I was just released from the hospital yesterday. I was about eight weeks along with what was to be our first when I started having bleeding. We went in for an ultrasound which confirmed that the fetus had already died, possibly some days before, but the size and location of the gestational sack necessitated prompt intervention. They gave me a chemo therapeutic drug and kept me in the hospital for a few days to monitor, no surgery. Subsequent testing and ultrasound looks good: tissues returning to normal, likely won’t have an impact on future fertility.
Here’s where I could use some advice: I don’t know if we should try again.
I am 30, my husband just turned 39. We’ve spent the last few years clawing our way out of debt. I’ve got a good job now, although it takes 70 to 80 hours a week to keep things moving out of the debt pit. My husband continues to struggle with his freelance art business and he’s slowly making headway. We should be done with credit cards in less than six months. We still have a lot of student loan debt, roughly $200k between us. We own our beater of a car. We would need to change apartments if we had a kid, but that should be mostly manageable.
I’ve never been one to fawn over small children. I like them when they’re old enough to talk to and do stuff with. I’ve never been around them on a non-stop basis. My husband has younger siblings, but dealing with infants was a long time ago for him. We live far away from other family members. Moreover, we don’t feel having children is an imperative. We would like to, but if we were sterile, we’d also be happy to remain DINKs. (We’re not motivated enough to adopt.)
We were already getting a little freaked out over the impending financial and emotional strain when the baby was en route. Now that we have a second chance to think about things…
To make it even weirder, everyone in our lives is assuming that we’re distraught over the loss of the baby. I’m distraught over the threat to my person. But, explaining that to two sets of potential grandparents is not going well. (this baby would have been the first grandchild for both my parents and my husband’s, all of whom had resigned themselves to grandchild-less existences.) No one is pushing us to decide right away, but it is plain that they expect us to try again after a reasonable grieving period. Except we’re not grieving, we’re gun shy.
First off, I’m so sorry. It’s great that you still have both tubes.
Second, having a baby is something that it’s nice to be very, very sure you’re ready for. You’re only 30 (I was 30 and my husband was 39 when I got pregnant too!). Your husband may be feeling a little old, but you know what, you can still take time on this. No stress. Having a baby, now THAT is real stress–physically, emotionally, financially, and within your marriage. Stop, rest, evaluate.
I’m so sorry that the pregnancy went poorly, and equally sorry that you’re having to make hard financial decisions into equally hard family-planning decisions.
I have no advice whatsoever, just commiseration - I’m also not a baby person, and the expectations to eventually pop out a little person are ridiculously high.
Perhaps consider picking some arbitrary financial milestone with your husband that you have to reach (perhaps some portion of student debt paid off, or paying off a new car?) before you attempt again? There then exists the chance that then you’ll find that biology has decided for you. If you **can’t **have children then your own parents will find it a tough sell to be angry about it.
My only advice is to not directly contradict people who assume you’re grieving - consider it a blessing in disguise: if they think you’re still broken up about the loss, they won’t be as motivated to bother you about reproducing.
Really sorry to hear your news, and glad to hear you are OK, ectopics can be nasty.
Give yourself a few months break before you decide anything - there’s no rush. The thrill and panic of early pregnancy added to your recent loss will be really stressful and you’ll probably see things clearer once you regroup.
30 is still young to make this decision - I had my first at 34 and #2 at 36 - I have friends who were even older. There is time to be better financially and emotionally ready, and the whole thing is seriously so much easier if you are.
And if your eventual decision is to be childfree, you’ll know you spent the time considering how you feel so you don’t end up second guessing your decision.
I know you said you aren’t grieving but I am still sorry for your loss.
It doesn’t sound like you really want to try again and that’s ok. However, perhaps you are grieving subconsciously and in shock at the moment so it is best not to make any decisions so soon after the loss. If you do decide to try again I suggest you have a Dr. check to see if there is any scarring in your tubes which may have cause the tubal pregnancy.
I’m glad to hear you are ok, Pullet. I have no real advice, other than a baby is a big job, and not one you should take on if you’re not 100% about it. It’s possible in a shock and stress of the last few weeks that *wanting *a child has slipped from your mind. If you start wanting again in a few months, there’s time to try again.
