to those of you with only one child but not through choice...

[ellymae]

...and particularly to those whose partners have been the reason why you only have one child, how do you come to terms with the fact that you will never have the family set up that you always wanyed and dreamed about?

I have always wanted 2 children, or more importantly have never wanted just one child and i have no reason to believe that years ago my DH felt any differently. We have a wonderful DD who is 22mos and in an ideal world I would love to have another child within the next year. However, DH has made it clear that he doesn't feel he is capable of having any more children and the subject is pretty much closed.

Now I am not looking for help in trying to persuade him to change his mind as he has valid reasons that I don't really want to go into, I'm looking for help in how I can start to try and come to terms with his decision.

Does the pain of not being able to have more lessen over time, am I always going to be hit by reminders throughout life of the family I will never have?

I have read a number of the other threads about one child families and I know that in time I will come to appreciate the benefits of having only one but the pain is still quite raw for me, so if you could indulge me with some support that would be great

elly - I am sorry you are feeling 'the pain' of having only one.

To be honest your situation sounds quite horrible and I really feel for you.

You have come to the right place - there are lots of lovely ladies who hang out in this topic who will have lots of advice and ideas.

T42 Holds her hand out (incase elly wants someones hand to hold).

thanks t42, i seem to have posted my original message 3 times (thought I was just pre-viewing!) so am building up a collection of responses.

i realise that 'pain' will seem an odd word to a lot of people and will feel that i should be counting my blessings with dd but I do feel I'm struggling with a sense of loss at the moment. I will keep looking in on this section to see what tips I can pick up on

thanks

elly - you really should pop into the tearoom sometime. At first sight it probably seems a little crazy and unrulely but under the eighties fashion mistakesfacade the people who hang out in there are the kind of people who completely get what you mean by 'pain' and are very supportive!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/one_child_families/685848-The-One-and-Only-TEA-Room-Everyone-Welcome-bring-cham pagne

I have whistled them over here and hope a few drop in this evening... So prepare yourself!!!

Just nipped over from the tea room. Do come ad join us. We have (mostly) only one child, some by choice, some by force of circumstances. We also have a guinea pig, two horses, a cardboard cut out of George Clooney, lots of champagne and considerable experience of the issues you are facing.

(The short answer is, I don't know yet if you ever come to terms with it. I suspect that takes a conscious effort to look on the positive side. It certainly gets easier, with the odd relapse.)

Elly - Pleased to meet you. I have one child because huge fertility problems meant that we were very unlikely to have children at all. Luckily for us, medical intervention was successful. I guess that puts me in a slightly different place to you, because neither of us made a conscious decision to have just one child.

But - and forgive me if I sound like Pollyanna - it is exactly as racingsnake says. It does get easier and it does get easier more quickly if you can train yourself to look on the positive side. Of course, there will be reminders from time to time of the family you didn't have, but I really do believe that you can learn to shrug them off. I know that not having the number of children one originally hoped for or expected is of a different order of magnitude, but I have reached the point now where I can accept that I won't have another child in the way that I can accept I'll never be Lord Chief Justice, win the Booker prize or be mistaken for Meryl Streep.

Alternatively, I know some women in your situation have questioned whether they want to stay with their partner or would prefer to start anew, in the hope of having more children with a new partner.

Please join us in the tea room.

Elly - we have only one child. We conceived dd naturally after 2.5 year of trying. However, due to major fertility problems we will not be able to have another child without IVF. I'm now 41, so it seems extremely unlikely.

Until a week ago I was still grieving for the rest of the family I thought I'd have. It was causing real problems in my marriage because I found it hard to forgive my husband.

However, and I know this will sound strange and probably really shallow, I found the house of my dreams and realised that I need to have something else to focus on in order to begin to come to terms with only having one child. I've been spending so much time hoping and wishing and blaming, that I've forgotten to love every moment of having my one gorgeous child with my lovely dh.

I hope that we'll buy the house of my dreams (which is a complete wreck). We'll spend the next 5 years doing it up to the wonderful family home that the three of us want.

I think that moving away from this house will really help. This is the house where I cried over infertility and then cried over my lack of a second child. My next house will be the one where I live with my completed family.

Does any of that make sense?

Littlefish - Happy New Home

Racingsnake and Meryl Streep - oh I mean Bocca - I always get those two confused - thanks for saying what I couldn't!

Elly - I hope you are starting to feel a bit more positive soon.

Thanks teafortwo. Unfortunately, it's not ours yet! We're only at the viewing stage so far, so keep everything crossed for us!

oh goodness Littlefish - in that case fingers firmly crossed and arms and legs and toes and.... urrrrmm..... I know eyes too!

Good luck!

Hello ellymae, I don't really know what to say besides we donunderstand a little of what you're going through - that wistful, sad and angry time. I know it's not really the done thing round here, but hugs your way.

I'm sensing that your Dh seems to be under a lot of pressure?

