To think it's not the end of the world if you can't have children?

[Jaygee61]

I speak as one who couldn't. Ttc for 10 years. It broke my heart. But I healed. I have a different perspective on things now. I feel there were worse things that could have befallen us, being diagnosed terminal cancer (OH did have cancer but it eas treatable fortunately) motor neuron disease, being paralysed in an accident. We live lives of joy and dignity.. We have created a great marriage and I'm proud of that. I love spending time with my nephew.

But society seems to view being childless by choice as a fate worse than death. Something not to be accepted but fought against at all cost. . If you're not prepared to go to any lengths to have a child you can't have really wanted one in the first place....

It's pretty rough to come onto a thread about infertility and accepting that and say you would have killed yourself if you hadn't have had a child.

Quite!

Plus, never being pregnant is not comparable to the death of a child and it’s really crass to suggest that it is.

I think that the grief of a future you never got to have can be a very real grief. I noticed that people were much more sympathetic to me when I told them I'd had recurrent miscarriages than if I just said we had fertility problems, but I don't see the difference - my sadness over my miscarriages was a sadness over a future I'd hoped for and wouldn't get to have, and that's surely very similar to the pain of not conceiving at all?

And lots and lots of people assume that they'll have children - probably most - and so envisage their future in that way. Most of my friends and peers talk about 'when' they have children. It's just that normally works out for them and so no one blames them for their assumption that they'll be in the 85% who have a successful pregnancy within a year of trying.

'It's pretty rough to come onto a thread about infertility and accepting that and say you would have killed yourself if you hadn't have had a child'

It certainly is, especially when we're often told that childfree folks are selfish and parents are the ones just bursting with empathy and consideration for others

I think that the grief of a future you never got to have can be a very real grief.

Indeed it can.

I have had people say to me "well everyone has disapointments, we all have unrealized ambitions". They really really don't get it.

jay Very true. People on this thread talking about not always getting what you want etc are so insensitive, I want lots of things that I cant have-my own house, an amazing career, to be able to travel the world but I dont grieve for not being able to have those things. Its a totally different ballpark.

I haven't read through all the posts but wanted to say you are not being unreasonable at all. I've had 3 miscarriages, all around the 8 week mark and we're now looking at months of very expensive tests and waiting for results. I'm currently focusing on all the negative parts of being a parent (just to get through all this) and this has almost got me convinced that I might be happier without children. More time to spend on myself, my partner, family, friends and pets, more money, less worries. I get so angry that girls are brought up conditioned to want to be a mum, I have seen it time and time again. I don't necessarily feel pressure to have children by my friends and family, but I do by society.

Of course it's a real grief.

It is a biological drive that doesn't compare to having a house or whatever.

It just doesn't compare with actually losing an existing child. Or having a miscarriage, even. Once I was pregnant, the possibility of a loss was too much to contemplate. Which was one reason I didn't buy stuff for the baby until close to the due date. I know it would have hurt too much to have too many baby things around.

I think that's why it wasn't a big deal for me to have children. Or I didn't let it become a big deal. Not sure I deal well with disappointment, so I tend to be somewhat blase and detached about things I can't control.
Not right or wrong, it's just how I function.

It's a biological drive that I don't possess (and neither does DD). I admit that I don't understand it, although I do feel sympathy for someone who wants a child but can't have one.

BTW, I'm a biologist and I don't blame society (entirely) for the pressure to be parents.

Humans are still around because we evolved to want to be parents. It's a natural and desirable drive. Which, sadly, leads to feelings of grief and loss if we can't. Which are also natural.
However, I think it is possible, although it may not be easy, to not let ourselves be consumed by that grief.

PS - LoniceraJaponica, you say you don't have that drive, but you have a DD. So, at some point you did want to have a child, or didn't reject it, if it was an accident. So, you must possess some drive, even if it's not huge or particularly noticeable.

lweji I don't think its that simple. Its not the same as losing a child but to say that grief is comparable is daft. For myself its a real all consuming grief which has led me to incredibly dark places. You have a child so you will never understand that. Thats fine theres plenty I dont understand either but dont tell me that my grief is less than somehow..you just cant possibly know.

For myself its a real all consuming grief which has led me to incredibly dark places. You have a child so you will never understand that.

I think you missed the part where it too me over two years to get pregnant and had by that time come to terms with the possibility of not having one.
It's true that I will never understand the all consuming grief that some people have, but it's not because I never faced not having a child. I did. We're just different people and react differently.

Well thats kind of the point isn't it that we are all different and respond differently..I don't know how I would feel if I lost a child either..I just know know I feel in the situation I am in.

And arguably theres a difference between struggling to conceive and reaching the end of your reproductive years without a child..

Sure.
But that is also why it's healthy to have different experiences and point of view on such a thread.
I don't think I'd have gone to dark places without a child. Because of where I started from. But people who don't have children also don't know how they'd react to the reality of having children either.

My dad summed it up once for me when I was feeling very upset because I don’t rate first in anyone’s life. He said ‘you don’t rate first for anyone, but you rate very high for a hell of a lot of people, young and older, and that’s something not many people can say.’