I’m glad to hear that they caught it in time and that they saved your tubes, and I am sorry for your loss.
Take a break from fertility planning and relax for a while; at your age, there’s no hurry. Take some time to clear your head, and then think about whether or not the miscarriage is leading you to reevaluate the reasons you had for trying to conceive.
Fertility issues can be all-consuming, as shown by the fact that you’ve just gotten out of the hospital for a major life-threatening problem, and you’re already trying to lay out what to do next. Right now, you’re fragile and stressed, and even if you’re a natural planner, it’s going to be really hard to think clearly enough to make big decisions right now.
I’m sorry. I had an ectopic last July and lost my right tube. One thing to keep in mind is that your chances for repeat ectopics, especially in the same tube, is dramatically increased now.
I agree with the advice to give yourself a few months before you make a final decision. It sounds like you aren’t really on board with having a child right now, and you really should be before you take this step. Having kids isn’t for everyone.
Thanks, everyone. I guess I’m in a rush to decide something just because I really get anxious when I don’t have a plan. Even if it is a loose plan. I actually melted down on the doctor when this was happening because they weren’t giving me enough information about the outline of events.
I like the idea of waiting for a milestone. We’ll have to find one that isn’t too stupid. And, I know we’ve got childbearing years yet, no matter how many times Facebook says we’re the last to have kids.
I’m glad you’re okay and that you didn’t need surgery! I’m sorry for your loss.
I don’t really have any advice for you, other than to take it easy on yourself for a while and don’t feel like you need to make a decision now. It’s your decision to make, after all, not the potential grandparents’.
Some of my friends say you’re never 100% ready to be a parent, even once you are a parent. You just make it work, one day at a time, and for them, despite the occasional hardships, it’s worth it. It may not be for you, and that’s completely okay. But if it’s what you really want, you can find a way.
Take time off, and once you’re off the emotional roller coaster from the ordeal, look at your life and budget and what you really want, and talk it out with your husband. And whatever decision you make will be okay.
I’m so sorry you had to go through that! I just had an ectopic pregnancy a year and a half ago and it was so hard to sort through, let alone explain, my emotions to myself. Dealing with family was awful because I felt this terrible sense of almost relief (it was an unexpected pregnancy to begin with).
My advice to you would be not to bother explaining to your family. If they’re not close enough you’d call them with a problem, you don’t need to explain yourself to them. With respect to having a baby…you’ve got plenty of time to think it over. Give yourself as long as you need.
Well, the flip side of that is that they’re only that little for a short time. I think it’s a better prognostic sign if someone likes older kids than if someone only likes small infants.
I know that I’m not particularly crazy about small kids. They can be cute, but I find it annoying how so many people totally freak out over babies. Honestly, I find it really annoying that my family treats my youngest cousins as if they’re the second coming of Jesus (I think they get more fawning attention than the average kid because they were IVF babies and their mom’s sister sadly wasn’t able to have kids even though she wanted them). Still, I look forward to having kids because I like the idea of seeing a kid that I helped influence become its own person. Teaching the kid stuff, seeing how the kid’s life turns out when they’re a young adult, hopefully having the same friendship with my adult kids that I had with my mom when I was a young adult…that means more to me than cuddling an infant.
I completely understand your need to know what your plan is. I would suggest that you put this into the form of stages: the first stage is to recover from this ectopic pregnancy and get that credit card debt cleared up. The second stage is to look at your cleaner financial picture at that point and lay out the next steps.
Hopefully, this gives you enough of a plan for the time being and enough mental structure that you can relax and put your energy into your present without fretting about the future.
One aspect that I haven’t yet seen addressed is that if this just happened, your body is still processing end-of-pregnancy hormones, and those take some time to sort through. Whatever you do, don’t make any long-term plans until your brain is less hormonally affected.
I had an earlyish miscarriage (around 10 weeks, IIRC) between my kids and I was very calm and rational about the whole thing until about 4-5 days afterwards, when I suddenly felt sad and emotional. I was puzzled about where on earth that came from, and then it hit me: the baby blues. My body had just gone from pregnant to not-pregnant and my hormonal levels were going through an abrupt change. It passed quickly, but it helped to know what the physical basis for it was.
