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 would go further: I think the 'miracle success' stories are unhelpful, bordering on cruel.

One of the terrible things about coming to terms with childlessness is that there is no public language for this. There are few paradigms. There is no ready-made discourse into which your experience can slot. When you are dealing with something that already makes you feel abnormal and often in some way 'defective' this is an incredible additional burden. It takes away a certain power of articulacy in the face of the loss.

Those who post the cliches (and they are cliches) about miracle babies, and success after 40,000 rounds of IVF are not making this any easier. These are established, easy paradigms into which experience can fit. Moreover, they absolutely neuter anxiety. While posters clearly have a memory of what it's like to feel the anxiety of not knowing whether it will happen, the charge of that - the crazy, emotional, difficult charge of radical uncertainty day in, day out has been removed. I would argue that women who are dealing with certainty in infertility, with life without established family paradigms have far more in common with those who are radically uncertain whether they can conceive than women who have been there but successfully done that.

I think this won't stop until we cease rushing to reassure every woman that it'll be OK provided she eats yoghurt and does yoga, and we start having some real compassion for the uncertainty.

Terrific post lanouvelleheloise. Absolutely spot on that there is no accepted way to discuss this in public.

The only acceptable ways of being around this issue are - already being a parent, being pregnant, desperately trying to become pregnant, or planning to become pregnant one day. There is no understanding of ambivalence, or uncertainty, or the crippling anxiety involved in all of this. And the loneliness of it all. There's also little understanding of people who freely chose not to have children, but I guess they at least fit into one of the two 'acceptable' categories for the non-parents - either 'didn't want' or 'couldn't have'. My experience, and the experiences of many others, is that for many of us it is soooooo much more complex than that.

All the 'miracle' stories are reinforcing the idea that its ok, it will happen for you one day too and then you will be 'normal', just like us. You just need to do yoga / drink this tea / get reflexology / relax / forget about it / eat clean and all the other nonsense.

Lanouvelle, you hit the nail on the head there.

iamregina You're missing the point. The OP isn't asking for stories of hope and miracles. She's asking how you cope when the situation is NOT having children.

Thank you lotta you are right. Like you and previous posters have mentioned, I am looking for hope that if this never happens for me, I will be OK. At the moment I can't imagine that. I would love to be a miracle story myself and stories from everyone have really helped me.

We've been TTC for 17 months. I know not long compared to many, but the strain on my mental health is tough. I have a history of depression and am naturally pessimistic. Although I'm not depressed now, I don't want all this to trigger a massive episode. I also don't know if I have the strength to face IVF and constantly pinning my hopes on something I may not be able to have. It really damages your self esteem! The fact is we don't have much time left. I'll be 39 soon. I know lots of people get pregnant over 40, but lots don't and I just need to be realistic.

Hearing from those who desperately wanted a family and have forged a new direction for themselves has been really inspiring and helpful.

Thanks all xx

It took me from ttc at 28 to finally having ds at 39. That was 10 very long hard years. I had lots of investigations operations and alternative therapies. There were tiny periods of time that I would say that I was not thinking about it but I always was. I can't begin to tell you how much I cried and was just unable to move forward with anything.

My advice would be to take time to think. Don't make any snap decisions. With your age in mind if you do go ahead with IVF instead of waiting for an nhs round go straight to a private clinic with no waiting lists or even a clinic abroad who can do more investigations without you having spend time waiting. For me the clinic abroad was able to identify something that was considered in normal range in the nhs but is considered high in the rest of the world. That turned out to be a game changer for us.

I strongly agree with the previous poster who said don't take pregnancy tests. They really don't help things.

A friend of mine was pretty much given the 'no more options' card by the fertility doctors and they've gone on to adopt three of the most wonderful children.

After 7 years of countless ivfs another friend went on to have 3 children naturally. We are all very much in shock as is she!

I have 1 friend who is child free. After all their infertility problems I think they just reached the end of the road and were able to move on. They have a very fulfilling life (they choose not to travel but do other things), but they've had to forge out a different life if that makes sense.

I apologise if my "miracle babies" post was inappropriate.
But I am not sorry for being one of the women who was in OP's shoes. Spending years trying for a baby, thinking you can't take anymore, facing a future that might not involve children and everything that goes with that. And then having to try and come to terms with it.
Fwiw two long term relationships ended because of my fertility problems. The first found himself a woman who already had a child when we realised we may have to have ivf or adopt and the second because I had become obsessed with trying to have a baby because it wasn't working. Nothing anyone said or could have said to me at the time was helpful.
I am not a robot or a troll or a news worthy story, my post was my own experience and I absolutely did not intend to be cruel.

The OP has specifically asked how people who have not had children have coped with that gap and sadness in their life.

Coming on and telling your stories, uplifting though they may be in a different context, of how you became pregnant against the odds are neither relevant to the OP's question, or particularly helpful.

She wants to get an idea how, in the event she does not conceive, she might see a way forward and still live a life that contains joy and hope. Let people who have been in that situation tell their stories, and save yours for a different thread and another day.

bananafish81 you've reminded me of the feeling that I used to have of being on the outside looking in through a window...