"DH has made it clear that he doesn't feel he is capable of having any more children and the subject is pretty much closed."

And hope that you can revisit the subject, with a trained mediator and counsellor if necessary.

It's too big an issue in a relationship for one partner to refuse to have a discussion about.
Resentment and anger build, and if you really have your heart set on having more, your Dh needs to at least recognise the effects 'his' decision will have on you, and your relationship with him, and be prepared to live with that.

(If you wondered why T42 fell over, you will find that the tea room also supplies alcohol in the evenings - several types of whiskey are on offer this evening as well as alternative tipple for those that dislike whiskey.)

My story - 18months into starting ttc nothing had happened - so we started down the assisted route... got as far as having the appointment to start IVF but conceived naturally. MC at 10 wks - D&C in non-local hospital. 3 months later still bleeding in an uncontrolled manner - got a scan - got admitted, further d&c - turned out I had mp - they thought that they had sorted it out but 2 wks later got admitted again, ended up with 4 months chemo. So, a year after that finished (it finished on edd just to rub salt into the wound) I was given 6 months to try naturally before starting IVF. I got the the stage of having the appointment to set IVF up that month and 3 days before got bfp. 8.5 angst ridden months (and an emergency cs) later, ds arrived - complete miracle baby afaiac.

So, 18 months down the line, we decide that we'd like another. 6months later bfp. followed by early mc, and 3 months complete nightmare of concern about mp coming back - hcg levels not dropping - not sleeping, couldn't work... I only told dh when I was actually going for a scan, and I don't know whether he knows how convinced I was that mp had come back - and how on earth were we going to cope with a toddler and chemo at the same time.

1 yr later another bfp (ds told me about it that morning, then I tested later) - another early mc.

Since then, dh has been very anti trying for another.

As it happens, its a very good thing as the company that dh works for went into administration two weeks ago and I really don't see how we could cope financially if we had two children at the moment - its hard enough with one.

Yes, I am really sad. I'm sad for me, and I'm sad for ds as I'm sure he'd be a fantastic older brother. I think that I had two or three months last year that I was suffering from depression about not being likely to have a second child.

I absolutely adore ds. I would do anything for him (although I'm not a walk over as a mother!) but I think that a little bit of me will never be fulfilled as it looks as though we are unlikely to ever have a second.

I don't blame dh. If things had gone more to plan, we would have had two older children by now. Instead we have one adorable, headstrong small boy who takes a lot of looking after!

BTW, do join us in the tearoom - doesn't have many outbursts like this...

Confession time - I often say "That made me cry" or LOL on MN... but actually am doing neither!!! Ha ha ha!

But MT - your story has really got me in absolute floods.

I am not sure, because my head is still a bit foggy from the whisky I consumed in the tearoom last night , but I think up there... in the sky I can see some rainbows ahead. And if you look closely they have your name on them MT!

thaks to all of you who have replied to my threads (not quite sure how I managed to create 3!!), I knew I would find some kindred spirits here

Thanks for sharing your stories and also the invitations to join the tea room. I have thought about it in the past but it feels like I would be accepting that I am only going to have one child and there is a large part of me that is still living in hope that I could have one more! maybe I should treat it as the first part of my acceptance of the situation - you know I'll turn up one day and say 'hi I'm ellymae and I have one child'!

I know I need to start looking at things positively but its not going to be helped by seeing 2 of my ante-natal friends have their 2nd children in the next two weeks and another having her second in April. What complicates things is that although my DD was full term (well 12 days overdue) due to health problems she ended up having two lots of surgery and a 7.5 week stay in a NNU. So I don't know what it's like to bring a child home from hospital at a few days old, what its like to cuddle a new born without tubes and wires attached and now I probably won't so the last thing I need is to see someone else enjoying it all for the second time.

anyway, that's a different issue! I will probably look through the window of tea room for a bit before I pluck up the courage to pop in but i will try and come along soon

thanks again

Ellymae - you don't have to have only one child to come into the tearoom - its just that you're not allowed to say how much easy it is to only have one, or cast any nastursiams about any one that does only have one child - whether by accident or design.

I've just had the delight of someone at work having a baby at about the same time as I would have done. Followed by someone else having their second baby - their first is 1.5 yrs younger than mine. And all she can say (knowing what I've been through too, so there is no excuse) is how hard it is and that she's not getting any sleep etc etc etc.

Ellymae - I have a DS by choice, but confirmed by our multiple miscarriages before him (iyswim)

It's hard to watch others go through what we would have liked though. At times, I felt insanely jealous of people I knew who got pg easily, had a stress free pg, and did the whole 'glowing after the birth in bed with their baby, big cuddles and all the family popping in to see it' thing. And I still get twinges of that now on MN.

