36 and starting again. I’m so scared.

[Battysgf]

I feel sick. I had a medical termination years ago and have worried about fertility since. I’ve just broken up with my partner. I’m 36 (and 4 months).

I feel like I will never have the life I hoped for.

There’s never been any medical link made between terminating a pregnancy and being unable to have another pregnancy in the future. Seriously, don’t worry about that one.

Few people end up with the life they always thought they’d have or hoped for; and sometimes that actually turns out to be a good thing. Perhaps use this time to focus on and evaluate the things you want most and what’s most important to you in life. If that’s having children, you could consider making that journey alone without a partner. If it’s a partner you want most, then maybe now’s the time to reshape your social life so that you a) have more opportunities to meet somebody and b) create for yourself such a good life in the process that it won’t feel like the foremost point of your life to meet somebody.

What are you scared of though? You can get your fertility checked. You can freeze your eggs. You can have a baby on your own. You can do a thousand things OP.

Like @ComtesseDeSpair said,very few people end up with the lives they wanted. Try to love the life you already have.

Book yourself a private fertility checkup.

Having an abortion doesn't mean you can't have children when you are older, it certainly didn't for me.

I work with a lady who has decided to have a baby on her own at 35 from a donor, she is about to go off on maternity leave and the pregnancy has been straightforward and she is happy.

I guess it depends if you want to meet a partner and have children that way in which case 36 is not really young but plenty of people meet a partner when older and go on to have a child.
Another friend met her partner at 35, got married at 38 and had her child at 41 (through ivf).

Sorry to give so many examples! Trying to say options are there for you

@Battysgf try to see this as a new beginning. At 36 I felt exactly the same as you - I was divorced, thinking I'd never have a family, it was too late, having to start all over again etc. I met DH, we got married when I was 38, and we now have 18-month old DD (I'm almost 42). And I knew for sure I was infertile so we had multiple rounds of IVF.

I understand why you feel low and pessimistic but - honestly - there's still time to find the life you hoped for!

Look you just don't know. I get that this isn't how you planned things but life is always disobedient. My initial thought was how young you were but then bizarrely I remembered I felt so old at 32 (ten years ago).

My best friend got married at 25, nearly twenty years on they've never been able to have children with no explanation. I had a termination in my 20's, womb cancer in my 30's, thyroid cancer followed by an effortless pregnancy age 40.

I know it seems scary now but life kinda goes its own way. Your relationship obviously wasn't right or it wouldn't have ended. I'm sure there's a happier one in your future.

Go it alone