The Quitting Conversation

LegacyUser

Hi there,

We have been TTC for 8 years with only one very early pregnancy loss to speak of.

I Am now 38 and my husband is 44.

I know it's a very personal choice but I'm just wondering if there is anyone else that can share their experience of when they had enough of ttc and made a deliberate choice to forget about having kids.

I mean, taking away any chance of it happening as you feel the window for it has passed, not just stopping treatments or anything else to enhance the chances of it happening.
At the moment, because I was having other gynae problems I have been put on the pill which has sorted the problem I was having. Now, a part of me wants to stay on it as I'm sick of ttc and feeling like my life is on hold.

Sometimes I think I look forward to being older and it just not being an issue any more. My life has really changed in the last few months and Im loving it. I respect any womans decision to have a baby at any age but I've always said I didn't want to be having my first too late. It feels too late now. I'm not far off 39.

I'm just throwing it out there and wondering if anyone else has, or is, going through this.

I have spoken to my husband and he wants to keep trying, so a part of me would only keep ttc for him.

fleena

Hi,
I saw your post last month and have checked a few times to see the responses you’ve received – it would appear that the subject is indeed as taboo as I had thought.

I too am of a similar age to you, married for the past eight years to the most wonderful, beautiful and kind person (my best friend).
We have a fabulous lifestyle together. In fact probably way too indulgent and spoilt at times but hey, we work hard for it and never take it or each other for granted. When we got married the natural assumption was that we’d have kids…they’d just appear. We never had this glorious image of a particular amount of them or anything like that but I think we just figured that it would happen and we would do the whole parenting thing well and properly with lots of fun thrown in.

A year or so after we married I got pregnant – I have never felt such abject fear and dread in my life. I’m not actually sure I’ve ever spoken that selfish truth aloud to anyone because again I think it’s not quite the politically correct thing to say in regard to these very emotive issues. Anyway it turned out to be ectopic so cue much guilt at my original response (it’s an endless cycle of crazy really!). So a couple more years passed and nothing happened.

Around this point my husband began to push the issue a little more. Naturally I was apprehensive, but him being the wonderful guy that he is got the ball rolling from his side. Cue his devastation when his sperm count, quality and motility measured on some scale of abysmal. That was very difficult for him to hear but we kind of figured that that was it then – we couldn’t have kids…or at least our chances of succeeding naturally were much slimmer than we thought, but then again, we had succeeded once, maybe it would happen again…I naively assumed that was the point where we consciously both decided to stop ‘trying’.

Life went on very happily until this year. Maybe it was him turning 50 and a realisation of his mortality and maybe too there’s a little something in all of us that we feel we need to leave our mark on the world. That’s a lot of ‘maybes’ I know but it’s the only thing I can think of that roused the sleeping beast of ‘baby talk’ again. I know that we would be great parents. I know that we have so much love to give a child but I’m at the stage now too whereby I’m happy as we are.

So we had ‘the talk’ again. This time I will say that he was a little more persuasive in his arguments. It bothered me hugely. I had thought we were on the same page. I felt that he was somehow almost betraying me in his new-found insistence on the issue. We spent a couple of days silently hurting at the others’ response to the subject and then…took a holiday! The break did us the world of good. We laughed, drank and laughed some more. We left ‘the topic’ at home and while we’re back now it hasn’t raised its’ head since.

I guess to summarise my situation in relation to yours – I’m not certain that there is ever really a point where two people will see the exact same end-point in anything. Things constantly change but hope is what keeps most of us going through life. I appreciate that your situation is different in regards to being on the pill and I get too where you’re coming from about feeling too old. I think that it’s easier for men, that’s just my opinion and not meant to be an incendiary statement.

I’m sorry that you find yourself in this sticky corner of indecision. I don’t personally suffer regrets – I think once I make my mind up on something there’s no point wasting emotional energy thinking of the ‘what ifs’ of another scenario but then I think too that I’m fortunate in that I have never heard that ticking clock of biological-warfare that many speak of haunting their every waking hour. Good luck with everything and despite the silence on the forum in response to your original post, I firmly believe that you and I are not as alone as it seems. I just think that lots of other people are struggling to admit that they could actually be happy childless because a lot of societal norms make anything contrary to the ‘usual’ seem like ‘failure’.

dublinlady

fleena wrote: »

Hi,
I saw your post last month and have checked a few times to see the responses you’ve received – it would appear that the subject is indeed as taboo as I had thought.

