Redemption.

She's not alone in that, hence all those unhelpful 'battle' and 'fight' metaphors in media depictions of cancer treatment. Some people cannot just be around other people's grief/disappointment without trying to make it go away or remove its finality.

Lotta, if you are a poster I remember from thread about considering whether or not to ttc, I made the opposite decision to you, but remember your posts as being honest and insightful about very difficult issues that for which there's virtually no public discourse.

V insightful post, herbpatch. for your dear friend

I cope because I've got money, a big house and a lovely relationship with my husband which includes amazing sex and all the other thinsg you can imagine yourself

That's a really powerful piece by Jody Day.
banana you write very eloquently about your experiences and your feelings. It is important to talk about these things as how else will people begin to understand?
It must be very difficult though, in the face of so much insensitivity.

It is still early but with your age I understand the pressure. I did ivf 6 times and finally got my twins at 40. My advice ... get the tests as soon as you can and know what you are dealing with.
If you need ivf my advice ..go abroad. Much better treatment
Good luck with whatever you decide

When I was about 15/16 years old I remember quite a few people telling me I wouldn't have kids. I was upset at the time because I never asked for people to share this "vision of my future". I always imagined I'd be married, have two kids and adopt two kids and then I'd have loads of grandchildren to look forward to. Fast forward 30 years and I'm not married, currently single and I can't have kids.

When I was in my late 20's I was advised to freeze my eggs, just in case. I decided not to and I think I regret that decision. Although I'm not sure how I would have felt about looking for a surrogate and going through that process.

It's very unlikely that I'd be able to adopt, but I don't want to be a single parent and I think I'm too old now.

I have days where I'm overwhelmed with sadness about not having kids. I allow myself to sit in the emotion and I have a good cry.

And then I have days when I don't even think about it, because its my normal.

None of my friends IRL truly know how upset I am, they all have children and always tell me I'm so lucky to be free and independent. They never ask how I feel about being childless, which also makes me feel sad.

To the outside world I live a good life, I've got a good career, I'm financially independent and my earning potential should double within the next 3-5 years. I'm that friend who is annoyingly optimistic, gets along with everybody and is usually cheerful.

The only advice I can give you OP is to take one day at a time be kind to yourself and your husband x

I spent five years TTC. It was awful, and the simple fact is that nothing helped me cope except time as I moved towards acceptance of not having children, and thinking of what I'd like to do in my life without them. It took a long time to get anywhere, but I did. We did not consider having fertility treatment - we didn't want to, which is something else people with children just do not understand and could be crashingly insensitive about. For me, it was a big enough strain without all that, and my husband felt the same.

There was no substitute to having children. There was no point looking for one. Time just helped us accept that and accept that that didn't mean we wouldn't have a brilliantly happy life.

Ironically, we did end up having children naturally after those 5 years just as we started looking into adoption, but I haven't forgotten how painful that time was. I now have friends starting TTC who are having difficulties, who ask me how I coped, and sadly I have no better answer for them. There was no way round that pain, I just had to live through it until I was ready to move on.

Seems to me that when couples adopt they get preggers soon after.

Is it relaxation, acceptance, or what?

I am not saying that happens in every case of course, but it seems to happen often just the same.

Seems to me that when couples adopt they get preggers soon after.

In films and on tv, yes. Real life not so much.

the preference for happy endings which allow people to reconfigure/retrofit the story of grief and pain into a 'battle' which turned out all right in the end

yes , why do people DO this. Its the way people walk over the street when they see a bereaved person.

the minimising, and the "it will be OK", and then give you bullshit solutions!

as evidenced here today, scroll up!

wow my DP is CA, just discussing with him
hey ho
i'll send him the judgement

we have agreed to disagree.....

sorry wrong thread

*Seems to me that when couples adopt they get preggers soon after.

Is it relaxation, acceptance, or what?*

Roll up, roll up for infertility bingo!!!

(and a poster who either clearly hasn't RTFT, or is just massively insensitive. Or indeed both)

Want to get pregnant?

Stop trying? DING!

Just adopt? DING!!

Relax? DING!!!

We're only missing going on holiday and getting drunk and you'd have a full house

FFS

Also. When people say they stopped trying, unless they had some form of surgical sterilisation, went on long term contraception or became totally celibate - they haven't stopped 'trying'. They might not be having miserable enforced TTC sex or desperately hoping each month not to get their period, but unless you're actively preventing pregnancy, you're essentially still trying

Now we've reached the end of the road with our treatment, I'm going to get an IUD put in, because we cannot live our lives on the rollercoaster of hope, desperately secretly hoping that maybe, just maybe, we'll be one of those 'we stopped trying and it happened' couples.

