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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

424 replies

ohbigdaddio · 04/07/2017 12:40

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.

OP posts:
sunsurfacingdefiantly · 10/07/2017 17:38

I once had someone describe life with a teenage boy explaining he could be violent so to be grateful because boys were violent Confused

jecklandhyde · 10/07/2017 18:50

Infertility is horrendous so I do understand, but it does turn some people very very oversensitive.

TammySwanson · 10/07/2017 19:01

I understand being fertile is a terrible burden, but it can turn some people into unthinking, uncaring GFs.

sunsurfacingdefiantly · 10/07/2017 19:14

Can't it just tammy

it does take a special amount of egocentricity to come on a thread for infertile women and announce that you dislike being a parent so really, infertile one, be damn grateful.

SnickersWasAHorse · 10/07/2017 19:14

Some infertile people can be over sensitive but we deal with seeing pregnant women, babies etc every day.
People rocking up on a 'how to cope with childlessness' thread and telling you their experiences of having children is crashingly lacking in sensitivity.

bananafish81 · 10/07/2017 19:28

@jecklandhyde would you come onto a thread for women who've had mastectomies to say how lucky they are because you hate having big boobs?

How about coming onto a thread where women have lost a child, and telling them they've had a lucky escape because actually older kids are really expensive?

Do you think either of these things would be remotely helpful? Would these women be over sensitive at having their suffering belittled?

deckoff · 10/07/2017 19:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Confusedandintrigued · 10/07/2017 20:07

@jecklandhyde would you come onto a thread for women who've had mastectomies to say how lucky they are because you hate having big boobs?

No but you might come on to such a thread if you'd had a mastectomy, has been devastated by the loss of your breasts but then has full reconstructive surgery and was now telling the OP that it worked out ok in the end.

I'm guessing that's the logic of some posters on here

Shantasia · 10/07/2017 20:15

Infertility is horrendous so I do understand, but it does turn some people very very oversensitive.

WHY would someone read an OP asking for positive stories from those who live happy lives without children, and think it would help to state, baldly, that

a. infertility is 'horrendous' - so forget that happy life, poster

but also

b. it can also makes people inappropriately insensitive. So don't be getting all tearful, ok.

How do you imagine that's going to add anything to the discussion? Even setting aside the idea of 'helping' - how is this even relevant?

EarlGreyT · 10/07/2017 21:10

Infertility is horrendous so I do understand, but it does turn some people very very oversensitive.

It's hardly surprising when we have to listen to unhelpful comments like this or like half the comments on this thread which is meant to be about how to cope with involuntary childlessness. I'm not sure you do understand-if you did you wouldn't make comments like this.

bananafish81 · 10/07/2017 22:13

@Confusedandintrigued but that wasn't the case

It was 'I got pregnant straight away, I never struggled with infertility at all, I wanted kids and got pregnant within two months and now I really regret it'

It's breathtakingly insensitive to those of us who are struggling to come to terms with the fact they can't have children

The poster didn't struggle with infertility

She never had to face the devastation of desperately wanting children and not being able to have them

Or struggling for years with infertility and finally succeeding

"I wanted kids and got pregnant straight away and I regret it because it's really difficult " is unbelievably insensitive to this thread

But apparently us barren women are just massively over sensitive

She never

Confusedandintrigued · 10/07/2017 22:22

Sorry I missed that post.

That have been a couple of shockingly insensitive posts, but all the posts telling how they tried for many years and rounds of ivf and were then successful, well, I don't think they're being insensitive.

PurpleDaisies · 10/07/2017 22:35

Do you have children confused?

bananafish81 · 10/07/2017 22:36

Thread is about how to navigate the world of involuntary childlessness

Yet various fertiles with children have felt the need to chip in with

  • well if I were infertile then I'd have done donor eggs or adoption (but I never had to consider this as I successfully conceived)
  • I don't believe you should accept the hand fate has dealt you - just try harder
  • have you thought about reflexology? It worked for a friend
  • you should just adopt because it seems people adopt and then get pregnant afterwards - maybe you just need to relax
  • having kids is shit - I wish I hadn't had mine

How is any of that helpful to someone who wants to understand how women who are living a life of involuntary childlessness have found meaning in a life without the children they so desperately wanted but couldn't have

The thread is about how to deal with life after infertility

How do any of these contributions add to the discussion?

