Deep breath. Sorry, I only ever seem to post here when there's some massive knot to unpick and no real answer.
Backstory: I (a woman) have been married to my wife for over ten years. I never wanted children growing up. I am a very butch lesbian to the extent that I'm uncomfortable with many of the feminine features of my body and have always had a horror of pregnancy. However, in 2015 wife became extremely broody. I wanted her to be happy more than I wanted to remain childfree, so I agreed that we could try inseminating her using donor sperm. We did, three times, at home. She did not get pregnant. She then changed jobs from a truly terrible situation and afterwards informed me that she thinks she only really wanted a baby to escape her terrible job, i.e. for the maternity leave. I said fine.
Fast forward to late 2019 and suddenly I became overwhelmed with broodiness, which I had never expected to happen to me! At first I thought I could just donate eggs and that would solve it for me. I mentioned it to wife and she said straightforwardly that she's spent five years putting the idea of having children behind her and she didn't want any. I accepted this at first, but then started to feel strongly that I really wanted my own baby, so much so that I was willing to be pregnant even though the idea still makes me feel very uncomfortable. This made me think I must genuinely really want it.
So, I cried about it, she said okay, we went to a fertility clinic and agreed that I would donate eggs and in return get a free IVF cycle -- so I would have some eggs for me, and some for another woman as a donation. Wife and I had a counselling session wherein we both agreed this was fine (I have no concerns about donating eggs).
Then coronavirus struck and everything got put on hold. During this period, wife first said actually she still really doesn't want a baby, then said she doesn't want ME to carry a baby because that's not in line with how she's thought of our relationship, she'll feel alienated, she'll feel as if it's nothing to do with her etc. I said fine I'll just donate eggs then, but we had a big fight about it and I was very upset. In the end I said I felt it was worse for me to make her have a baby (she'd legally be its parent) than it was for her to not let me have one.
We agree on this for a short time. I was very upset but thought I'd get used to it. Then she suddenly said if she could carry the baby (my egg) we could do it. Historically this has never been possible for us because her BMI is too high but she has lost a lot of weight in lockdown. She would now only need to lose another stone to receive the egg and she says she can do it. I've agreed that we can wait for her to do this and then go ahead.
The thing is, it's gone back and forth so many times that I now just feel really stressed about it, and also she's now seemingly stopped losing weight. I keep thinking about the things she said when she told me she didn't want a baby, unequivocally: about not wanting me to have the baby, and about feeling she'd be a bad mother. She has a terrible relationship with her own mother and actually I could see her being terrible. And I can't help thinking maybe I'm just hormonally broody and the desire will pass (my best friend is also in the process of getting IVF and maybe I'm influenced by that).
I just don't know what to do. I am so stressed out with thinking about it, and cross with her for insisting she be the one to carry it which means I have to wait for her to lose an arbitrary 14lbs she might never lose. Furthermore, my parents are extremely homophobic and would undoubtedly be really awful about it if we had a child, and it makes me really sad thinking about having to explain to a kid why my sister's children go to granny and grandad's house and they can't. I have considered just going to the fertility clinic (who, by the way, keep ringing me, because clearly they need donor eggs) and saying I'll just do the donation after all, but now having had the option of a baby dangled in front of me, going through all that just to donate seems really depressing!
I just do not know what to do. If we'd gone ahead in the first instance without overthinking it, I'd probably be pregnant by now but we've had too much time to think about it, I am now not allowed to just take this easiest of all options, and I want to just chuck it all in so we can stop arguing about it.