Thanks again, particularly to the other posters who have had ectopics or miscarriages. It is nice to know that I’m not alone, particularly with the conflicting feelings. And, it is clear that mine was as mild as that unhappiness can biologically be. it helps to remind myself of that.
I feel a bit like someone who decides to go to the firing range for the first time ever, has the gun explode in their hands, and walks away unscathed. Now what? One day at a time, I guess.
I’m sorry that happened to you. I know you’re not grieving, but from what I’ve heard, the procedure for dealing with an ectopic pregnancy sucks, even without the extra suckage of losing a wanted pregnancy.
Stick to your guns. “Because someone else wants us to have a baby” is not a good reason to have a baby. You’re right to not try for a baby now because your parents want a grandchild. They’re not going to be raising the baby, and they’re not going to be dealing with what raising a baby does to your finances. Only people who will be doing those things get a vote on whether or not you should have a baby.
Pregnancy has been a hormonally-fueled emotional roller-coaster for me. You may need to look out for that. Bear in mind that your hormones don’t just snap back to normal now that you’re not pregnant any more. You might feel sad or emotional about things that normally wouldn’t make you feel that way. That’s hormones doing what hormones do. If you have depression, like I do, pregnancy and end-of-pregnancy hormones can make it worse. Or they can sometimes make it better for a few days, then worse for a few (this is what I’ve been having).
THANK YOU! I had been on the fence for many years about having kids, because I like older kids, but babies, not so much.
Actually, now that I’m pregnant, I find I like babies better than I did before. So maybe that is hormone-dependent for some of us. My mother-in-law, though, likes babies, even when she is not pregnant.
You may or may not have a breakdown about it at a later point even if you logically know that pregnancy wasn’t right for you. Take it easy.
I’m a bit biased, but definitely only have kids if you want to have them. Not grandparents, not anyone else. Figure out what you want and go from there.
If I could have my time again I would NOT have a kid.
After 17ys of happy marriage we split up when junior was 6 months old.
Everything did and would go wrong!
We had some warning, she had two miscarriages before ‘lucky’ number three.
Wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, spoiled everything.
You and your husband sound a lot like me and my fiance. So I can’t help you much - we honestly don’t know if we want one or not. I mean, yeah, if I suddenly got knocked up at this point I suppose we’d keep it - I think he wants one more than I do. And we’re in an okay place for it financially and such, and my mother is nearby and could keep it. But, I mean, think of the money, and the loss of freedom… so I don’t know.
On the other other other hand, absolutely nobody is “ready” to have kids. Almost everybody does fine.
What I think we should probably do (and this is just us, not you) is set some date. I’m 32 and he’s 40, so let’s say we set my 34th birthday, and when that day comes we need to have made a decision. I don’t want to make a decision by not making one at all, of course. And I know that it’s possible we may decide to have kids and then not be able to (although my mom had me when she was 38.) And I’m okay with never having kids, although I’m a little afraid of getting invested in the idea if I decide to do it.
I just… I dunno. I guess this isn’t very helpful. Anyway, I’m sorry for your loss, please don’t feel like you need to feel any particular way about it, and I’m sure that you’ll come to a decision that makes sense for your own family.
There are some decisions where it’s obvious what the right thing to do is. Like getting rid of your ectopic pregnancy. It was either that or suffer and die from it. That’s an easy decision. You probably didn’t have to think much about it. Deciding to have kids or not is not one of those easy decisions.
I find it hard to get rid of this sinking feeling that my parents and my in-laws were perfectly prepared to have kids before they set out to do it. But I’m wondering if my now-23-week-fetus will be posting something like this on whatever equivalent of message boards they will have in 30 years or so. If she does, and I find out about it, I will have a good laugh about it. I’m totally not ready for this. I just tell myself that hardly anyone ever is, that my parents and in-laws were exceptional if they were, and that “totally not ready” people manage to do ok as parents. If this isn’t true, I think I’d rather not know that.
