Help me, I’m wavering!

[tinkersfig]

I’m 38 and seem to be having the hormonal surge for a last chance hurrah.

I know that being a mum would make me ill, mentally and physically, but seeing pregnancy announcements and tiny babies (which I do love) on social media is pulling at my cold heart strings.

my mind is wandering to a fantasy of big family Christmas’s, tiny hands and even an adult daughter!

My main reason for being child free is knowing I could not cope with a disabled child, and I feel
like unless you’re whole heart is in it, probably best not to. But by god! Today my ovaries (what’s left of them at my age) are screaming at me!

When I said it's not like having your own baby I didn't mean they aren't your own child in the same way, I just meant you don't get a brand new unharmed baby - it's a totally different thing. I also admire people who do it very much.

Christ, adoption is no where in my thoughts. I am just having a biological urge for a baby, not a desperate want or need to be a mother, which I imagine is a feeling those who do adopt have.

Anyway, I’ve woken up in a bad mood today so I’m sulking in bed. I’m grateful I can do this and not have to have already been up for 3 hours sorting out babies and school stuff.

And I’m due on, so the baby dreaming is probably gone for a couple of weeks at least 😂

I think this is a very legitimate fear. Yes, the overall chance of having a child with additional needs is low, but conceiving at an older age does increase the risk.

I am scared to have a child for this reason and it is compounded by the fact that I have no other family. Once my partner and I are gone, the child would be alone in the world, and if they had serious additional needs, I feel that could leave them in an extremely vulnerable position. Of course there is no guarantee that wider family (if it existed) would look out for them, but without any safety net at all, I'd be extremely worried.

People will come along and tell me I'm all wrong about this / my outlook is too gloomy / I am over thinking etc, but I believe that bringing a new person into existence is such a momentous thing to do. You are creating a life which has to be (all being well) lived for 80+ years. I can't just go into it casually without looking at all the possible outcomes and the longer term picture for that person. In a way, I feel that is showing deep love to a person who doesn't even exist, which is far from the cold, heartless, selfish people that childless women are often painted as.

I was you - 37, lifetime of saying I didn’t want children and really meaning it, and one of the main reasons was because I was absolutely convinced I would not cope with a disabled child. I was also petrified of pregnancy and childbirth, and have a long history of anxiety and BDD. Neurodivergence runs on both sides of our family. DH was ambivalent, and we both love our own company, holidays etc so got a dog and that was that 😂 then DH nearly died and he changed his mind, because when he thought he was dying he really regretted that we’d never had a child (to his surprise). So when he had recovered and still felt that way I agreed to “stop preventing” rather than actively trying, got pregnant before I had actually come to terms with this decision 😂, and spent the whole pregnancy under a perinatal MH team because I was so terrified about it all…anyway, I had a planned c-section because of the fear of birth, and then DD was here and I had to get on with it! I won’t lie, I didn’t fall instantly in love - it was something that built over time, but I am so so glad we had her. She’s 3.5 now. I’ve got a terrible cold and this morning she gave me a huge hug, stroked my face and went “you’re my best friend mummy get well soon” ❤️ as someone who never wanted children I sometimes marvel at how close I came to missing out on things like that. That being said, I’m sure I’d have been happy without children too as I never had a strong “urge” or felt unfulfilled in any way.

I do not want more children - with one child we both still have our own space/go away with friends, DH does more than his “share” so I don’t feel overwhelmed, we can stay in our tiny cottage that we love, we have fewer money worries. When things have been tough (DD had dreadful reflux, hip dysplasia, a speech delay) I’ve coped better than I thought I would because 1) you have to and 2) you love them more than you can comprehend before you have them. (I do recognise those issues are minor in the grand scheme of things)

I guess I posted not to persuade you to have a child, but just to let you know that you aren’t alone in the worries you have and you do have a choice. It’s hard because it’s so finite, you can’t have it both ways and whichever path you choose you’ll always wonder what life could have been.

Also it’s worth noting that this is a place people come to vent and get support from strangers, so if you are a worrier (like I am!) it is likely to leave you worrying that most children have needs that are hard to cope with and that parenting is awful. The only times I’ve started a thread on here it’s because I needed a rant or I’m struggling with something! It’s not indicative of how I feel overall and not the experience of most parents I know in real life either.

I am just having a biological urge for a baby,

@tinkersfig Unless the urge is accompanied by the desire to experience bringing up a child, I.e., doing the parenting, I’d stay childfree.

For me, the experience of creating a family and bringing up my children was a big part of what I wanted. Even if my children walk off into the sunset and never speak to me again, that will stay with me, iyswim.

We’re all different and we all want different life experiences. 🤷

While not all children are special needs, majority will have some sort of issues you’ll have to worry about- physical or mental health, success in school, relationships etc every single person I know has dealt with something in their childhood. You will continue to worry but now for a person wholly dependent on you.

Op your reasons don’t sound very concrete to me, because you can mostly put in measures to alleviate most of your worries. I think you are really saying dp and i are anxious people and we might not like it.

Anxious people can make wonderful parents that are considerate, careful and thoughtful.

I would listen to your body, and have just one child. One child is manageable to most. If the child is disabled (unlikely) you can have lots of testing before hand to check. Scans etc.