Oddsocks - I really didn't mean to single you out at all!

What I am saying is that for anyone in a state of radical insecurity, the ending matters. It frames everything that went before, it gives it meaning or it takes it away. For someone with children, the anxiety takes on a different meaning to someone who cannot have them. There is a whole stage of grief and loss beyond the uncertainty, of which you have not the remotest idea. Talking about it is difficult because there is no place-holder in the public discourse for these issues. And part of the reason there is no placeholder is that so very many people constantly rush to offer their tale of conceiving against all the odds.

user ending in 11
While it may seem as if mine was a 'happy ever after story' my point was it took 10 years of living through it, not knowing that it would ever happen. We had a life, we moved forwards, always moved backwards but we had to move forwards. Giving someone options before they close a door isn't a bad idea.

bastardlyandmutley I can really relate to your post and I can well imagine that deciding to actively NOT TTC actually liberated you. Of course I'm not ignoring the immense sadness and loss but just that sentence about feeling liberated strikes a chord with me. TTC hell...couldn't agree more!

There must also be something in 'taking back control' of your life instead of hoping and wishing all the time?

But I don't think the OP is closing a door. She is just wondering in the event that she doesn't conceive, how she might cope and has asked for experiences from people who have had to eventually resign themselves to the fact that they won't be able to become pregnant.

This could be such a useful thread, but I feel it's becoming hijacked by well meaning posters who are pulling it off topic.

@lanouvelle I'm sorry I didn't mean to be grouchy. I don't know what comes after you give up hope because that's as far as I got and I was broken by it. I shouldn't have posted and absolutely didn't mean to upset any one.

Op once every six weeks is loads!! Yes you can throw self into being aunty. My dc aunts are not interested at all, one dc is five and has never had a card off her aunt. Nothing for Xmas and the odd pen grabbed at wh Smith. I also never saw my aunts that regularly either. So you do have wonderful opportunities there. I think you still have time to conceive, however but there is sooo much I would be doing without dc as well

I think the OP wants and needs to hear that there are positive things behind all the doors available to her, before any start closing.

OP, all doors are good, if you step through them with an open heart. They all lead to a broadly similar end point, even if the route they take over the next twenty or so years differs somewhat.

takemetoinsanity 10 years must've take it's toll. I can't even imagine doing this for another 2 years! I'm glad things worked out for you.

I wonder why you say that about pregnancy tests?

We are going to consider IVF (and it will have to be private as we won't be entitled to NHS care due to 'unexplained' infertility) but I am not sure if it's for me.

Oddsocks - please don't worry about causing upset. You seem absolutely lovely and I am not in any way upset by what you have posted. I do NOT -absolutely DO NOT - want this to become one of those horrible pity Olympics where people outdo each other in how awful their stories are. Anyone with infertility has suffered, this isn't about whose battle has been worse. Rather, what I'm trying to make a plea for is for a recognition of difference. I'd like a place to be kept for the stories that don't work out, to be able to talk about this in public without everyone becoming incredibly anxious and rushing to reassure. Because the more we talk about this, the more we can understand it ourselves and in each other, and the more women who find themselves childless in complexity will feel like they are not alone.

To bring it back on topic: my sense of meaning in my world changed when I couldn't have children. I have sometimes struggled to find a sense of a mission, a direction since then and it has taken me a loooong time to put things back together. I am not doing badly at all: to many outsiders with children, my life is lovely. But it's sometimes been hard to find a sense of that arrow-like direction, and the confidence to follow it. In my case, I wonder if it is partly because my life was really totalled by the illness that caused my infertility, so it came at the same time as having to give up work, and any life outside the walls of my bedroom for a bit. (I couldn't even make it downstairs!). Rebuilding from ground zero in your 30s is a hell of an effort. However, I'm optimistic that in the long run, my life will look OK!

And there are upsides. I get to go out all the time in the evening to lovely bars and restaurants. I get to go away all the time to lovely places and meet interesting people. I get to do what I want to most days, including things I'm passionate about that I couldn't have afforded the time or money to do otherwise. I think I'm probably closer to DH than I would have been with kids, to the point that he sometimes says he's really glad we didn't have them for this reason (this still causes me a bit of a pang, I have to confess). What I think/hope is happening is that now I'm further through the grieving, my creativity is sparking in ways I didn't think were possible. I'm putting together an intellectually rewarding career, but I'm also exhibiting as an artist in proper galleries. My life doesn't feel empty any more. It's different, and I think part of me will always be wistful for what might have been as a Mum, but in the long run, I may even be happier this way.

Some years ago I struggled to conceive a second child, I had two miscarriages and believed it was not going to happen as after having no problems at all with DS1 months and months were passing by. It was at the time adoptions of babies from abroad, especially from China, were possible and I decided that I really couldn't go through with IVF as I am needle phobic and find medical procedures difficult. We were both very happy with that decision and I didn't feel that there was any difference between a Chinese daughter and one we had created ourselves. In the end I did have DS2 and did not adopt but for those 3 years we were in the situation the OP has asked about and for me the desire to be a mother again was far stronger than actually being the genetic mother of the child.
We had a pact when we got married that if we didn't have any children we would accept that and not go through medical intervention, but had it become a reality I'm not sure we would have stuck to it.

ohbigdaddio It was oddly the hope each month that was so difficult to live with & made me miserable and made me keep trying month after month. To finally admit defeat & give up hope was the liberating part and mean't that I could finally be kind to myself and give myself a break.