SabineUndine · 10/07/2017 22:43

I'm so a bit unusual in that I have a genetic disability and it's also one that would have been worsened, I was told, if I got pregnant. So I decided in my 20s: no kids. I wasn't ever hugely maternal. However when one of my friends accidentally got pregnant when I was about 45, I found it really hard (and must have been a real PITA, buying her baby clothes). The bottom line is: you do other things with your life. You have to.

Rufus27 · 10/07/2017 22:47

Had an early menopause at 39. Was fairly sure I didn't want children and was at ease with that (took a while to grieve what could have been). Suddenly we woke up one day and realised/admitted that we did want a family after all. At 44 we decided to adopt. At 45 we were introduced to our beautiful, funny baby son. Not the path I thought my life would take, but now we would have it no other way. It sounds weird, but I am almost glad I could not get pregnant, as we would have never met the little man who is currently upstairs asleep. Hope that makes sense without being insensitive?

Ineedacupofteadesperately · 10/07/2017 23:48

When I was struggling with infertility (which I suffered from for many years) and finally thinking that maybe my ivf journey needed to come to an end (after our last frozen embryo transfer failed) I found a book that really helped me- it's called 'the next happy' by tracey cleantis. It's aimed at anyone faced with the prospect of a dream that might not / isn't going to come true & gives advice on how to let go of and grieve for the dream. I found it easy to read and it talks a lot about infertility and is actually quite funny in places - the author herself struggled with infertility & now seemingly lives a very happy childfree life. It even helps you to figure out if you're ready to give up on the dream or not. It might help, OP. Just a suggestion.
Flowers

Confusedandintrigued · 11/07/2017 06:32

Yes, two

Confusedandintrigued · 11/07/2017 06:36

But I think what a few players are pointing out is that they too had resigned themselves to life "after infertility", but it turned out that way the case at all.

I'll bow out. I don't actually have anything to contribute to the OP, just felt it was harsh to be quite to dismissive of so many posters (of course those (only 2 I think on the entire thread) who have spoken about how awful having children are being utterly ridiculous and insensitive)

PurpleDaisies · 11/07/2017 06:48

You don't get it confused. If someone was posting saying they'd been given a terminal cancer diagnosis and they wanted help accepting it and making the most out of life, there wouldn't be so many posters saying don't give up hope.

Infertility is not one thing. Someone else's "miracle" has absolutely nothing to do with my situation and "hope" is a bloody killer when it comes to moving on with life when you've come to the end of the road with fertility treatment.

Confusedandintrigued · 11/07/2017 07:05

Purple, you're going through this, so obviously I bow to your perspective on it. I don't get it, you're right. It is not something I had to go through.

However i don't think trying to get pregnant for 1.5 years can be put on the same sentence as a terminal diagnosis. There is a lot more hope to the situation or the former, as evidenced from this thread.

Confusedandintrigued · 11/07/2017 07:07

If you read the OP, she has not come to the end of the road. She is considering a first attempt of IVF.

PurpleDaisies · 11/07/2017 07:10

However i don't think trying to get pregnant for 1.5 years can be put on the same sentence as a terminal diagnosis.

You know what she's been told by her doctors? You know how her and her dh are feeling? You say there's evidence on this thread-you might as well say to someone with pancreatic cancer "my mum survived skin cancer" so don't give up hope. It's irrelevant and upsetting for reasons that have already been explained if you'd read the thread.

She posted asking for how to move on, not for success stories which has been pointed out time after time.

Confusedandintrigued · 11/07/2017 07:13

As I say, nothing i can't say on the matter.

Pancreatic cancer. Just about the worst cancer diagnosis you can get. Almost certainly terminal by means of a very painful and unpleasant death. And you compare it to 1.5 years of trying to get pregnant. So whilst I can't comment on what you're going through I most certainly can say that you're being bloody insensitive and total loss of perspective by that remark!! All the best, I'll block now so won't be tempted to read!

PurpleDaisies · 11/07/2017 07:14

If you read the OP, she has not come to the end of the road. She is considering a first attempt of IVF.

If you read the op, this was what she asked...

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

Where's the "encourage me to keep on trying even though I've said I don't think I can?"