Is having children the be all and end all?

[StavrosFlatley]

I'm really struggling at the moment. I've been battling a chronic illness for the past 4 years which has made me almost completely housebound. I had to move in with my parents when my illness became serious and I'm single and unlikely to be well enough to look for a partner any time soon (not that it's much of an option right now anyway with Covid!).

I'm mid 30s and almost everyone my age is having babies. It's all I see on social media the whole time how fulfilled they are and how wonderful life is now they're 'complete'. Most of my friends just send me photos of their babies the whole time (although I'm happy they still want to keep in touch at all, given that I'm no longer the person I was).

Is having children really the be all and end all? Or are things just exaggerated on social media? Should I just give up if I'm unlikely to be able to have children? I'm happy for my friends but I just feel so left out and like it's an exclusive club I'll never get to join. I also worry that eventually they'll only want to keep in touch with other friends who have kids.

Children absolutely aren't the be all and end.

DH and I struggled with this. He's infertile because of an illness he has. We went down the IVF road, applied to adopt and explored donor and surrogates.

About 3 years ago we decided to just leave it. It was hard because like you, we were amongst friends who all seemed to be having babies.

How if someone said we could have a baby genuinely we'd say no. We have a great life!

Its everyone's personal preference really, personally I think if you are asking that then you feel that children may be the be all and end all else there would be no reason to ask because you would feel complete..

I feel that my children are my be all and end all again thats my choice, I live my life for me and for them, they make it feel love like I've never felt it before and I believe that I am more of a person because of them, I would never imagine my life without them or want that to change.
Again this is my personal opinion, a lot of people are happy without kids

@StavrosFlatley I'm a bit late to the thread and I can't actually answer the OP but I can massively sympathise. DP has a chronic illness (CFS plus other stuff) and we dithered for ages about whether to have DC. I'm now 30 weeks pregnant so obviously we decided it was worth it for us. His illness doesn't sound quite as debilitating as yours but it is very up and down, and has sadly been "down" quite a lot since I've been preggers and he can currently only manage one 5 minute walk a day.. it's stressful to think about the "what ifs" too much (current "what if" is whether he'll have the stamina to support me through labour ). I still believe we made the right decision for us, and we are lucky enough to have some family support and be in an OK financial position, plus my job is quite flexible, but the reality is that it's going to be hard! Of course I can totally see that the "right decision" for someone else might have been not to go for it (we will definitely be stopping at one!). Good luck whatever you decide.