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.

It's really bizarre how some posters feel like they 'know' celebs and the truth based on whatever they read in gossip columns, magazines and online forums. How on earth can you feel like you know the real relationship of some people you've never met, where everything in the public about them is through the lens/ words of the media? Get a grip, people.

It's also bizarre that a thread about something which Jennifer Aniston has revealed about herself, which she hasn't actually even said was an issue when her ex husband was about, has become a thread about her ex husband. Way to show disrespect to the woman, who has bared something that must be unbelievably painful to the world, in what sounds like a bid to shine light for others. What her ex husband has done in relationships with others is absolutely fuck all to do with her.

It's a good warning to younger woman that we need to prioritise a family if we want one, and can't leave it to chance or leave it until our late thirties.

Women are warned enough here.

I think in the US, there may not be quite the same understanding of how unreliable IVF is. I guess it's to do with more things being commoditised, so there is a sense that you're a customer and can therefore always buy it if you've got the money.

Lol you are embarrassing yourself @JennyNotFromTheBlock to not realise that statements from ground crew and 2 other witnesses lend weight.

All because you need to invent a twisted narrative because of your prejudiced, obsessive hatred of Jolie, a woman who hasn't done anything to hurt anyone and has only done good.

It's not about worship, @JessicaTooManyRabbits , it's about not stirring up hate for another woman.

You're not very good at this, are you? Court transcripts include Pitt's testimony and admissions, as well as that of witness testimony.

I remember reading an interview with her where she talked about her and Brad starting to try once Friends had finished. He had a movie to finish too. That movie ended up being Mrs and Mrs Smith. To see Brad have a child months after their divorce with the woman he left her for must have been devastating. It was a lovely interview. She and the interviewer were shopping in a record shop in LA and she was picking out her favourite bands and then Brad’s favourite bands. He was such a douche. Seems like it was a lucky escape though.

I am 42 and pregnant for the second time. It really upsets me when people comment on my leaving it late etc. I have been ttc since I was 30. We have been through the mill with more IVF than I care to count and the emotional and financial investment has been enormous. I had my first child at 36, then the questions about a sibling started. Despite putting in everything I have on every level, it took until now for me to manage a second pregnancy. Now there is shite about "choosing" to be an older mother. People need to keep their fucking noses out of other people's families. You have no idea about what might be going on for anyone and that information is theirs alone unless they choose to share.

@JennyNotFromTheBlock

Madonna and Mia Farrow are two people not most. And Idk about Madonna but the way Mia Farrow treated those kids is reportedly nothing to be holding up as acceptable

On the surrogacy and adoption points, I think most of the posts have been made in the knowledge that while those things are both highly complicated, they are things a megarich person in the US can just have if they want them. So the fact that Jennifer hasn't done either, and she could still choose both if she wanted, must indicate that it wasn't what she wanted. It's interesting because there are so many people in Hollywood who do opt for one or both of them.

Yes except she then signed up for 6, yes six, movies back-to-front. I believe that is when Pitt learned Aniston had lead him on. 4 of those movies Pitt had to learn about through peer industry magazine, Variety. Aniston didn't even have the decency to tell her own husband she signed on for them. I think he realised then the extent of her lies and betrayal and that she never intended to "take the year off" as she said she would to focus on children. Of course, she was not obligated to give Pitt children, but she shouldn't have lied to him about it and mucked him around.

@ReneBumsWombats

She would have been trying probably more than a decade and a half ago though. Around the 90’s there was a lot of breakthroughs with IVF and she may well have thought - also been encouraged to think and deluded herself a little over that it was an easy road to pregnancy.

We hadn’t had so many public stories of it not working then, only reporting if new advances etc

*back-to-back

Says a lot that a thread about a highly successful woman revealing a struggle that a lot of women have experienced is now all about her ex husband and his second wife.

I was wondering if women would have taken family planning decisions differently in hindsight?

I feel like conversations around infertility and egg freezing in recent years would have encouraged my 30 year old self to egg freeze. But I know my 30 year old self was convinced I had loads of time to meet someone and I did meet someone and we did have a baby. I also have friends the same age, who has not been able to conceive. So it is not a given and we don't really have any clue what is going on in there until we actively try. At which point it could be too late.

I think I would encourage my younger self to egg freeze but even then that costs money my younger self didn't have.

@JennyNotFromTheBlock

my hatred of Ange lol?
You’re the one coming on here to tell people that Jennifer Anniston is making it all up and never wanted a baby ffs

I have personally always said that Jen was a clever nice girl, Brad is a simple stoner lad who made a stupid mistake and Ange is a manipulator with a personality disorder.

