Feeling absolutely down and desperate- life without kids?

[Biiscuits]

So sorry for the misery thread but any advice would be appreciated.

How do you learn to accept life without children?

We're a lesbian couple and our journey to parenthood has been heart breaking and eye wateringly expensive. We now need to stop. We're flooded with debt and it just isn't working.

I'm heartbroken. I can hardly function anymore. Everywhere I look I see pregnant women and babies and I just can't take it. This is a horrid thing to say, and childish, but it feels so unfair that each cycle costs us 10k and a shit ton of heart ache. It's just not fair.

The end of the line is hear, and it is bleak.

here*.

Also, adoption isn't an option for us due to a long history of ED related mental health.

Time heals. I've been through it. It was more hurtful in my early 40s than my late 40s. I can't say that it doesn't hurt every time someone else gets pregnant, but you have to kind of focus on what is good in your life - your relationship, your hobbies etc. Hugs to you.x

Just what @Honeyroar said. It does get easier, but when you're in the grieving phase it seems so so bleak. For me it dealt like I was grieving for the children/grandchildren/life I will never have. Coming to terms with not seeing my children, grow up, graduate, get married, and so on.. and also it's sooo hard watching everyone around doing all these things because it's what 'normal' people do.

I think it took just over 2 years for me to accept that children don't feature in our future and to stop trying. It was HARD.

I'm lucky I have a great relationship with my DH. TTC can tear relationships apart, but if you manage to make it through that, out the other end it can totally cement a relationship.. you've been through so much heartache together.

I started feeling better about 6 months ago. We saved up and had a fabulous holiday. We now make sure we've always got something to look forward to.. a weekend away, a concert etc.

I promise you'll get through it. A day at a time. And like grieving you'll be upset, then angry, then suddenly acceptance will creep in . Take care of yourself and your partner, take care of each other xx

frog your post is deeply unhelpful.

I pretty much guarantee that you will find a way to be parents if you do this.

You can’t possibly know that.

All I would say is give up.
once you relax, it will happen.

Did you miss the op is in s lesbian relationship? How is giving up and relaxing going to result in a pregnancy? Don’t EVER tell someone struggling to conceive to relax.

op it’s really hard. Time helps, counselling helps.

It is unfair. Completely unfair. Allow yourself to feel awful!
It may be that being out of the all-consuming intensity/ perpetual waiting that is ivf may start to help re: seeing pregnant women everywhere.

It is completely unfair, and I'm so sorry.

There's a book called 'The Next Happy' by a counsellor called Tracey Cleantis that I would encourage you to check out. It's basically a book about how 'never give up on your dreams' isn't always helpful or possible; how sometimes you do in fact need to moved on to the next phase of your life and build a fulfilling (and, yes, happy) future that might not be the one you'd imagined. It's applicable to lots of situations, but she does draw quite a bit on her own experience of moving on from failed IVF, so she gets it.

Big hugs to you, if you're a hugging person, and I wish you all the very best.

In time you will find other purposes in life. In time the light and colour will return. In time you will understand you have a different valuable role to play, including, perhaps, nurturing and helping children grow- it takes a village to raise a child. In time you will make sense of this grief. In time you will shape a life full of love, fulfillment and happiness. In the meantime be kind to yourselves. I wish you didn't have to go through this heartache. You are brave to recognise and accept that you have reached the end of this particular road. I have been through it, and did emerge from it understanding that there was life beyond wanting to be a parent.

I'm so sorry Biiscuit.
It's not horrid to complain about the cost, emotionally and financially it is draining.

I haven't got to the other side yet but I take heary that there are people here saying it is possible.
Following some recent events I've been trying to work through, shit things can happen to good people, it goes against what we're taught as children about working hard for things and you'll achieve them, it's hard to accept that isn't the case.

Get through however you can and both nurture your relationship, you might process it differently but you're experiencing the same grief. Be kind to each other.

Really sorry to offer you something you did not ask for, but have you considered embryo donation in Europe? Its got great success rates and much much cheaper than IVF. Sorry if thats not helpful.