Relationship or Baby

[MarimarD]

First time poster. Long time lurker. 43 years old.

I have a dilemma that’s eating me up.

I’m in a relationship the last three years with a wonderful man. It’s the best relationship I’ve ever been in. We love each other deeply and treat each other with respect, have a great sex life and a deep emotional connection.

My partner is divorced and has three children, the youngest is 9. They’re lovely kids. He has been clear from date 1 that he didn’t want more children . I thought I was OK with it as we met when I was 40 and I thought that ship had sailed anyway. I never had a burning desire to have children but kind of thought it would just happen some day.

However I’ve had some real moments of deep sadness over the past couple of years and the most recent bout has lasted longer and I’m afraid I’m going to deeply regret not having my own children. I’m considering going it alone and doing IVF which will mean the end of my relationship. My heart is breaking over it and I’m breaking his heart too. But I’m so afraid I’ll resent him and regret it if I stay.

Am I being unreasonable to leave this wonderful relationship to try and have a child when I know the chance is only 20/25% at best?

Why don't you do ivf and if you get pregnant then you tell him knowing it will very likely break you up, but you'll have a baby, and if you don't get pregnant then you can keep the nice relationship?

IVF behind her partners back?

Yeah, that's not realistic. IVF is hugely time consuming, time pressured, invasive, exhausting, involves lots of medications, appointments.

She can't do it behind his back.

(Not even touching upon the morality of doing what you're suggesting).

Do you really think her doing this won’t damage the relationship?

Schrodingers baby

IVF behind her partners back. Type of women who would come off the pill without a word to have an oppsie.

Getting pregnant with another man's child... seems odd, in a relationship. It's a shame he's that certain he doesn't want a child that he won't consider it. But, it is his right and he was clear.

Where's the cut-off for this kind of reasoning? 41? 39?

Also, why are so many people leaping to tell the OP she won't have a chance of finding a relationship with a child in tow? Plenty of single parents find a partner. The 50% of married couples who get divorced don't all stay celibate for the rest of their lives.

@Crushed23 there isn't a cut-off, if all comes down to personal circumstances.

OP has laid out her particular circumstances and asked for opinions.

You said 43 is too old. So I assume there's an age that isn't too old to consider what the OP is considering.

My SIL tried this, she was 44, the cut off age for the clinic was 45. She had lots of tests various appointments, it was very expensive and it was never going to work. I don’t know all the story of why but various tests revealed it was never going to happen after she spent a few thousand. She went ansolutley loopy during that time and was utterly vile to people. She lost friends, I refused to have her in my house. She lashed out at anyone who dared have a child. Consider your MH op. I do not know your pain but seems like your very sad currently, because she got her hopes up and then they were dashed my SIL became angry and hostile. She had been very sad previously, lots of tears to many of us. I could deal with someone’s hurt that came out as sadness but I was not prepared to deal with her anger though it was still a type of sadness. The stuff she said to me was unforgivable.

The clinic fertility counsellors should be impartial. The BACP will also have a list of fertility counsellors - I think since COVID most do online sessions so distance isn’t an issue. You should be able to Googled them.

If you decide to go ahead with treatment you should be offered counselling around the issues of using a sperm donor anyway.

I know many many women who have experienced IVF and even with a positive outcome it is one of the hardest, most stressful, anxiety inducing experiences imaginable. It takes over your life, emotionally, physically, mentally.

Op, I'd recommend joining the Fertility Network UK -- lots of amazing support, information and knowledge from people going through IVF. It's also pretty sobering when you see what the reality of 20% looks like and the devastating experiences many have been through trying to become a parent. healthunlocked.com/fertility-network-uk

Not wishing to put a downer on you at all, but I think knowing a bit more about the reality of the process means you can go in with your eyes wide open.

I’m pregnant by ivf and not insulted by this, but anyway it sounds like the op is going for ivf as pgta was suggested.

The odds are heavily stacked against you becoming pregnant and carrying a healthy baby. I don't think it's worth the risk. Sadly, your age is against you.

@Crushed23 you are being deliberately obtuse.

I think 43 is too old, in the circumstances described by the OP. It is my opinion. The OP asked for opinions.