Now I could be wrong and it’s just celeb gossip - but that’s my opinion

Unfortunately that is a common belief but Aniston herself and Courteny and others denied it, Aniston wanted him to go and have an affair with Jolie to "get it out of his system then return to her", but he wouldn't do that. Aniston was the one who wanted him to have an affair. He refused to do. I hold no brief for Pitt, not after the way he treated Jolie and their children, but he acted entirely honourably during the Aniston-Pitt split. He had to stalk Angelina halfway across the globe to find her.

Jesus.

You know nothing about her true wants or desires. Stop making assumptions on how much she wanted to have a child.

I am coming to the end of a very long and painful infertility journey, filled with recurrent pregnancy loss (6 times I have been pregnant and I have no children). We have been doing ivf for the last 2 years and my last 2 pregnancies were ivf, with everything thrown at it and it still didn't work. I KNOW I can adopt or choose surrogacy (which incidentally would require me to do MORE ivf as we have no more embryos). But surrogacy is not right for us for many, many reasons. I could not ask another woman to put herself through the trauma of pregnancy for my gratification. Adoption is not something I feel mentally able to even consider right now. My heart, my body and my soul is emotionally battered from the relentlessness of repeated trauma. How DARE you say that she just didn't want it enough. You know nothing about what she has been through. I can only think from my own experiences that maybe she had similar feelings to me.

Don't invalidate what she has chosen to share because of your own assumptions.

Yes, your hatred of Angie is very palpable. You are the one who said she made up the abuse. Despite her own children's testimony. Despite ground crew testimony. Despite two other witnesses testimony.

You fell for Aniston's carefully curated nice girl act. When in fact, she is a master manipulator herself.

‘Leaving it too late’ comments really wind me up, like it’s that simple.

On another thread recently people were sneering at the OP for having children before buying a home. We are constantly reminded not to have kids without getting married, for our own security. When women post about their lazy or abusive exes one of the first questions is always ‘why did you have kids with him?’

If you’re lucky enough to have met a good man, dated him for long enough to be confident he’d be a good husband and father, married him, bought your own home, got yourself well established in a good career, done all the other things you’re apparently supposed to do before having kids and find yourself mentally ready to raise a child by 26 or whatever, then good for you. Not everyone’s lives work out like that. No, not even rich successful celebrities.

I was only in a position to start trying for kids around 34. It didn’t happen naturally, then life (and a pandemic!) happened and I then had some severe mental health issues where it would have been a terrible idea (for both me and any potential baby) for me to start IVF. I’m now 38 and making my peace with probably never having kids but if anyone dares to tell me I just ‘left it too late’ I will scream.

I think it's also good she's come out and said this as there seems to be the attitude that you have forever to have a child and you can spend all your time pursing a career and have children later. She mentions wishing she'd frozen her eggs that suggests age played a factor here (I am making assumptions I know). A friend of mine is 39 she left her husband for a woman mid 30s and has plodded along not doing anything about having children despite really wanting them. She instead decided to career change, then she got married and spent what could have been ivf money on a holiday of a lifetime style honeymoon. She's 40 next year and yet she's still no sense of urgency. Why on earth didn't she freeze her eggs in her mid 30s when she knew she wouldn't be having a child with a man anyway and had the means to do so (she was in a well paid career). The mind boggles. Good that Jennifer Aniston sheds light on trying for children older and that it is harder and doesn't always work out.

@JennyNotFromTheBlock

You were literally saying Jen never had IVF and is making the whole thing up now

Your response doesn't really pertain to what I wrote and includes phrases I didn't use. Have you quoted the wrong person?

@FirewomanSam

Because actually no one is saying women have to be well set up in a good career to have kids. You may have wanted to wait for that and so may other women, but it was never necessary, it was just personally what you wanted.

Obviously most people realise that women waiting to establish career and buy property and only start looking for a husband/father in their 30’s is a risky idea if they defined want kids.

The simple reality is it was the women “who wanted it all” that pushed the idea that women could have it all - not just other women or men convincing them of it. If anything other people have been telling them it’s risky.

I have a friend who wants children who is doing exactly as you describe and is now 37, no children or man despite many people telling her before now that she might want to start getting serious before she had her life/career set up exactly as she wanted (which it still isn’t).

She really does. I know the cool kids like to bash Friends for being too slick or too popular or whatever, but there's a reason why it did so well, and that's because all of the six mains are very comically talented, and I think JA is the best of them. I've been rewatching Friends with my teen dd and JA's line delivery and timing are exquisite.

She's very, very good at dramatic acting in the Morning Show too.