Infertility with one child rant. Trigger warning

[infertililitybitch]

I suffered infertility and was fortunate enough to have one miracle child.

The stress of ttc cost me my marriage and mental health. I will never be the person I was prior to infertility and prior to pregnancy after infertility.

I did not have a lovely pregnancy. I had a horrific nightmare of intense anxiety about prenatal OCD.

I was blessed with a healthy baby. I adore my child. I am a shell of what and who I was before and I lost friendships, my marriage, even my ability to work for several years as aside from a baby my MH was so poor.

I've done lots of therapy but I'm still aching for a "family" and grieving for the loss of my marriage and probably have some form of PTSD tbh.

I am constantly told I should just be grateful I have one. I should be, I kind of understand that. I would hate myself if I was my former childless self and moaning about this.

But prior to any - I hid from children and child places when the pain was too much, I avoided them and created a daily existence which could try to forget the fact my body didn't fall pregnant despite trying every month for years.

Now I have one, I'm finding it so hard that I don't have more than one - because I go to child places, do child stuff and I'm surrounded by people who are popping out sibling after sibling. I can't hide from my pain anymore.

I dated someone who had 3 kids last year. He ended it somewhat over my jealousy that he had 3. I wanted more and to try and he decided he didn't (initially he said he did or I wouldn't have dated him) and he told me I should be happy with the one I have and he would have been with one and moaned about the challenges of having 3. Obviously we weren't compatible, but I feel like I shouldn't have to defend that there is a pain even if you get 'one' if you suffer infertility.

If I had 2, my dreams would be fulfilled in that I have 2. But I will never be able to stop feeling this jealousy/sadness that my body doesn't just get on with it and has cost me mentally and emotionally so much more than another child.

It's not unreasonable to be angry, upset, pissed off, guilty or any of the other things you are clearly feeling. It's not unreasonable to want to rant and call out those people who make placating remarks or inane observations. You are perfectly entitled to feel all of those things.

But in the end no one can change what's happened to you, words - wether they are the right ones or wrong ones - can't help you. You are not ready to let go of your pain and the total unfairness of it all and, until you are, nothing will help. There will be a point at which you will be ready to make peace with yourself but you sound a long way from that point right now.

But be careful, because however much we think children don't notice our pain or guilt they really do pick up on it earlier than we know. Just like unhappy marriages where the parents say "we stayed together for the children and they were fine" but if you asked the grown up child of those parents they will say "they thought we didn't know but we did and it was shit, we wish they had just separated".

Making peace with yourself is, imo, the priority. It's really tough, it might take a long time but you owe it to yourself and your child to make it a priority.

I was in the staff room at work one day when a colleague came in and started ranting at me about not getting pregnant for the 2nd time and how devastated she was because she had been trying for a year. At that point I was childless and had been ttc/having fertility treatment for 14yrs. I know how it feels.

I can relate to the complex feelings of knowing that you will only have one. After years of infertility, my miracle baby has just turned one. The issues around her conception, pregnancy complications, traumatic birth and lengthy neonatal journey, and the loss of my son the previous year, mean that my mental health will not allow me to go through this again. I fear my relationship will not survive another loss. And any money we spend on IVF for a sibling is money that isn’t available to enhance our daughters life. So the sensible thing is to accept that I will not have any more children. But it’s really not that simple, partly I think because it feels that a choice that many take for granted has been taken away from you.

I don’t feel the same pain that you describe however. I have been treated for PTSD, maybe that has helped.

I would have had more but I met my husband quite late in life and we don’t have the money and space for another anyway.

It is what it is. Some stuff in life you just have to accept, hard as it is.

The fact that you’re so angry and can’t stop thinking about it definitely shows you still need to work on some issues.

It’s not that I don’t get it, but life isn’t fair and we don’t always get everything we want.

Hearing the same shit trotted out time after time is annoying, I know. But people just don’t know what to say in the circumstances so they’re just trying as best they can. Maybe they feel uncomfortable or they don’t want to comfort you. That’s hard to deal with but that’s how most people are.

@Blueroses99 when he was one I was still in the grip of OCD and I couldn't even contemplate another. I didn't want another then. I had a baby and I was never again going to go through the hell of pregnancy or ttc. When everyone else began having more a few years later it really kicked in and it got its worse maybe around two years ago when he was 4.

I'm glad you've had treatment for PTSD and hope it's spared you this. What is the treatment for PTSD that worked for you called? I will look into if it's possible with my GP to be referred for anything specific.

