For welcoming Jennifer Anniston’s honesty about her struggle to have children

[RhubarbRocks]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-63576100

As someone who went though multiple rounds of unsuccessful IVF in my late 30s and early 40s it’s good to see this normalised in the news. It sometimes feels very isolating when you can’t have children (not least here when it’s sometimes questioned why childless women are here - I joined during ivf and have stayed for all the other non child related chats!)

So not really an AIBU but maybe a question/observation about the assumptions we make about whether a woman does/doesn’t have children.

@GelatoQueen but it’s not luck that you weren’t thinking about motherhood in your 20’s and others were. If you really always want kids your thinking about it then, if you decide later that you want them that’s fine but it’s riskier. If you would be happy with kids or without them you can wait knowing you may not have them.

If people are really believing that they’ll just be fine waiting till their 30’s to get in a position to have kids then they are following bad advice and different advice should be given. It might be fine, it might not, but obviously the earlier you try the more likely it is.

For me I always knew and things moved in that direction early because I was clear about it and so wanted someone who wanted that too and it’s been amazing. I never wanted to work on a corporate career so that wasn’t an issue. I never thought I could have it all.

I think the women who fall into this bloody cronedom against their wishes after thinking they could have it all have often wilfully believed bad advice that it was safe to wait until their 30’s to think about kids. People shouldn’t be giving that advice just to spare feelings because it just ends up hurting.

I clocked that, so thoughtless

@JessicaTooManyRabbits

you never thought you could have it all- how depressing

I did really want a high powered career .. to way of thinking should I have foregone that to have settled down to find a man and had kids?!
nah

@JessicaTooManyRabbits

plus I think some people wait until late thirties like me cos they’re too focused on other things in life. They still want kids but if it didn’t happen they wouldn’t be devastated cos of those other things they have in life
having kids isn’t the be all and end all
most people are not focused on it in their early twenties - especially in this day and age - who could afford it?!

And I think Brad is just a simple poor stoner lad who got parts because of his looks and was enamoured by Ange’s looks (which were incredible in those days) and did something dumb.

I remember seeing images of them on set making Mr & Mrs, and their body language very much spoke to me as him being the initiator, coming on strong, and Angelina being flattered (and clearly attracted to him but a bit bashful/reserved/reluctant even. It looks like she had reservations but he went all out.n

And I am no fan of Angelina.

JA said he lacks an empathy chip. He's not actually a nice guy, he just appears to be one. His subsequent behaviour in his marriage to Angelina, after the honeymoon period, was not great either.

Angelina was also a good bit younger, and now he has again, moved on to date women a lot younger.

@LuckySantangelo35

I never wanted a high powered career - why is that wrong? Only someone with a “career” who derives purpose from that would think that. Different strokes.

Youve made it clear you wanted a career wouldn’t settle and had high expectations for a man etc - and you’ve made it clear you didn’t want kids enough to forego any of that to ensure it. Well that’s fine for you but not good advice for the women who really do want kids badly is it?

And the point wasn’t that I didn’t think I could have it all so much as I never really wanted it all so it wasn’t an issue. To me my family is better than a 1000 high powered careers and having one would just cut into the time I spent with them anyway. I wouldn’t want my kids coming second to my career.

If people are really believing that they’ll just be fine waiting till their 30’s to get in a position to have kids then they are following bad advice and different advice should be given. It might be fine, it might not

90% of women 39 and under TTC, do so within two years. (Used to be on the NHS fertility main page, not sure if still there).

So it is actually is fine for the majority of women.

@LuckySantangelo35

Like I said if you didn’t mind not having kids so waited till you had other things then that’s good. It’s those who really do mind that it isn’t wise to wait for.

And many people are thinking about kids in their 20’s - just because it’s not normal for you doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

Who could ever afford kids? It’s just the idea of making do has gotten such a bad name. Many peoples Mums here were probably on a very tight budget when they were young.

The part about not wanting a child enough is simply an invention on your part. Nothing in my post even addresses that question, much less tries to assess it. Not wanting to go for either surrogacy or adoption, which she clearly doesn't because of what we know about her not having done it, the money she has and the availability of both in the society she lives in, means nothing other than not wanting to do surrogacy or adoption. It doesn't remotely relate to how much she might have wanted a child per se.

People who’ve got pregnant by having sex with their husband a few times are really not in a position to judge how much someone for whom that is not enough real,y wants a baby.

@LemonDrop22

So for 1 in 10 it isn’t fine and the number is actually higher because not everyone can afford TTC or tries it.

Then there’s the people who wait till their mid 30’s to try to get in a position to have kids - find a man, buy a house etc but don’t get there in time.

People who’ve got pregnant by having sex with their husband a few times are really not in a position to judge how much someone for whom that is not enough real,y wants a baby.