I think that infertility is often framed in terms of a battle, and it certainly felt like that. There is this need to do everything you can to get pregnant in order to satisfy yourself that you did everything you could and to be able to live your life without a baby. This thought that if we kept plugging away surely we would be "rewarded" with a baby. To let go of that and realise that enough was enough and I had done everything I could was a release.

I often think now how different I feel when my period comes. I'm not locked into that awful cycle of devastation and then the tearing rush to get on with the next cycle....ad infinitum. I laugh at myself now about how I used to try and convince myself that my period was a breakthrough bleed or implantation. The mental pressure was ridiculous.

I agree with lanouvelle that the uncertainty was a killer. That has been removed now.

Lottapianos I totally agree that the infertile don't fit into any category that society is comfortable with. The loneliness is overwhelming and the sense of not fitting in. The looking through the window of life analogy rings very true for me. When I was trying to bring the TTC train to a halt I found it made people almost uncomfortable kind of as if they felt I ought to keep trying until my ovaries breathed their last and squeezed out the very last egg!

Not being able to have a second child is irrelevant to not being able to have children full stop

If you 'only' have one child you are still a parent

You are in the magic club of being a a mum

You are not left out in the cold of being involuntarily childless

Secondary infertility is a problem that those of us who can't have children would love to have

As if you can't have kids you assume you're never going to be able to have a child full stop. So why would you even entertain the idea of being able to have more than one?!

How is secondary infertility even relevant to the question of facing an entirely childless future?

The mind boggles

I would go further: I think the 'miracle success' stories are unhelpful, bordering on cruel.

This.

Incredible lack of insight from women who have been there and know it so well. Maybe it's part of repressing negative stuff in the long run?

OP - you adapt. You just do. It's horrible, it's heartbreaking, it's slow, but you'll get there if you have to.

I completely agree about there being no discourse about (or positive respresentation of) childless people in society - that goes for popular culture too.

There seems to be a real reluctance (particularly in tv or films) to ever portray couples who are happy without children, or who adopt and get their happy ever after. There's ALWAYS a miracle pregnancy, as if conceiving, carrying and birthing a child is the only way to become a 'real mother' and therefore a 'real woman'.

Shelagh's story in Call the Midwife really annoyed me this year - she was happy with a stepson and adopted daughter, but of course they had to give her a miracle pregnancy so their family was 'complete'.

OP: at 35 I am currently coming out of a 5 year fog of failed ivf, anger and grief. I've slowly been reassessing what's important and we are slowly resetting the focus of our lives to stop it all being about the desperate slog to getting pregnant, and I feel so much better for it.

I went back on the pill for a while
to controls awful endometriosis (I was amazed at how much I relaxed when I knew there was NO chance of me being pregnant), jacked my much-hated job in, started my own business and my DH also changed jobs. We moved to a beautiful but non-child friendly house, we travel, we are trying to enjoy life. I can't put my finger on when it happened but it was a slow creep. I spent so long being angry and desperately sad and bitter (and I'll probably still have those days) but at the moment we're good.

We had to work our way through it in our own time and you will too. Don't let anyone tell you how you 'should' feel or behave, you'll find your own way through it. People who haven't been there just don't understand unfortunately.

I think we're still a long way off people knowing how to talk about infertility and all the issues around it though. We've recently started considering adoption and I've already had 3 people tell me stories about friends of friends of friends who got pregnant as soon as they got approved for adoption .

All the best to you whatever you decide

I am in a slightly different position, I'd like children, my partner doesn't. I realise that our experience of childlessness are different, but I would rather be with her without children, than with anyone else with them. So, I guess I try finding a way to live with the feelings of sadness that overcome me and try to be a good Uncle to my sister's kids.

Hi OP. Just wanted to chip in and say that it totally is possible to forge a different path to happiness after infertility.

Came off the pill when we got married and were both 29. Nothing happened except my periods were infrequent. Got checked out after a year or so, found I had PCOS and was unlikely to conceive without assistance. It was a shock. We grieved, we railed at the unfairness, we considered our options, and then decided to stop torturing ourselves about what we didn't have and focus on what we did have and enjoy our lives together. I went back on the pill in fact, as my wonky hormones were all over the shop. Like others, I found making an active decision to stop TTC, close the book, liberating.

43 now. We're very happy. Lots of our friends now have children, and we enjoy spending time with them (but are also generally quite happy when they go home). I would definitely have found being a parent challenging, and am often relieved not to have the responsibility. Unless they were around and confided in at the time, most people assume we are child free by choice.

Not having children does mean that you don't have the rest of your life partly mapped out for you. I kind of felt I had to work out what to DO with the next 20 years instead of raising kids. I wouldn't swap my life now for one with children though, I consider myself to be an incredibly fortunate person.

I hope you find contentment too, whatever form it takes.