I’m so so stuck and I don’t know what to do and I would so appreciate any help. I’ll try to keep a very long story short.
My husband and I have struggled with infertility for as long as we’ve been married. We got pregnant very quickly naturally within a few weeks after our wedding, only to discover a missed miscarriage at the 12 week hospital appointment.
We then went into almost five years of the most devastating fertility treatment and losses - 3 miscarriages and 4 failed rounds of IVF. It was the worst time of both our lives and truly mentally and physically scarred us both. Finally at the age of 42 when all hope was lost, we got pregnant naturally. Our daughter was born when I was 43 and has been the joy of our lives ever since.
This little miracle is now 9 years old, which we can’t believe, and in the intervening years we have talked endlessly about trying to have another. Within months of having our daughter I was overwhelmed with my desire to have a sibling for her and to extend my experience of motherhood. This for me, in spite of every single cliched hardship that of course came our way in the natural course of being first time parents, was a revelation in happiness. I’d never felt more that I’d arrived. I loved it.
My husband however, felt very differently. He was not keen at all on trying to make this happen for us. We both knew our only option would be medical intervention and he felt, completely understandably, that we had suffered enough, particularly at the hands of a brutal and ruthless industry, that is the assisted fertility world.
He also came from a family of siblings that were not close growing up, (and also now as adults) in fact had had a pretty rough time with older brothers and felt very strongly that our daughter wouldn’t miss out on anything without siblings.
So we went back and forth about this for several years. Eventually he came round reluctantly to the idea, mainly I think, from seeing how much it meant to me and how it just wasn't going to go away.
We began loosely looking at egg donors. Then Covid happened.
Like lots of people we had a pretty anxious time and focused on getting our families and then 4/5 year old daughter through it as best we could. It also prompted a major move out of a big city and into the countryside.
Post Covid and the move I was working and life was busy. It took me a really long time to settle after our move and I guess life just took over but I never went a day - and still don’t - when I didn’t look at a Mum with a child about the age of my daughter, and a newborn, and have a tear in my eye wishing that was me. Feeling time was ticking, I pushed on, still TBH in a very 50/50 state about the whole thing: I utterly understood every single one of my husbands arguments; that we were fine, that having a donor child would be a whole different experience, that it would upset the balance of our family now, that it would have physical repercussions for me, that we would be exhausted all over again, that we would be ancient by the time the child went to Uni, that he just couldn’t face these clinics ever again… I get it totally and still do. And yet and yet……. I just couldn’t let it go………
As she’s grown older my daughter has asked all the awkward questions about being an only, and often cried over not having a sibling which has always been like a dagger in my heart. I carry so much endless guilt around it which my husband does not. She is obsessed with small children and babies and playing Mums and babies (which I always struggle to do without crying).
Eventually and after more endless discussions, we picked a donor and my husband went to a clinic and we have created 2 not very highly graded embryos, (one they said wasn’t probably worth even trying with). So one embryo.
Then last year I suffered a horrendous accident in which I was hit and run over by a car which put life on hold for a long time. Physically I am just about there now but with some pretty severe PTSD still happening. I am also very perimenopausal but not yet on HRT as I’m worried how it would interfere with any hormone drugs I would need for an embryo transfer, if we got there……
I am now 52 and a couple of months ago I went to the clinic in order to start the process of embryo transfer. I just felt we had to push on having got this far. But when I got into the examination room at the clinic with the head nurse, I just burst into tears and told her I was so confused. She was so kind but basically said if I had any doubts about it, then not to do it. I told her I thought I was so unlikely I”d get pregnant anyway, which she agreed with but also said there is always a chance and that if I didn’t feel 100% certain about wanting to be pregnant then I shouldn’t go through with it.
And that is where I’m at. Stuck stuck stuck in a hellish circle of indecision.
It’s got so bad I’ve literally started to feel - and I know this sounds bonkers - that I wish I could do it just to know I’ve done everything I possibly can to tell myself (and my daughter when she’s older) that I’ve done it, I’ve done everything -but then that it doesn’t work. As in, it would be the better option if it didn’t.
Within the course of any one day I flip from seeing a Mum struggling with a crying newborn and a child and a ton of shopping and feeling thank God that isn’t me, to seeing a child cuddling it’s sibling and crying. From loving the freedoms my husband and I are gradually getting back as we slowly leave the really needy years, to wanting desperately to have another little person that is mine to teach and snuggle and nurture as I did my daughter.
I lose sleep every night agonising over it, it’s never far from my waking thoughts, I’ve kept every single baby outfit, toys and cots and sleep suits as a just in case.. to keep me just holding on to this dream…. I worry constantly. I worry about being too old, I worry about dying during the birth, the pregnancy, about “asking for trouble” by having a baby this late.. about having a donor child… about what other people will say...about how my husband will feel.. about if my daughter loves the idea but will hate the reality…..that I will hate my husband when we’re older for not supporting me more to do it……I worry I worry I worry…
But I’m also starting to wonder if its one of those dreams that I’ve had for so long I’ve lost sight of if I really want it anymore. Life is full and busy and I’m grateful every day for our incredible miracle.. and yet,, I just can’t seem to let it go or to find a way to make peace with the idea of never having another baby ……
Massive apologies for such a huge post, just wanted to give persepctive. Any thoughts I’d be so grateful. Please be kind.x