Sorry this is going to be long but I really want some input!
So me and my boyfriend have been together for two years. I have two children from a previous marriage- my son is 15 y and my daughter is 9 y. My boyfriend doesn’t have kids.
About 6 months into us dating he asked me if I wanted to have more kids. I thought for a while about this and landed on a clear ”yes”. I did say that I wanted to wait until we had been together for a year before we started trying. This is still very fast but time isn’t on my side as I am currently 41, about to turn 42. We also talked about different ways in which we could have a child, including both adoption and fostering.
In december last year I fell pregnant. Just after that we signed a lease for a new place together with a move-in date of May 1 this year. In hindsight I can see that this decision was largely fueled by the pregnancy. Anyways, week 12 of the pregnancy I had a miscarriage. I was very sad, and my boyfriend was too. We moved in together in May and had a bit of rocky start to living together but everything is working well now. This summer I fell pregnant again and subsequently miscarried at 8 weeks. My guess is its due to my age and that we would need to look into egg donation.
However, throughout this journey I have grown increasingly unsure of what lengths I want to go to for another child. I think our somewhat difficult summer after moving in together in is influencing me as I am seeing more sides of him that I don’t necessarily think will be all that easy to deal with with a baby, as well as the fact that I am becoming increasingly aware of my age. I have expressed some of this to him and we have now agreed to think separately on this matter for a while before we discuss it again. Initially I thought it was more that I didn’t want to move on to trying other ways of having kids but I realised the other day that if he would say that we should quit trying alltogether I would be fine with it.
I should add that I sometimes have a hard time knowing what I want and often want to please people and make them happy. This is how I managed to stay with my ex for a very long time even though he is a very difficult person to live with.
Sorry for basically writing a novel, but I feel like such a shitty person towards my boyfriend if I change my mind at this point. He really really wants kids- although I think he is quite naive as to what having small children entails (like most men who are in their thirties are…).
How should I handle this situation? Is this something we can move on together in as a couple? If anyone has similar experiences I would love to hear the outcome.