I too am of a similar age to you, married for the past eight years to the most wonderful, beautiful and kind person (my best friend).
We have a fabulous lifestyle together. In fact probably way too indulgent and spoilt at times but hey, we work hard for it and never take it or each other for granted. When we got married the natural assumption was that we’d have kids…they’d just appear. We never had this glorious image of a particular amount of them or anything like that but I think we just figured that it would happen and we would do the whole parenting thing well and properly with lots of fun thrown in.

A year or so after we married I got pregnant – I have never felt such abject fear and dread in my life. I’m not actually sure I’ve ever spoken that selfish truth aloud to anyone because again I think it’s not quite the politically correct thing to say in regard to these very emotive issues. Anyway it turned out to be ectopic so cue much guilt at my original response (it’s an endless cycle of crazy really!). So a couple more years passed and nothing happened.

Around this point my husband began to push the issue a little more. Naturally I was apprehensive, but him being the wonderful guy that he is got the ball rolling from his side. Cue his devastation when his sperm count, quality and motility measured on some scale of abysmal. That was very difficult for him to hear but we kind of figured that that was it then – we couldn’t have kids…or at least our chances of succeeding naturally were much slimmer than we thought, but then again, we had succeeded once, maybe it would happen again…I naively assumed that was the point where we consciously both decided to stop ‘trying’.

Life went on very happily until this year. Maybe it was him turning 50 and a realisation of his mortality and maybe too there’s a little something in all of us that we feel we need to leave our mark on the world. That’s a lot of ‘maybes’ I know but it’s the only thing I can think of that roused the sleeping beast of ‘baby talk’ again. I know that we would be great parents. I know that we have so much love to give a child but I’m at the stage now too whereby I’m happy as we are.

So we had ‘the talk’ again. This time I will say that he was a little more persuasive in his arguments. It bothered me hugely. I had thought we were on the same page. I felt that he was somehow almost betraying me in his new-found insistence on the issue. We spent a couple of days silently hurting at the others’ response to the subject and then…took a holiday! The break did us the world of good. We laughed, drank and laughed some more. We left ‘the topic’ at home and while we’re back now it hasn’t raised its’ head since.

I guess to summarise my situation in relation to yours – I’m not certain that there is ever really a point where two people will see the exact same end-point in anything. Things constantly change but hope is what keeps most of us going through life. I appreciate that your situation is different in regards to being on the pill and I get too where you’re coming from about feeling too old. I think that it’s easier for men, that’s just my opinion and not meant to be an incendiary statement.

I’m sorry that you find yourself in this sticky corner of indecision. I don’t personally suffer regrets – I think once I make my mind up on something there’s no point wasting emotional energy thinking of the ‘what ifs’ of another scenario but then I think too that I’m fortunate in that I have never heard that ticking clock of biological-warfare that many speak of haunting their every waking hour. Good luck with everything and despite the silence on the forum in response to your original post, I firmly believe that you and I are not as alone as it seems. I just think that lots of other people are struggling to admit that they could actually be happy childless because a lot of societal norms make anything contrary to the ‘usual’ seem like ‘failure’.

Excellent post. So much logic. I have 2 kids so not on same boat but think I would have arrived to similar conclusions in your case.

Mrs W

Like the previous poster, I was only married a month and pregnant. I was terrified and really regretting it, I lost my baby at 11 weeks and the one after that too.
It's only since having my LO 2 years ago nearly that I realise every bit of hardship and sorrow was worth it. We nearly gave up so many times but it's so amazing to have her now that I'm glad we didn't give up.

I'm sorry if that's not what you want to hear but I'd hate for you to give up and then regret it later. If you give it all you can then you'll have nothing to regret

skallywag

wanttoquitttc wrote: »

It feels too late now. I'm not far off 39.

Each to their own of course OP, but I certainly would not think 39 too old at all to have a first (and perhaps only) child.

Coming back to your question though, in our case decision was quit was based around economic sanity, i.e. we could not longer afford more rounds of IVF.