Ultimately life is for living. Children bring such a richness to life, they bring meaning and depth. I have never expected my dc to live their lives for me, but they are young adults now and have transformed my life unexpectedly. They make me laugh, and they bring me the most incredible amount of happiness.

I never wanted children after my own childhood. I wanted to be free, and.I found a way to be free with my dc (I just take them travelling or whatever it is we want to do) I didn’t expect to enjoy a second childhood with them either, but I did. True unconditional love is possible with dc (and dogs) I can’t imagine having not experienced that now. I love them in a way I’ll never love anyone else.

Op have some counselling and make a decision that’s best for you.

Not all children are like this OP. Mine aren’t. Anyway you’re only 38, you do have more time despite what people are telling you. Most of my daughter’s classmates have older parents. It’s really not a big deal.

What does your partner think?

It does sound like you are making your choice based on fear of it going wrong rather than it being something you don’t actually want.

The chances of having a perfectly healthy are much higher - only 12% of kids are disabled in the uk OP.

Really? More than 1 in 10 kids are disabled? That seems like a massive amount to me.

Right then.

It’s a tough world. The cost of living, the scarcity of jobs, the cost of university and housing, the takeover of AI, the 20 years it will take to get your child to adulthood. Ask yourself if you’d be happy in your early 60s with an ASD 20-year-old boy still living at home? There’s no guarantee you’ll get a daughter. You might, you might not.

When I went through what you are going through, the advice seemed to be that you really need to want parenthood with every fibre of your being. Not just the newborn stage which is over in a flash.

This has always been my thing to, or rather what I have been advised. “You should be desperate to be a mother, otherwise don’t do it”.

He is more open to trying and seeing what happens, but if it doesn’t happen, he’s ok with that.

But it won’t be him who’s doing the majority or the works is it, mothers are the default parents whether we like it or not. And his mind and body won’t change in the next ten years, mine will.

I am making chose out of fear, I’ve had to do that all my life. I live in the “just in case” and “what if” section of my brain.

OP it isn’t a foregone conclusion that you will be the default parent. Extreme example but I got diagnosed with cancer 4 months after DD was born, and complications from treatment landed me in hospital a couple of times. DH (who had already been getting up in the night, doing everything I had been doing) had to do a lot of solo parenting as we have no family support nearby. He took time off work, and absolutely smashed it - I’m in awe really of how he looked after us both. When he went back to work, he compressed his hours to spend a whole day just him and her once a week and is really upset that this will end when she goes to school next year. I went back 5 days a week, and I have been abroad for work too (his job doesn’t involve travel). As a result, I wouldn’t say either of us are “default parent”, she goes through phases of seeming to prefer one of us 😂 but I honestly feel we are completely equal in terms of parenting. DH comes from a military family and his dad was often absent, so he takes great pride in how present he is. Even things like arranging fancy dress for nursery and other mental load bits that often fall on the mum - once I had been away, got home in the early hours and had completely forgotten about bloody World Book Day, I came downstairs in the morning and he’d packed her bag and laid a costume out despite having left for work at 6am ❤️

You can't test for issues like severe autism though, and whilst 'ultimately life is for living', OP's life would be extremely restricted if she ended up caring for a severely disabled child. There's a thread by a parent of two severely autistic children running over on another board. Her life sounds hellish and she is living with extreme anxiety about what will happen to her children after she dies.

This is the scenario which I, and presumably the OP, fear too.

I agree - these are all very serious concerns. Of course humans have always faced difficulties, but something feels to have really changed in recent years and the future does feel rather bleak.

I have been following that thread and that woman’s life is my biggest fear. I know she loves her children, but she did not sign up for what she, and her kids, are going through.

I feel massive sadness and sympathy for her. She, and other mums on that thread in the same position, are perfect examples of the lack of support I was referring to. I don’t even know what kind of support would help, but no one seems to get it.

Absolutely. I think the reason there is little / no support is because, even with unlimited amounts of funding, what actually could be provided? Nothing could make the situation completely better. There would always be huge amounts of sadness and worry.

I understand the situation you are facing. I am the same age and feel the same way about children. Some days I think it would be lovely, but then I just circle back to all the risks, as well as the difficult things my child would face, even if they were perfectly healthy. I can't bring myself to take that risk, yet I think about my own future and it seems potentially quite sad and lonely.

That’s how I feel at the moment. Kind of want menopause to kick in early so the decision is taken away from me.

My DH and I did try for children but gave up when multiple IVFs didn't work. I'm glad I didn't have a surprise late baby, which seems to happen quite a lot in Mumsnetland. I'm the child of an older father, 49 when I was born. and my DH is 11 years older than me. Of I had conceived when I was in my late forties and him in his late 50s I believe the likelihood of the child having autism or SEN would not have been insignificant.

I think it's a sad dilemma. It seems pretty clear that you do want a child, but no one can promise that you won't fall into the small percentage that have a severely disabled child.

I don't think this is too gloomy at all. I'm also in a situation of having no wider family and from what I've seen (I don't have kids) it's an incredibly difficult thing to do if you don't have support around you, even with healthy children.