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.

@Sunbird24

But it’s true. If people can live without kids then it’s fine to take that risk but if you absolutely know for certain you want kids then realistically you should be able to find an alright man before your in your late 30’s if you start trying earlier.

Its alright to be picky and not “settle”, so long as family is optional and not having one won’t devastate you.

@ReneBumsWombats

I don’t really think Pitt is a brilliant actor though. He’s just himself in everything with limited range. I mean if he gets the right part like Jesse James he can suit it but he’s hardly Tom Hanks or Russel Crowe

I also started ttc at 29, years of IVF but was not so lucky as your friend.

@JessicaTooManyRabbits well I could ask the same of you, why are you so sure that AJ has been manipulating and abusing him, poor little smokey mite that he is? It appears you think she made him do everything, cheat + ? and he just blithely went along with it coz he's short a brain cell or two Personally that smacks of "poor menz" type of internalised misogyny/sexism. But we can agree to disagree I'm sure

To answer your question: Liars, cheaters and addicts tend to be pretty shitey people and are frequently the manipulators IME. I could absolutely be misremembering this but I could have sworn I read something a while back that was about the kids giving evidence of physical abuse on the plane. So I'm not assuming he's at "fault" but I would bet on balance, that her & the childrens' version is possibly closer to the truth than his version. shrug

Anyway why would anyone hope that JA gets back with him the aforementioned lying, cheating addict?

Disagree. I think he's got great range and depth and never seen him do a bad turn.

Di Caprio is also a brilliant actor. Doesn't stop him being a knob.

PSA - stop telling people with fertility problems to just adopt!

It is patronising, uneducated, insensitive and downright unhelpful.

I think it is great she has been so open about it now. It must of been awful the speculation.

Infertility is a lonely place and I think it would help so many if we felt were more able to talk about it.

How terrible that she’s had all these years of people speculating about her and even now the numpties on this thread are blaming her for leaving it too late or having a celeb body and that weird Jessica person talking about her looks and acting ability and AJ?? Wtf? How is that relevant you judgmental vacuous prick.

Same

And no one even knows she ‘left it too late’ do they? She didn’t mention an age, she didn’t mention what the issue actually was or if it was in any way related to her age from what I read.

People of all ages can suffer infertility or have fertility/secondary fertility problems which are very varied.

She's told them to shut up about that in the past too.

Sadly she is a celebrity in the public eye and very wealthy for that and was married to Brad Pitt- thats why she has had to deal with this very publicly. Not saying it is right. I also agree that it may have been infertility not due to her age so all the speculation and blaming her age is annoying.

@HatThatWearsYou

Just one other thing - You’ve got to take into account how unbelievably attractive Ange was in the 90’s. She was my generations Marilyn Monroe. As a result a lot of her troubling and unstable behaviour was overlooked in a way it wouldn’t have been for other women (or men).

So coupling all the things she did pre Pitt, with the fact she really went after him while he was with Jen and also the multi country adoptions (nothing wrong with adoption but the way she’s kind of made a point of country shopping for children is odd and intentional) plus the way she’s been so petty with the divorce despite them both being rich af (going after businesses only Pitt had any hand in and that are passion projects for him) makes me think she’s more than capable of simply making up stories about Pitt to get sole custody.

I really think that Pitt was just a poor stoner lad who was really good looking and simple and he got dazzled by Ange’s (as most were then) and made the huge mistake of leaving Jen - a mistake he is now paying the price for as Ange tries to ruin him (and going totally nuclear on someone like that after first pursuing them with great intent like Ange has is a tell tale sign of personality disorder).

And it’s a shame because he and Jen seemed really good together.

Also watch Pitt in interviews with cast mates - he can laugh and joke around where as Ange is always aloof and standoffish. Tbh the whole thing reminds me of that Cartoon character Ange played in Beowulf where she seduces the dumb adventurer guy and then ruins him. Maybe that’s why she suits those parts like that and Maleficient - it’s close to reality.

I always thought fertility was the issue and felt that Brad having a whole bunch of children was him making a point about it. I hate the culture around womens bodies but so many women feed it by buying the magazines and now clicking the webpages.

Jeeze photoshoptastic!

Why on earth would she go back to him?!!

@Ritasueandbobtoo9

I always got the impression all the adoptions from different countries were Ange’s idea and way of trying to project this woke (before that term existed) earth mother image and publicise herself that way.

Yes I agree. We'll underrated.

JessicaTooManyRabbits Maybe you are closer to the mark, maybe it was Ange making sure she got to keep Brad. He doesn’t strike me as a bad guy.

@CantSleepCountingSheep

He probably realises what a mistake he made after all Ange had put him through though?

They we’re good together until Ange

How do you know they can give birth themselves? You don't, so you shouldn't comment like that.

As a fellow IVF-er it’s great to see it normalised by a star such as Aniston. Her story is painfully sad, I wish she could have had her little dream.

I’ve been on both sides of the fertility coin. We conceived our first child in the first month of trying. We spent 4 years TTC our second and had 2 IVF cycles.

When you’re fertile you have no idea about the pain of infertility. Infertility and IVF is this strange world that only exists for people who have something seriously wrong…but when you’re in it you realise how IVF isn’t this big scary alien thing. Just like you’d fix a broken leg, you can try to fix infertility through IVF. It should be normalised and understood more so that women don’t go through such isolation during an already extremely difficult and lonely time.

Also she would have been trying 15 years ago and possibly longer when ART was not as evolved as it is today.

@CourtneeLuv

Well the ones that can - and you know that’s most

Feel very sorry for Jen.

Sometimes IVF doesn't work and there isn't a reason why. We had four failed rounds over four years. Gave up. Two years later conceived naturally. Doctors had no answers.

As to those who think adoption is the answer to infertility, you don't know what you are talking about. My husband is adopted. He was adopted at 10 weeks in the 1970s. He knew no other life other than his adopted parents. But the later life trauma he has been through in teens and adulthood. It has impacted all his relationships. His adopted parents' trauma over not having a biological child is still active and evident also. So no, adoption is not some fix-all for both parties. Huge respect to those that do adopt though for the right reasons and eyes wide open.