Please Help... A woman really opening her heart up about her broodiness

[Magurndy]

Hi

I don't normally do these forum things but things have got to a point of where I am crying out for help.

I know a lot of women experience extreme broodiness but I want to give my experience and hope that those who have worked on how to deal with it can help me.

I feel I need to give a good background about me to fully explain this. I am 24 and have a good job, funnily enough I am a sonographer and so scanning pregnant women is a huge part of my life. However it was before this that I started experiencing severe depression due to broodiness. I have dealt with it since I was about 17.

At the age of 19 I fell pregnant accidentally and although my partner at the time (who was in his early 30s) didn't want to keep it, I did. Unfortunately I suffered a missed miscarriage at 11 weeks and the loss of the baby drove me to complete despair and what was already not a particularly healthy relationship broke down even further.

In hindsight the miscarriage was a blessing in disguise because I went on to be able to complete my studies and have a good career and also meet someone who is truly amazing to me.

I have been with my partner a mere year but we have already discussed our hopes for our future together and we can genuinely see marrying each other at some point and having children. We have had an incredibly difficult year and together have been through what most couples would have not even dealt with five years down the line. He has finished his degree and started his masters in law in the hope to get a training contract at a london law firm. But even more difficult this year has been the loss of my father who was 86.

I always knew that my father would not be around for a huge part of my life and so I was always scared to lose him and I think this has contributed to my need to start a family. To top things off both my partner and I are living away from each other (me in my mother's house and him at his parents till he can afford to move here). I am still living with my mother because she has cancer, and unfortunately they do not know how much longer she has left.

I feel like my family is dwindling into nothing rather rapidly. The only other member of my family I really have is my half brother who is 20 years older than I.

All these factors I believe have contributed greatly to my extreme need of having a child. My partner knows this and is sympathetic but he does not want children with me now. It's understandable, it's only been a year of us being together and he is trying to build his career. He says we are only young and should enjoy being so, but I can't. He doesn't understand how much it tears me up inside despite seeing how it reduces me to tears. This is a frequent occurrence and admittedly it does most of the time align up with my cycles. He won't shift on when we may start to try to have children and I am acutely aware that I will have at least four more years until we start trying and it's another four years of feeling crushed month after month...

It seems so much to ask of a child to be your "everything", to "rescue" you from your grief and to "save" your depleted family. I think it would be more realistic to embark on parenthood just expecting to give. Your emotional needs just don't really come into the equation.

And how are you going to teach your child to be happy if you haven't mastered it yourself? Could you see the next 4 years as an opportunity to do just that, as preparation for motherhood, by consciously blocking out negative thoughts and forcing yourself to be happy?

Btw - DH is a lawyer. Training contracts are gruelling. The hours are long, the competition is fierce. There isn't much sleep or time to yourself. A baby on top of that would be really difficult.

Can I ask what anti depressants you're taking at the moment? Most are horrendous for the first few days - they take a good week or two, sometimes even longer, before you feel remotely okay again in terms of side effects. Even then the actual benefits won't start kicking in for about a month I find. Halving dose is definitely worth a try though - it was suggested to me loads of times but I just stuck with it and got through the worst of the side effects. I had two weeks off at the time though so that definitely helped.

It's mirtazapine and I did hear the side effects do wear off but in my line of work I cannot be that out of it whilst I hope the side effects wear off after a little while. It worried me how much it affected my concentration

Hey OP
I really feel for you, you seem so lovely and I can relate to so much in your post. I get it.
Like you I was always brought up knowing my father would not be with me due to ill health and I have always been extremely broody too. At the age of 23 I was sobbing on my then therapist's sofa about my pain of never having children. At the tender age of 23 I thought I had missed the boat, that it would never happen to me. I didn't have a boyfriend and so in my mind that was it. I would lose my father and never have children of my own. In my mind I was past it- I was 23!!!

Oh how I wish that I had had the benefit of hindsight, that I had had some faith that things would work out. Just abut of faith.

My fear of not having children has in many ways ruled my life, nearly destroyed the relationship with my husband. I have spent 1000's on fertility tests.