Anyway, come have a whisky coffee with us, in the safe knowledge that no one is going to say 'and when are you going to have another' or complain about the trials of having a baby and a toddler etc

ellymae
I have one DS, and DH is adamant that he doesn't want more although he loves DS. I would talk DH round, but financially, practically and health-wise there are so many potential problems that I don't think it's fair to pressure him into something that I too would struggle with in reality. I still feel sad about it though, especially when I hear DS's peers say 'my brother' 'my sister' and I think that DS just won't have that. Also recently a friend who is an only child lost both his parents (to illness - unconnected but happened at the same time) which has left him with no family at all. That made me really sad thinking of DS. But I make sure that he sees a lot of his cousins, in the hope that it will give him some sense of extended family so that if something happened to DH and I he wouldn't feel totally alone. I am so close to my sisters, and DH is close to his brother...

I'm very sad thinking about it tbh, I usually push the feeling away, but your OP struck a nerve. I'm sure that we'll both find happiness in our own unique families - even though I have regrets I would "scorn to change my state with kings" - I have a kind loving DH, and an adorable DS, so I count my blessings.

ellymae

I too have popped in from the tearoom as ordered requested by Tea42

Firstly, when you peep through the tea room window you will see there are visitors who have lots of children and some with one who want more (so you would fit right in whatever happens) but do peep for a bit if you like

the grief of one childness by whatever means that is not positive choice is a tricky one. much of life is about coming to terms with what we are and what we have not what we want - whether we wanted to be a prinecss and filmstar or simply to find a nice supportive partner, get a job and have a family....

it is hard if the choice is not yours and is your DS as Zazen said you may want counselling because it can be destructive to a relationship

or as Bocca said you may decide children are more important than partners...

these are your choices, but as Littlefish wisely said the most important thing in life is to live it in joy!

good luck!

(Sorry, feeling a bit blue last night - it happens, I'm not normally like that in the tearoom )

mistle don't apologise for being blue. I have come to terms with my own story so well poorly that I never even mention it [burying head in sand emoticon]

Hi ellymae

I have one DS aged 7. Am almost 45 and I think have started menopause so another is highly unlikely. Although know this logically I would still love another.

There is a long and complicated reason behind why we only have one. And a huge part of it is DH. DH is impotent and totally uninterested in sex so not likely to do anything about it. We have had some counselling but not enough to help much - we live in Budapest so it's not easy.

DH ever wanted children really although he knew i did. We married after 7 years together and moved to Vietnam. He was never ready for a child and I was sort of concentrating on the sex issue. Anyway - long story short. We had IVF (after I threatened to leave) - once we started looking into treatment it transpired that DH has low sperm count too. We were extremely lucky and conceived DS on our first attempt. We were still living in Vietnam and had the treatment in Bangkok.

We then moved to Bulgaria and once DS turned 1 I started to want another. But DH wasn't keen. Time passed and then we discovered we were moving country again and although DH had agreed to try again he wanted to wait till we were settled. For various reasons it wasn't until almost 3 years ago that we did actually try again but unfortunately we were not successful. Having IVF here was a bit brutal in a lot of ways and I couldn't bring myself to try again.

We considered adoption but it is next to impossible here.

So. Here we are. I appreciate some of the pluses of having only one but I do feel that they would be more than outweighed by another. But that is almost impossible now.

I used to say to DH that I would end up resenting him hugely but to my surprise I don't. I do have some sadness and twinges about it all though at times. I look at him with DS and could cry sometimes as he just loves him so much and I get a bit pissed off that he couldn't see that at the time when we could have done something about it.

But now I feel I am not sure I could go back to the toddler stage. I think I would be OK with the baby stage as I loved that but seeing friends run around after toddlers scares me!

I haven't ventured on to the one-child stuff much on here as I suppose I haven't accepted it deep down yet.

Hi mt!

I am doing ok thanks - how are you? Weather lousy here - lots of rain! DS off school with tail end of tummy bug. House bound for last 3 days!.

I hope small Buda's back to fighting fit soon. Its not bad here - still plenty of snow underfoot, but sunny on and off (although primarily overcast)

mistlethrush, thanks for the info about the tea room, it makes sense for us to have a refuge from some of those insensitive comments that people can throw around. Can't believe you are having to deal with someone's thoughtlessness after what you've been through.

buda, thanks for your openness and honesty and I fully understand about not being able to accept things deep down.

I'm 41 myself now and so time is not on my side if DH does realise in the next few years that actually he could cope with another child. I too have wondered if I am going to resent him for his decision and at times I think I do. But then I just have to look at our gorgeous dd and know that I wouldn't have her if it wasn't for him and I am grateful for that. I think the hardest thing to deal with is that like a lot of men, he is not a talker and so I found it difficult to raise the subject with him. then when I finally got him to 'talk' just before new year it transpired that the main reason why he didn't want to discuss things was that he knew I wanted another child and he doesn't. Talk about putting your head in the sand!

It does seem though from what a lot of you are saying is that not being able to have more children is a difficult position to be in and does not necessarily get easier with time. I guess there will always be times that I am reminded that DD is on her own but it will be down to me to make sure that she has a positive experience of growing up.