That is really really lovely - and I am going to remember that. It's what I would like said about me.

I hate all of the comparisons these threads bring out. Each person’s world, tragedy, and grief experience is different from the next person. The problem with infertility and being childless (which is largely being played out on this thread) is that society allows it to be diminished and dismissed so easily in a way that you simply couldn’t get away with after another type of loss. Whilst at the same time putting motherhood on a pedestal, the combination of which renders infertile women invisible.

Also, there does seem to be a cohort of people who like to compare their struggle to conceive and subsequently get pregnant as being the same as someone else’s childlessness. Two years ttc is so hard, but within normal limits. Years and years of medical treatments, miscarriages and then getting to the end of all the options open to you is entirely different. You simply can’t compare it.

And of course the validity of someone’s life should not be measured by their ability to procreate. Equally that does not mean that someone’s grief is any less valid because of this - one doesn’t cancel out the other.

The funny thing is, I never thought this about anyone else, but when it came to looking at my own life, I did struggle to find my own sense of worth after many years of heartache. I thought people who were happily child free were inspiring, but I couldn’t find that happiness for myself.

Someone further upthread said they viewed having children in a similar way to being the prime minister or winning an Olympic medal

• as just one of many things that wouldn’t happen to them. Except that for some people, having a child has been their primary ambition, they have planned and worked towards it, suffered pain, invested their life savings, seen their hopes dashed again and again whilst others seem to get there easily and without trying. The comparison only really works if you have actually competed for an Olympic medal time and time again only to have to walk away empty-handed and accept that your dreams are over.

I hope that people who desperately want children and don’t have them can find peace and happiness, but it is not for anyone to diminish the grief they feel whilst trying to get there.

I think it’s weird that parenthood is an “ambition”.

This thread is making me question a lot of things. Like, I love my children to death but I would never have listed motherhood as an ambition...

I said upthread but it really is mad how differently people feel about it, isn’t it?

ambition (noun)
a strong desire to do or achieve something.
Not at all weird.

I suppose yes, kids could be seen as an achievement if you’ve had multiple losses for example.

I just don’t know anyone whose ambition was motherhood, IYSWIM.

People have very different views on it, I think. Which is likely why it affects some so very strongly.

Mum of 3 here, yanbu, it pisses me off when interviewers go on and on at Kylie Minogue or Jennifer Aniston about not having kids. It's nobody's business.

One of my dearest friends chose to not have children and she's happy, genuinely happy. Doesn't make her a cold hearted person, which is another wrong stereotype.

Two years ttc is so hard, but within normal limits. Years and years of medical treatments, miscarriages and then getting to the end of all the options open to you is entirely different. You simply can’t compare it.

But that's the thing. I wasn't prepared to go through years of medical treatments. For me it was something that would be great if it happened, but I wouldn't want to put myself through hormone treatments and all the probing and expectation.

I can understand that if you want children so badly that you go through years of IVF and it doesn't work, that it will be very hard to bear.
But I at the same time I don't know what it is like because I don't feel the same. Again, it's not because I haven't been through the same, but because my feelings to start with and during TTC were different. Two years TTC wasn't hard for me. It was only somewhat disappointing, but I didn't suffer as such.

Which is not to say that I don't think other people don't suffer in the exact same circumstances. Just different perspectives.

For me, at the moment, it wouldn't be the end of the world if I wasn't to have any children. But for my sister in law the struggle to conceive is everything to her. They are currently waiting to find out if their 2nd round of IVF has worked and following the failed first round, she cried each month her period arrived. And the tears weren't just a sadness that she wasn't pregnant, it was almost a grief that she was to have another month to get through without being a mum. It is all she has ever wanted and I don't think adoption would be considered, as for her, the need is biological as much as it is physical and mental.

I cannot imagine feeling as she has for so long.

Really interesting thread thanks OP. I was ttc for about 3 years, 2 rounds of IVF, 1 miscarriage. No children. Mid-40s and stopped ttc about 3 years ago and as someone has said upthread I do feel like I've dodged a bullet now. I honestly don't think I'd have made a good parent for a few reasons but mainly as my anxiety levels are generally high.

I didn't want kids throughout my 20s (even had a termination at 24 years old) but mid-30s when I met my dh he really wanted them and i decided it was the right thing to do. A few years of obsession with it but I'm truly on the other side now.
I do some volunteering with children in care so get fulfilled in other ways. Would never adopt or foster myself though (and get sick of being asked that) but enjoy spending time with children.

Genuinely love my life now and would actually be devastated if I got pregnant! Agree with others about the cliches of childfree and travel etc, mostly a load of tosh. I have a dog who is enough commitment and worry for me right now!

The general consensus is not to have them unless you can afford them. So with this in mind and the cost of school uniforms, trips, university, council tax, bus fares and everything else.....how do you afford it? I have an idea but it means giving up holidays abroad and eating out....and I just don't feel ready yet. Sorry