A part of me wants to ask my counsellor to read this thread. However I'm not sure they'd have the time to or that would be appropriate. It would just be easy to say look this is my pain, help me fix this. But there are other things I am also focusing on in my life in my counselling that I don't want to interrupt at the same time. I talk about this in therapy but alongside the rest rather than totally focusing on this.

I hear you. Infertility hurts, and it hurts badly. To my mind, it's a grieving process - there's grief for the life and family you wanted and desire. I've been there.

I have a miracle baby myself & he took 8 years to conceive. After all we went through, well meaning idiots were on our case about a second child, even though they knew the history. People chat such hurtful nonsense at times. Eventually, we were lucky and DD came along. Now we get ridiculous questions about the bloody age gap. Stupid questions seem normal now.

I have no words of wisdom for you sorry. I hear you, understand, and hope you find peace

Emdr therapy is good for ptsd

Look there’s a difference between grateful and happy.

Grateful is a word that should quite frankly be shoved in the bin. If you think about it it’s only used in a really shit situation when things turn out not quite so shit.

Sod grateful - no you are allowed to upset you are in this position. It’s shit, it’s not where you wanted to be.

But you can be happy. Happy you have your son.

There's such a vast sea beyond "you don't always get what you want and life isn't always fair"

And the scars and trauma that infertility can leave.

It wasn't fair that I didn't get the job I wanted, or the money I wanted, or the outfit I wanted, or the lovely ability to sing like my friend who has an amazing voice, or going through a casual relationship not working out and becoming more. They are things in life that aren't fair. They are not things that left scars or trauma. They are things you move on from.

But different things affect different people in different ways OP.

I do feel bad for you, but if you keep this mindset of infertility being the most traumatic, most awful, most painful thing anyone can experience, you will never get over it.

I know it’s awful and I’m really sorry you’re going through it. It sounds like it really left a big mark on you and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I had really bad mental health problems in my 20s, as in institutionalised various times, couldn’t work etc. The main thing that helped me was letting go of my ideas of what my life should/could have been. No, I was never going to have an amazing career or a big house or a big group of friends or even good mental health, but what I did have was still a life, even if it wasn’t the life I wanted.

Look up ‘radical acceptance’. It’s hard in the beginning but it does help.

I am happy I have him. He is the reason when this pain gets so intense I do not have thoughts of giving up.

Prior to him I had suicidal thoughts. I have moments I wish I could stop my pain but I don't ever want to stop being.

He's the reason I actually laugh and smile and now and then find myself in the moment with him enjoying life.

I am happy I have him. I'm not yet a happy person, I'm deeply sad and in a lot of pain. But I tell him probably almost daily how happy I am that he's my son.

Then definitely stop trying to ‘grateful’ for him or your situation - it’s shit and it has been shit for you.
I had a very very ill baby who nearly died, after three early miscarriages and a horrendously sick pregnancy. Her illness was the most awful period in my life. I get so utterly fed up of people telling me I should be grateful she survived when so many don’t. I’ll always be happy I have her but never ‘grateful’ - what we and she went through was shit!

It's not "the most traumatic thing anyone can ever experience" and I haven't said that. It's not comparable to lots of pain, not because it hurts any less or more - it's a different type of pain and a specific pain.

But it is an intense gut wrenchingly awful pain and for ME perhaps the worst pain. I've been through abuse, sudden bereavement, and sexual assault off the top of my head. For ME this pain hurts me most. It's a specific pain I have created a specific venting thread for

@applesandpears56

Maybe that's some of it. I'm guilty I'm not grateful for something that was absolutely shit.

My outcome was amazing in that I got him. But incredibly shit. As was yours xx

We have one son we left it late to try for another.
I have found having one child very exciting. I can be as selfish as I want because I don't experience like my friends the guilt of taking attention to one child to give to another.
Our son it's 12 now and he loves being an only child. We have time and he gets lots of attention.
What I'm trying to say is that if you can embrace the benefits of having one child you'll see that at least for now you can feel fulfilled.
I really hope you can see how easy it is to have one child. At least for us one is the perfect number. We are too old now to even consider having any more so we try to enjoy the son that we have.

I'm not yet ready to embrace the benefits of having only one though I do appreciate the logic and irrationality of me not doing so for now.

When all hope is completely gone of any more I will be ready to do that. Of course in a general sense I try to do that on a daily basis but overall and in its entirety I'm just not ready yet.

