He told me to find someone else to have babies with

[Jffs]

My husband and I have been together 13 years and married for 9. We have three teenage children between us from previous relationships (who I’m very grateful for every day) but we don’t have one together.

I’ve always wanted another child, my first partner was abusive and going through those pregnancies (being told to get out the house etc) wasn’t ideal. At the time, I remember being so in love with my unborn child and thinking this must be so incredible with someone who actually loves you. But my now husband has never wanted any more. I thought I had accepted this.

I went through an ordeal last year; a minor procedure led to an infection, an abscess and sepsis. They had to operate to save my life and remove my right fallopian tube upon which an 8cm abscess had attached itself.

Since then, I keep thinking about the child we haven’t had. I’m 47 with one remaining tube but regular periods (I got my period late at 16 and the first two arrived first time nothing was used). Maybe naively I think therefore it could still happen.

I am now dreaming about this baby. I said to my husband why don’t we just try and see? And he said “if you’re serious find someone else.”
He then didn’t understand when I burst into tears and said I wasn’t being serious. I see it as a massive insult that we’ve been together this long and he won’t even consider it for me.
am I being unreasonable?

You’re being extremely unreasonable. Why should he consider it ‘for you’? He’s not just a sperm donor to provide you with a baby because you’ve suddenly decided you want one in your late 40s.

I’m in my late 40s and if my partner suggested trying for a baby I’d think he was joking too.

Getting some help would be a really good idea OP. It’s ok to be sad your fertile days are over. It’s not ok to try and force a baby that your DH doesn’t want on him. In all honesty in 5 years time you’ll probably be glad you didn’t go for another.

enjoy your kids, enjoy each other and enjoy the freedom you’ll have very soon when your kids are self sufficient and you’re still young enough to have a good time. There’s a lot more to life than making babies.

I understand how you feel.

dh and I are similar with dc from previous relationships but not one that is 'ours'. Together we had decided to make peace with that, then in my 40s I was unexpectedly pregnant. I had a miscarriage.

After that I longed and longed for 'our' baby. But every logical analysis said it wouldn't be the right thing to do (my age, ages and stages of our existing dc, finances, the age we would be when the imagined child would eventually be independent, needing a bigger home / car, etc). Logic won out.

For me there was a process of grieving. For the child lost in miscarriage and the future child I'd dreamt of. It was the future child that was the harder loss - that child (all an imagination) and that life was just perfect and brought love and benefits to everyone in the existing family (all an imagination).

20 years on I can still feel sad, but in a wistful way. But certainly in the 3 - 10 years following the miscarriage and decision not to have a child, the ways things unfolded in our family, we were mightily glad that we didn't have a baby / toddler / child added into the mix.

It IS a sad feeling when we face the possible end of our fertility, when we have to accept that some possibilities (a child that shares the genes of you and your dp) might have to go. How can you find ways to make peace with that sadness?

I think YABU I'm afraid. I understand you are disappointed but really 47 is too old to start over. I'm not surprised your husband said no!

@moderndilemma yes so sad. You’ve hit the nail on the head. I’ve always been sad he said no more (and if I’m honest when we met we really had our hands full, so I think I reasoned he was right) but now it’s really sad. I’m so sorry for your miscarriage, that’s so hard to have nearly had a child together and have them taken away. 😢

I think your reaction is due to the fact you had a health scare and sepsis. You were very seriously ill, which in turn has made you realise that life is actually very fragile and face your own mortality. I had bacterial meningitis and septicemia when I was 26, I was given a 30% chance of survival. You survived sepsis, but you psychologically are dealing with the fact you could have easily died. People can be flippant in a situation like this, and say 'Oh but you didn't die, you're still here'. Yes, you know that 🙄 but you still have to work through the fact you very nearly wasn't, and that takes some accepting. Please seek some therapy to talk through your feelings and emotions. You're fixating on having another baby, quite possibly as a coping mechanism, to having been through a traumatic experience. I say this gently, you don't need me to tell you, that conceiving naturally at 47, with one tube is highly unlikely - deep down you know this. Your husband probably did think you were joking, and I can imagine if I'd said similar to my husband at 47, he'd have said the same to me too. Your husband has been consistent throughout your relationship, that more children were not on his list and you went into the marriage knowing this. Having your second tube removed has perhaps also made you realise deep inside, that the baby boat has truly sailed. Again, please seek some professional counselling. If you work, many employers have an Employee Assistance Program, that often has counselling as a service that can be accessed.

You’re 47…..

YANBU that was a hurtful nasty thing to say. Nothing to do with your chances of actually having a baby.

Others have given great input. Your DH has been clear on this since the beginning of your relationship - you both committed to the marriage under those terms - and having a baby now would dramatically alter the course of your lives over the next two decades. So from his perspective you deciding you want to start over with a new baby is essentially you deciding you no longer want the relationship and future the two of you have been building together. And frankly it is neither responsible nor wise for a person to create a child they decidedly don't want "for " their spouse; it's a recipe for resentment and an unhappy home.

Also, while your story sort of presented it as you raising it out of the blue I'm suspecting this is perhaps not the first time you've brought this up. His very direct response is even more understandable if he's already reiterated his feelings on the matter and you tried to start working on him again.

Also, I haven't seen it mentioned yet by PP but I think it's worth pointing out that a temporary wave of "broodiness" is a feature of peri-menopause in quite a significant portion of women. And those hormone shifts often hit at a time when parenting starts to be more and more about supporting from a distance and preparing them to leave home or seeing them actually leave home, a phase of life that can require some indentity-rebuilding in mums especially. Your recent health event may have exacerbated this all.

Another baby at 47?? Bloody hell…
Just enjoy the three, presumably, lovely healthy children you have.