(and even if we were, due to a number of unrelated medical issues, an unplanned pregnancy would be very risky, so even our dreams came true, it could well still be a nightmare)

No. If we're done, we have to mean it.

Because the hope is too soul destroying. It's so utterly toxic, we can't keep living like this. Actually, we haven't been living. We've been existing. And we can't carry on like this.

The decision to stop has been taken out of our hands, which makes things a little easier - we haven't been faced with the agony of trying to draw a line under things ourselves. We've got 5 frozen embryos on ice but my uterus is now too damaged and we can't even do any more last ditch transfers. We have perfect buns, but the oven is completely broken. It's not our choice to stop. Like everything else in this journey, it's completely out of our control

So we're going to take back some control. If we are at the end of the road, it has to be the end of the road. For my body at least. Surrogacy is a path we're not yet emotionally strong enough to follow.

We have to be released from the shackles of ruinous hope. We have to try and salvage the shredded remains of the people we used to be. As DH said, we'll never feel normal again, but we will find a new normal. And to do that we can't live our lives desperately hoping we'll be that unicorn couple that MN posters write about

Banana sorry and sorry for your poor battered womb

Sounds like it's the pinnacle of shitness right now

Onwards

banana I know I said I was bowing out of the thread but I couldn't read your last post without saying something. You aren't alone, this is not your fault and there is life after all of this.

This time last year I hit the place you seem to be coming to now. Fortunately my very kind gp signed me off work for a bit, siting one of my myriad of endocrinogical issues. Essentially, she lied for me, I'd got so low I just needed to be alone. Could you do that? Get some time off to just be? It's a very big deal, ending all that ttc shit. I almost needed to grieve for ttc itself after all those years, let alone grieve for the children we will never have.

I've deleted many further paragraphs over and over again because you don't need to hear about me. You need to think about you for a bit. Figure out what you'd like to do next on this path which you would never have chosen, but you can make amazing.

Good luck, it's a well worn path. Remember your sense of humour and don't get lonely. There are lots of us. And we do alright

we'll never feel normal again, but we will find a new normal* *
The OP asked if you ever really get over it. I shared a bit of my grief. But this quote from banana sums it up and that's what I'm looking forward. I'll never get over not having my own child but life will return to a new normal and on a good day (like today) that feels hopeful and even a little bit exciting.

I never wanted kidsat all, however accidentally became pregnant at 21 and for whatever reason decided to have my son.
Life turned upside down, no youth or partying for me, had to work full time. I feel I sacrificed my entire life for this little person and the early years are boring, boring, boring.
I didn't have any more kids because I knew I didn't want them and my friends tend to be childless.
Of course I love my son very much, he is 35 now but I would have chosen to be childless.
I have many childless by choice friends who have wonderful lives. Some run their own businesses, others work for charities - I work part time as well as my job for cats protection league, you can go on holiday whenever you want. It's quite possible to have a very fulfilling life without children.
9/10 times your adult children are busy doing their thing anyway.
Not to mention your body won't be a mess .
There are many ways of nurturing society and not just your own child.
I know full well if I hadn't of had a child at 21 when I was at my peak energy I could not have coped. In my 30's or 40's I'd have gone insane with the horror of sleepless nights and constant demands of children as my sister is finding out. She always looks utterly drained and exhausted and has no time for anyone or anything.

irritated are you seriously posting about how hard aging a child is on a thread about infertility and the utter shitness of not being able to have a baby, and how to move on from that? I mean seriously? Where's your sensitivity?

Do you think any of us care that our body isn't a mess? Do you think some of our bodies aren't messed up from years of procedures trying to get pregnant? Do you think we wouldn't all love to spend "boring" years with our children? Do you think we would mind being utterly exhausted if it meant we'd have kids?

Ffs.

Herbpatch- thoughful, sensitive and life affirming post.

Not to mention your body won't be a mess

Because 3 rounds of ivf didn't fuck anyone up at all.

I'm sorry for posting earlier in the thread. I didn't mean to upset people. I posted with the intention to write about my friend who adopted after a 12 year infertility journey but mistakenly mentioned my own infertility journey. I'm left with a lot of debt from IVF, a marriage which is barely holding up and long lasting mental health problems from years of infertility. I don't think of myself as a normal fertile person which led me to post.

IrritatedUser1960 how is your post at all helpful on a thread about how to cope if you can't have children? You have a child so you're by definition not childless-having to hear about your accidental pregnancy is just sticking the knife in a little bit further

Limited. You have spent more of your life being a parent than not.
Many of us on this thread will never get to be a parent.