infertility - I'd love to have a pregnancy problem to post

[bigeekgirl]

So, I'm nearly 35 with PCOS. My husband and stopped using condoms about a year and a half ago. I'd lost a bunch of weight and gotten my cycles far more regular so I'd hoped beyond hope the four years I'd not used anything and didn't get pregnant with my ex - thank God - would be the past.

My last cycle was 44 days. Long for me and I'd hoped. Like in a depressing movie, a few hours after I got the negative on the pre stick, my period started. Really?

I don't know if the hardest part is other people and their unintended pregnancies and fucked up kids or trying to stay motivated on the doctor recommended diet and exercise regiment with all the pressure and uncertainty. I just don't know if I can accept never having a baby. I've given up a lot of my dream including the idea my family of origin was safe and stable. Too give this up... I can't imagine what that will do to me.

[melalerve]

I'm a guy, so maybe I can't relate as much, but I too would (have) like(d) kids, but looking at what this world is, and even worse what it's rapidly becoming, I believe not having children is the rational choice. So along the lines of your post title, I'd say that I don't want children so much as I'd love to live in a world where it's not a completely crazy choice to have children.

Adoption is not an option for you?

[bigeekgirl]

Not wanting kids is the rational choice, most certainly. I'm not as pessimistic about the world at large, but certainly children are a huge investment of resources that isn't easy or necessary for survival like it was historically. For my husband and I, it's a commitment the two of us will bare without the benefit of extended family networks that ease the responsibility for many folks.

But the desire is there. I doesn't go away. And it is a desire for a child of my own. The whole deal... from morning sickness to labor pain. I want the experience. I want my child to be mine genetically and the best chance to have my husband's temperament. Adoption is wonderful, but costly and just was much of a low odds game if you want a baby. I'm not willing to take on a child who is likely to have attachment issues and trauma and Lord knows what problems. I know it sounds awful and if I could make myself want that, I would.

I think, for me, the nature of my life and issues makes me feel alone and disconnected. I spent my childhood being impacted by my parent's traumatic childhoods and also isolated from extended family while my mother definitely used me as a confidante but would also lash out. I got the left overs of life. I didn't get the bonds I saw my peers having and when I was a part of things it was from the outside. I could pass my blood relations - aunts, uncles, cousins - the street and not know them. For me, actually having a baby of my own represents a normal bit of humanity I might not have completely lost out on. It means having the opportunity to start at the beginning with somebody and really bond and belong. No of this is to disparage families created by adoption or to say my heart might not someday change but an imperfect attempt to explain my feelings.

[melalerve]

I believe I can relate to your issues, at least as much as text on a screen allows. I totally get your point about wanting an untainted relationship and connection to the world.

However, remember that when we e.g. stroke a pet, we're always in a sense stroking ourselves. This is okay with a pet, but I believe it's not okay to do that with a child, i.e. another human being.

Again: I get where you're coming from, very much so actually. I fantasize every day about being a dad and how I would completely spoil my kids with love. But then at some point I noticed that in my fantasies, there isn't even a mom around. So that told me that my fantasy is really a fantasy, not a wish or a plan. In other words, it's about me and my soul, not about the real world. It's about my own inner child, not about a real child. This warrants careful distinction, for the sake of both the self-healing fantasy as well as any potential real children!

Because I can't do that. I can't drag someone else into this life and make them a chess piece in the staging of my own self-healing fantasy. That would be crazy. It would be child abuse. The kindest, gentlest child abuse conceivable, but nonetheless absolutely real child abuse, because it would be all about me. And from what you're writing, which all sounds all too familiar to me, you're in a similar position.

But we should imho always carefully distinguish our dreams and fantasies from our plans and wishes. Fantasies are fantasies, wishes are wishes. This world around us tells us to "live your dream". I say: Don't do that. Live your life; dream your dream. (And maybe watch Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher, for a very good illustration of what it means to treat fantasies as though they were wishes.)

Maybe we're too damaged to have children. Seeing a child (i.e. a real child, as opposed to our fantasy inner child) as a way to heal ourselves is imho definitely wrong, and a very strong reason to not have children, as much as I hate admitting that to myself. I see the people around me who are parents, most of them have two children by now, but for them children are not as vitally or emotionally important. They all do love their children, no doubt about it. But none of them emotionally lean on their connection with their children. And that's healthy. That's what it takes. The thing you and I fantasize about with regard to having children is what we'd have to accomplish in order to get emotionally ready to have children in the first place: a sense of healthy emotional connection to the world.

[bigeekgirl]

I was that child to my mother. And I've spend years dealing with the questions you have brought up. Certainly, there is always an element of reparenting your inner child in wanting an actual child. But I've worked on me. I know the pitfalls and I have a loving partner who I want a family with. I have no problem seeing other people as separate from myself with their own personality, needs and desires unlike my mother who always seems baffled when my tastes or opinions differ from hers. I don't just want my children to love and be loved by, but to facilitate their development into functioning and healthy adults. By nature, I am the kind of person who studies and works at the things I take on in order to excel at them. In my twenties, I adopted kittens and read every cat book in my local library in order to understand feline psychology. Plus, I practically co-parented my best friend's daughter from the time she was one until she was five when I relocated for unrelated reasons. Parenting is always hard and it'll be a challenge for me in a way it isn't for people who've grown up in healthy families but it doesn't mean someone shouldn't have children. I've gone through a lot in my life and I've worked my butt off to be mentally and emotional stable and build a life for myself with the hand I was given. It's not perfect nor am I but neither is anyone else. That's the fantasy - That other people are better, more deserving or more capable.

[melalerve]

Hm. I've been thinking some more about this and talked to a friend over the weekend who is a dad (of two kids, one 3 y-o and a half year-old toddler). He basically said pretty much what you're also saying, that the reparenting "do-over" thing is a natural aspect of having children.

Then I thought some more about why I came down on the side of not having children, and I believe the answer is much less related to any real-world "out there" kind of stuff than I'd like to believe. It's probably more that I am having a hard time facing the pain of being in a uniquely bad personal position with regard to having children, nearing middle-age without a job, without a girlfriend, and with a ton of past-related stuff I see no real way out of despite years of therapy.

If you're confident about having a handle on your past family stuff, and with a stable partnership and sufficiently reliable financial situation, I'd say definitely go for it.