Indeed, which is why I didn't.

I think she saying it's advisable to have a baby earlier than late 30s, early 40s and that egg freezing should be looked at more.

I had a relationship in my twenties that I thought would end up like yours, it didn't work out and suddenly I was late 20s and single. I didn't meet my DH until my mid 30s and that was not due to lack of effort or planning, I was well aware of my biological clock. I've now had IVF, losses and a really crap few years. It's quite dismissive to presume that your life has turned out well due to good planning and mine hasn't due to "the inability to mentally plan backwards" . You may have planned well but you've also been lucky. Others haven't.

The trouble is that so much attention is given to the outliers - the celebrities who quite naturally pop out a baby at 50 (yeah right), the MN posters who trumpet that they started a family at 43 with no trouble, and of course one’s eye is drawn to the number of twins being wheeled around by mature parents.

I read The Times article today and the comments underneath, and heartily agree that back in the day the only sex education was avoidance of pregnancy at all costs. So many sailed through their life blithely assuming that motherhood was what you do and what you expect when you’ve done everything else.

when I was in the fertility clinic the place was packed with middle-class couples in their late 30s+ . I think it is our duty not to encourage our dcs to start on the breeding programme earlier than later, but to most definitely make sure that they understand the biological clock and what can be the devastating result of thinking that because you look, feel and act 25 you are 25.

As I said, though, we all see those who, like my cousin, is very successful and has had five dcs naturally starting at 40 (waaaaaah!!!).

It’s SO frustrating and disappointing that people are still so ridiculously insensitive.

@Schlaar I really hope you’re not so ridiculously insensitive to people in real life going through infertility

Not least because it should be 'should have' - if someone is going to be shitty, at least do it in a gramatically correct fashion.

I started ttc at 29. I was aware of the biological clock, but also aware that my own mother had conceived quickly at the age of 36 and 38. So I thought I had started in good time. Sadly not to be.

heartily agree that back in the day the only sex education was avoidance of pregnancy at all costs

Absolutely.
It came as a huge shock to me that some people can have sex and not fall pregnant. Contraception had been drummed into me, and there were more than a few panicky days where I'd taken a risk and anxiously waited for my period. So to have sex for nearly 4yrs and not get pregnant was a shocker. And when you are struggling to conceive, naturally you read up a lot on how to conceive and realise all the things we aren't taught in sex ed.

Life is about a lot more than survival though.

@pastafairyan

true

but r u saying u can’t thrive child free?! Cos you absolutely can you know! More money more time more travel etc etc etc

Yes, and that you could get pregnant even if you didn’t’ have full penetrative sex!

I have been living in survival mode for the last 4 years due to the pursuit of ivf and having a baby. I had a miscarriage a year ago and I have spent the last 6 months trying to do an ivf transfer, sometimes attending appointments every day. All to end in failure. But you have very little time to do more than survive. It seeps into every single area of your life and relationships.
Yes, life is about so much more than survival. Unfortunately for some like me, we don't get to experience the happy, settled picture-perfect family, no matter how hard we try.

I'm more than sure people can and do.
I don't think it's the norm. Having a family is actually really pervasively important.

I lived 34 years without a child and never wanted one. Having a family, with all its compromise and the difficult work that marriage can bring, I would say is better, but I'm well aware its completely subjective.

What I think is a shame is the narrative that 'you will be just fine without a husband and children' without thinking actually if you get to 40 and realise that travel and career are great but it's actually really lonely there's absolutely nothi8ng you can do about it at that point and it's sad to think women are duped into getting to that position by a blanket narrative that 'you don't need no man or kids' when in actually fact many women do find they need those things to be happy after all.

The egg freezing… maybe it’s ok if you are wealthy, but I gather it’s horrendously expensive for the ordinary woman, is a procedure not without difficulty (we don’t lay eggs fgs!) and if it becomes more common, then the likelihood of egg storage units going bust, breaking down or mishandling will likely increase. That’s before you’ve even used them years later - who really knows how eggs might deteriorate and the impact on a foetus and baby?

As for surrogacy - very troubling. It’s a short step from allowing people to buy babies for all sorts of nefarious purposes - from evil to organ harvesting

Donor eggs… ok for some, but not a route I favoured.

As for adoption - well, there’s nothing to say, really, to people who think it’s easy peasy. A friend of mine and her dh were rejected for being too booky/intellectual - I suppose fair enough it was ruled that their expectations of a child would be too high.

A friend of mine and her dh were rejected for being too booky/intellectual - I suppose fair enough it was ruled that their expectations of a child would be too high.

What? I know adoption isn't an easy path and there are all number of hoops to jump through, but this doesn't sound right.