When will ‘all hope be gone’. What does that look like? Part of feeling crap is not having a plan or control. I’m sure much of your ocd has been about putting in place control over things you can because you can’t control your fertility. Is there a time limit you would consider too late to try? Procedures you would and wouldn’t do? What monetary spend? Go alone, use donor eggs, adopt etc etc. if it was me I think I’d benefit from mapping out vaguely in my head my limits.

I'm a therapeutic counsellor and I understand the void you feel.
I think for me it was easy to accept having one child because I was getting old and physically I didn't feel able to try for another baby.
When you are young it's different.
You seem to have a great understanding and awareness and I hope you come to understand where this deep feeling comes from.
It takes time to understand how or why we feel the way we do but one thing it's for sure. Nobody can denied the way you feel. Your feeling are very important I just hope one day you feel complete regardless of the size of your family.

God. I’d even love just the one.

@applesandpears56

My limits are I won't go beyond the initial assisted conception e.g. Metformin and clomid. As much as I want to have a baby I cannot do that ever emotionally and my MH would not cope well enough for my DS if I did. At least for the foreseeable future.

I won't bring a child into the world entirely alone. I need the child to have a father not a donor.

I will coparent. I don't have to be in a relationship though I would prefer and hope for one.

My age limit was going to be 35 but as it's nearing I'm already saying maybe 36 so I just don't know. It's young there are people who do perfectly fine over, just the OCD and risks with older age of various conditions is what made me say 35. As well as DS needing me to get through this for him. The older he gets the more aware he will be if I'm not.

I won't adopt. I can't (even if I wanted to, I've considered, investigated and accepted that I wish "I" could, I'd love to but for an adoptive child "I" am not the right person or extended family members)

All hope is otherwise gone when no eggs are left I guess.

If I was in a financial position to support someone I would gladly consider surrogacy if someone wanted to do that but that's in my head pie in the sky win the lottery type thinking and I'm not sure I could even really consider that if I financially could unless physically all hope was entirely evaporated of me carrying.

In a supportive relationship with someone who desperately wanted a child I would perhaps then consider donor eggs but I think the person would have to be a saint to be able to emotionally support me enough to do that.

@HollaHolla as I say in my OP I would have hated myself when I had years of ttc prior to my miracle.

It's not about not loving the one I am blessed with or being grateful for getting "just the one"

My thread has a trigger warning and clear title and is not intended to upset those who it would be a difficult thread to cope with.

It’s not difficult or upsetting for me to read.... but I do have to think you’re maybe getting this out of proportion. You have a child. You’re experiencing all these things. Whilst I know you want another child, you’ve had, and continue to have, that experience that we can’t all have. Maybe you do need to be thankful for, and enjoy, what you have.

OP please look into EDMR therapy. My friend had post traumatic stress and just wasn’t coping with life. She has had the therapy and she is so much more resilient. She is in a heartbreaking situation (her husband is terminally ill) but able to face and live life. She too has only been able to have one child but she gets so much joy from her boy. I don’t think she would have been able to do this before the therapy. She Is like a changed person.

I've not said I don't enjoy, am not happy for or am not grateful for my DS!!!

I'm not grateful for the shit I experienced to have him or the trauma it's left me with. I'd do it all over again to have a second. And never again beyond that.

As for blowing it out of proportion. I said in my OP - scars stay long after a baby arrives. My thread is about these scars.

I will ask @Tomselleckhaskindeyes thanks. and PP who also said EMDR.

I get you OP and the scars that your experiences have left.
I’m not going to tell you to feel grateful or to accept your lot, but by sharing your pain you’ve given some people on here some comfort that they’re not alone, and that it’s ok to surrender to grief every so often as keeping the happy, thankful-for-what-I-have face on (particularly for DC) can be bloody exhausting.
And you’ve done so much - left an abusive relationship, adjusted to single parenting, sought and accessed ongoing counselling because you know you want to feel differently and acknowledge that even getting your heart desires might not fix everything. Big milestones there and I really admire you for being so proactive.

You keep saying this thread is for you to vent, yet you purposely posted in AIBU which is hardly known for its hearts and flowers.
I don’t know, to me it seems like you WANT the conflict of people disagreeing with you. You don’t get to brush aside other people’s POV by saying ‘trigger warning’. That’s not how it works. Others have spoken of loss of a child and you said it isn’t a competition?? Jesus, fork isn’t the one lacking empathy here.
I am no stranger to secondary infertility, I had a hysterectomy at 25...but I think your perspective is all out of whack. You’re obsessing over this in a deeply unhealthy way.