As it happend, after 9 years together my husband and I had a beautiful baby boy, he is my world. I was 33 in the end and so nearly walked out on my husband so many times because he wasn't ready to be a father. It broke my heart.

On the night of my exam results I cried. I got a first from Bristol and as I am not English this was a huge achievement but I cried as I wasn't a mother.

What I am trying to say OP is that I get it. You are so young and you have so much time. Please believe me when I say you do. Grab life and live it! Enjoy your massive accomplishments (sonographer - wow) and love your man. Be kind to yourself. You are so accomplished, you are loved, and you are caring for your mother.

I just want to give you a massive hug and say all will be well for you. It will

Just wanted to give a slightly different perspective OP. My dad died a few years ago, when I was 32. I found it very isolating - there is something about losing a parent that can't be explained to people who haven't experienced it. Plus, my mum was in poor health and has since had to go into a care home - it has all been very difficult.

One of the things I found very hard was that most if not all of the people my age had parents that were healthy - it must be worse for you, as you are even younger. I even started resenting my MIL, as her parents were still both alive (though very frail and they have now both passed away). Even now I think that DH, despite being a great support to me, doesn't really get it.

I have since got married, and I'm now pregnant with DC1 (after a couple of years of trying - I'm now 37). But I'm glad I didn't get pregnant straight away, despite getting broody, as I really struggled for the first couple of years after my dad died. I had some counselling, but (cliche alert) the only thing that helps is time, as the pain gets less raw.

Pregnancy has made me feel very emotional at times, and it's hard to know that my child won't know my dad, and that my mother is incapable of being a 'normal' grandmother compared to other women her age (late 60s) - she won't be visiting to 'look after me', won't be able to babysit, would probably struggle to hold the baby for long. As difficult as it is, I suspect I would find this more difficult if it was in the first year or so after my dad had died. So while I understand how you feel, I think you need to give yourself more time to recover so you can cope with pregnancy and all the emotions it can stir up.

Mirtazapine does take a while in my experience - OK, actually my dh couldn't tolerate the sleepiness at all. If your doctor really feels it could be the one for you, I would take a few days sick leave to adjust to the medication.

I find this thread quite strange. I realise that having a baby at this point in your life may not be the right thing, but taking drugs to suppress what sound like a perfectly normal urge to have a child, sounds wrong.

It's a very recent idea that 24 is young to have children, your body will have been ready for 10 years.

People telling you to not have a child and enjoy yourself instead are simply being unrealistic. You will be marking time, not "enjoying" yourself.

If you are determined to stay with your current boyfriend, then you will have to do what he wants, but there is no guarantee that he will actually do what he says in the future, you haven't even lived together yet.

I really feel for you OP, but please be kinder to yourself.

It sounds like your broodiness has become mixed up with a couple huge things that actually have nothing to do with broodiness: depression and bereavement.

I hope you realise that having a child will not be a solution to either your depression or your grief at losing your father?

They are pretty overwhelming things, though, so I understand how they are adding to your sense of desperate urgency to have a child. Don't have a child because you are depressed or because you are grieving, though. It would not be fair on the child. Have a child because you have a stable and loving home to offer another little human, not in order to fill a void in you.

Are you addressing in your counselling sessions the fact that your depression and bereavement are compounding your sense of broodiness?

I don't understand why it is wrong for a professional woman of 24 to want a child to fill a void within herself.

Anyone who wants a baby, wants it for selfish reasons, the world doesn't need more people.

teapuddles I don't think people mentioned meds / counselling for the broodiness - at least I'm not anyway. I mentioned them because OP said she'd tried them before. FWIW I see no issue with having a baby at 24, especially as a professional. The main concern would be having partner on board as well as ideally living with them for a while too.

Perhaps we are using a different meaning for "void" there, teapuddles.

People of any age and standing can feel a longing for children, that's why most go on to have them, agreed.
But I was talking about unmet psychological needs that have nothing to do with children, and for which children should definitely not be used as a crutch. Children are dependent on their parents, by design. Parents who are dependent on their children... that's not such a healthy dynamic.