It isn't about you.

@LittleGreenHouse agree. IVF is absolutely gruelling.

I also asked that poster what they meant by that, as it was a very strange comment.

I had a relative in a very similar situation.

It sounds harsh OP but it sounds like not having children is a decision that you've consistently made for the last 20-25 years... all of your adult life.

Why was that? I know there's the whole not the right time / person etc. but 25 years is a long time.

Someone I know was in this position. IMO she'd prioritised her career, travelling, and living a luxury lifestyle in her 20s and 30s and left it very late. Those decisions were made over a long period of time.

Someone else I know had many many rounds of IVF. Like a few PPs have mentioned, it changed her mentally, baby or no. She became angry and intolerable.

As a parent you really don't gain any independence back until your DC are at least secondary age. That's a looong time, even if all else is well.

Please don't put yourself through this. No one is entitled to have a child, any more than anyone is entitled to be rich, or talented for example. Please don't let this eat you up and become resentful.

As pps have said, why not learn to love the life you have?

Exactly this. And fear of regret or a sudden change of heart when you think the option is suddenly disappearing is NOT a good reason to bring a child into the world

Let’s be real, neither is “it will fill a hole” - children aren’t born to complete us.

I think this would be a really big mistake, because the high likelihood is you would throw away your relationship, and possibly the only children you will ever have a chance to raise (as a stepmother), and end up alone, traumatised and with no baby.

I say traumatised because IVF is no cakewalk. A friend of mine who had her children this way said she wouldn't wish it on her worst enemy. The likehood of literally ruining your physical and mental wellbeing as well as your relationship, being a stepmother, finances, future plans etc and ending up with nothing at all, is really reasonably high.

I also think, even if you were successful - to be a single parent by choice in your 50s with a primary school aged child is too old. People die or become significantly unwell/disabled at this age, not infrequently. Or, even best case scenario thinking about the only child in their 20/30/40s with a single mum in her 70s/80s. How that will affect them, potentially. Those kinds of worries will matter to you if said child actually comes into existence, it's quite difficult to understand how much they will matter to you right now, when the child doesn't exist.

Anyway I wish you best of luck with your decision.

I also think you really need to ask what is it about having children, have you changed your mind about after 15+ years, and only now that you are 43 years old and in long term loving relationship with someone who categorically will not have them?

Is it a coincidence that you now have only discovered a deep desire for children only when the door to having them is almost completely shut in more ways than one (age, and completely blowing up your happy life)?

Is it:

• You've always wanted to be or had that potential to be a mother but you've denied and avoided that possibility for decades, for some reason?

• You've never wanted to be a mother but you've got last minute FOMO / midlife crisis

• Something else?

Because I can see there being work to do maybe with the first one, but the second one is an impulse which should probably be resisted whilst you work out what you're trying to fix with a baby.

Meant kindly because I don't envy being in your position. Glad you are having some counselling and hope they can help you work through it.

Gosh your poor, poor SIL.

And everyone she hurt with her rage. Poor OP.

And everyone she hurt with her rage

nah.

@MarimarD
You'd be lucky to get pregnant. I mean lucky in the sense of statistical.

I'm a happy childless cat lady. Well, happy enough and happier than if I'd had kids. The idea of volunteering for single motherhood, with a tiny chance of 'success', sounds like madness to me, giving up a wonderful relationship with your partner to take that tiny chance. No way.

I was the daughter of a single mother. It was a really lonely lonely thing. I hated not having a proper family like my friends at school. I'd never inflict this deliberately on a child.

The reason I am childless is because I wouldn't compromise, - if I had a child it would have to be in the context of a loving mum/dad family.

Oh come on. I hate the "no one is guaranteed a baby" argument as infertility is shit and often very random. However at 44 you are simply very unlikely to have a baby, especially from ivf. Celebrities who use egg donors or women who are very fertile and have surprise late in life babies are the exception and not the norm. It sounds like a sad situation for everyone but I don't think the SIL in this case could have been blindsided.

I know quite a few women who've had babies at 39, 40, 41 etc but that is pretty different from 43,44, 45 in fertility terms.