It is OK to be sad, to feel sad. It is OK to cry or to feel downcast. Those are all normal human emotions.

And it is OK to meet that sadness face on, to recognise the depth of all your feelings. Sometimes it help to work with an experienced professional / therapist to help you work through the feelings.

Don't hide from feeling sad. But sad is only one part of all the emotions we feel. Happy, guilty, excited, angry. Look at your most recent day - think about the things that your current dc did that made you feel excited, or worried, or anything they did that made you laugh. You might feel sad, but I think you can only actually feel one emotion at a time. So when you're feeling the other emotions (whether they are good or bad) you are not simultaneoulsy feeling sad. Maybe focus on all the other variations of emotions...

What you want to move away from, is your sadness about the lack of an imagined child, to impact all the wonderful positive things your have with your dp and your existing dc / dstepc.

And yes, the child we might have had... sad. But also has a ridiculous name! They would have been so bullied at school. We have humour in there too x

Sorry, but you're 47... you're 47!!!

Just for another perspective. Even if you manage to get husband to agree and manage to have a child. That’s not the end. You possibly have menopause around the corner and trust me for some that is hell to deal with without having a small child in the mix. There is no way I could cope with a four year old at 52 (this being if you conceived straight away).

You are not being realistic and I'd say no if I was your husband too.
It would be a complete upheaval.
It's perfectly normal at your age for the body to yearn for a last baby. I've seen it again and again. The trouble is it doesn't last. It's a very short phase. It's fertilities last hurrah.
Imagine you had a profoundly disabled child. Thats the end of your life and any plans you might have for the future.
I didn't have this but I remember my mother did and she said a couple of years later, thank God you talked me out of it.

This, basically.
I would suggest that you seek professional counseling as a matter of urgency.

The idea of wheedling someone into late-in-life parenthood after it's long been agreed the relationship would not produce children is just .... wrong.

You already have children. You have a presumably loving spouse and decent home. Sometimes "count your blessings" is an apt response.

OP I have 3 healthy and now adult DC. I thought I was done. Yet when my periods stopped I felt bereft. The hormone changes made me upset and emotional. The chances of you getting pregnant at your age are remote and even smaller because of only one fallopian tube. With kindness, let it go. Your DH will not be supportive. You could throw away your marriage over this. You say you have 3 DC/dsc.

At nearly 50 that's pretty unfair to a child to try and become pregnant. No offence, but that's really old to have a baby on purpose.

OP I had my 3 DC with exh. I've been married to my current DH for 19 years. We almost had a baby together but miscarried at almost 16 weeks and it was awful. After 2 or 3 years DH and I decided to foster a DC with SN who had experienced dreadful neglect in his early years. He's been with us since he was 5 and he's 18 now but in all respects he's our DC. We've seen him grow and develop and we've tried to help him overcome his dreadful past. He's got learning disabilities and he can't remember before he lived with us. We have just taken a second DC with similar issues but he's 16 and had a very poor miserable existence. Now we are focussing on making it up to him for all the little things he's missed out on. He's only been to the beach once in his life. He's over the top excited just to join a football club and get a football kit and boots. In the future you may get DGC. That is something to look forward to. Focus on building the best relationship with your DC and DSC.

I voted YANBU because I am your age and 9 months pregnant, it’s a low risk pregnancy as well. Not everyone falls apart after 35 and I don’t see any problem with wanting children at that age.

Having said that, it is much harder to get pregnant and stay pregnant over 43. It took us four years and several miscarriages, the probability of miscarriage goes up to between 50%-90%, depending on which study you look into (there are only a few btw). I also have much younger DC than yours and with the same partner - we started our family late so we are not at the stage of having teenagers or young adults at home.

Another thing to consider is that you have not TTC with your husband, so you really don’t know if you are able to get pregnant as quickly as with your previous partner, because it takes two to tango and you might be completely incompatible.

I understand you but I also think you need to be realistic about how much time and effort this can take.

I remember being so in love with my unborn child and thinking this must be so incredible with someone who actually loves you.

This is absolutely delusional. Many, many women don’t find pregnancy “incredible”, regardless of how loved they are. It’s a means to an end, not some kind of spiritual journey. Look up the geriatric mother’s statistics for miscarriage and baby health, you’re overly romanticising this.

Omg I had "baby fever" come and go for years and years lol. I had two kids but wanting another baby would still just hit me hard now and then. And I feel like it would probably have kept returning no matter how many kids I had. I really have no idea why. Now I'm past all that, finally. But trust me, I definitely get it!

I think your husband could have been much nicer and more understanding about it. He didn't have to say what he said. It is a huge honor to him that you wanted to have his baby, after all, regardless. I think he owes you dinner out as an apology, at least and a baby puppy or kitten if you're still really mad about it!

Is there a reason you hate siding with a straight man?

I’m not one by the way but your comment just stood out to me.

I met my current partner when I had just turned 41 and he was 39. I've known since I was 9 that I didn't want children, and have always made that crystal clear to anyone I dated, from the very first date (if it came up).

When we'd been together about a year - so I was 42 - he made noises about having a child, and I told him exactly what your husband told you....'if you want that, find someone else'....I was deadly serious. I actually felt quite insulted as well, like he'd not actually been listening and respecting what I said right back at the beginning about how I had never wanted children. He'd had a good 20 years before he met me to find someone to have children with....he can't have been that bothered if he hadn't.

That was over 15 years ago. I've never regretted not having children...if my partner does, that's something he needs to deal with himself, it's not my responsibility.

At 47 it really is very very unlikely you will comceive naturally. And if you even did conceive the chances of miscarriage are very high and the risk of abnormalities is very high. Sad for you though it is I think you need to let this go. Go and have counselling.