Dangerosa, Diorbellissima, you both make very thoughtful points. I shouldn’t have put so much emphasis on adoption vs. fertility treatments, because they’re both on the table for consideration in the household. What I should have said is, yes, I am considering adoption as an option. That was originally my first choice, actually, but my husband would much rather we continue trying to have our own child. I understand and sympathize with his thinking, so for now we’re still going the medical route. I don’t know how far we’re going to be able to pursue it, though. I’m at the insemination stage, and if it doesn’t work the next course of treatment (logically) is IVF. Like **Diorbellissima **said, IVF is pricy. Because I’m in Quebec, some of the costs would be picked up by the province, but not all. I’m still doing research, but I believe the costs are about $4000 to $5000 a cycle. (Here’s one link .) If we can afford adoption or IVF treatments, I feel like we’d be gambling with money we’ve just managed to save up. I’m not trying to be cheap about this, just realistic. I’m bitter because I realize that even if the options are available, using them will put our new family at a financial disadvantage right off the bat. With that money in the bank, I could save it to use towards my child’s education, for example. (At the moment, 20K will cover getting a bachelor’s degree in Quebec.) I feel terrible at myself for even thinking about putting a price on a human life. I know words can’t convey how desperately I want a child, and how disgusted I am that petty things like money and a subtle medical problem are getting in the way.
On preview: Wow, CaerieD, you’re thinking exactly what I’m thinking. And you’re right, any lack of control over fertility is scary. I’m sorry to have dragged teen mothers into this. As many have noted, they have their own difficulties to deal with.
I will share a small story about a couple who “did not know she was pregnant” that may give you hope. This couple is in their 40’s. When they first got married 20 years ago, they tried desperately to have children. 3 miscarriages, multiple fertility treatments and emotional battles later, they were told by a doctor that it was just not going to happen.
So, they went on with their life. Then, one day 2 months ago, she was complaining about having stomach pains. Her husband told her she probably ate too much ice cream. When it persisted, she decided to go to the doctor. The doctor came in and said, “you are perfectly healthy”. She asked, “what is causing my pain then?”. The doctor said, “It is probably the baby in there.” She was almost 5 months pregnant and had not noticed.
Their baby is due in 4 weeks now and they are very excited. It definetely disrupted their lives, he was 7 years from retirement and when she asked for a leave of absence from work, they fired her after 17 years (yes, they are going to sue the company).
Anyways, your pit kinda pitted her too. She was not trying to get pregnant (at the time) and she did not even know she was pregnant. She was just like you, so maybe there is hope for you as well.
I was one of those impossible babies; by the time Mom went to the Gyne, we were 4 months along. I almost got aborted right there because the so-magnificent-doctor, who was supposed to be the best in the country, thought it must be a tumor. Well, the tumor had arms and legs, so there :p. My brothers were confirmation that the doctors who’d pronounced Mom sterile were full of rotten bologna.
One of Mom’s sources of frustration was her aunt, she of the shotgun wedding, 14 children and 12 abortions… :smack:
Your OP reminds me of this old Russian joke I heard:
Vladimir was neighbors with Boris, who had a goat that provided him with milk. Every day, Vladimir jealously watched as Boris drank his goat milk without having any ability to get any himself. Then one day, he found a magic lamp, and a genie came out and granted him one wish. “Please,” Vladimir said, “kill Boris’s goat.”
Thank heavens my wife has no problem getting pregnant. I genuinely sympathize with you and anyone who has trouble doing so, we have several friends who have needed medical assistance in this area. But I hardly think we deserve a pitting.
I will say this much: between our first and second child, my wife had a miscarriage that required a D&C. Her doctor performed the procedure in a gynecological clinic which, I’m rather certain, was very frequently (if not mostly) used for abortions. While in the waiting room, my eyes accused every person there (rightfully or not) of being so foolish as to throw away a healthy baby, when here we were with one we wish had the life potential some of theirs did. Not QUITE the same anger as you have in your OP, but not too distantly related. My sympathies to you.
Dunno. I think it’s an honest expression of the rage and frustration that can happen when a person finds an important thing terribly difficult, when most others all seem to take it gaily for granted. Of course, they’re not doing it on purpose, so you’re right that they don’t deserve the pitting, however that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong for the OP to vent in this way.
No, you’re not behind. You think you are. Friends of mine had a bio child, naturally concieved, last summer. The delivery went poorly. They now have a disabled child who spent two months in NICU. Its difficult for them to work the full time jobs they had before. Even with insurance and assistance, they have hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills. Their older child’s college will go unfunded.
My brother in law is starting over at 40 - he hasn’t had kids yet, would like to, but has a recent bankruptcy behind him, no savings for retirement, and has spent the past year unemployed. Plus, with his ex-wife he tried to have kids and discovered he himself wasn’t superfertile, so when he does settle down, he’ll be looking at those expenses.
Consider yourself lucky you are in Canada, where $20k will pay for college now - we are looking at setting up accounts work $100,000 for each of our kids, and only believe that will pay for part of a State college when they go.
Life isn’t fair. Some of us get to concieve children as planned the moment we want to have them, and then have Grandma and Grandpa set them up with trust funds, and life goes along swimmingly - but its rare. The rest of us concieve kids unexpectedly at bad times with the wrong person. Or don’t conceive them at all. Or have them born with special needs. Or just weird problems (a girlfriends kids have genetically weak teeth enamel - and no pop or sugar in their diets - she has $20,000 in dental bills per child). Or you get laid off in your eighth month of pregancy and can’t find a job for two years.
I have another peice of advice. This is your body and your stress. Your husband feels it, but he doesn’t feel it like you do. For a number of reasons - one, he isn’t the one looking at shooting up with hormones that will do God only knows what over the long term to your body (increased risk of overian cancer? Don’t know really yet, we haven’t been using them long enough. But almost certainly weird mood swings). He isn’t the one spending two weeks a month imagining every little burp is a sign of morning sickness. He isn’t the one who has to look at the blood in the underwear on day 28. And, culturally, he isn’t going to be Mom. Yeah, Dads are darn important - but culturally yet, its still all about Mom for most of us.
Which means that YOU get the most say in when to get off the fertility rollercoaster. And HE has to understand that and respect that. The fertility rollercoaster is no fun. It makes you hate your body. It makes you resent your fertile friends. It makes you spend money you don’t have for “one more time” (hey, Bullwinkle, watch me pull a rabbit out of this hat - this time fer shur!")
If YOU want to keep doing this, then you keep doing this. I have two lovely nephews via IVF by a sister who spent five years at it, worth all the tears and stress and money. But do yourself the favor and recognize that YOU can get off.
One of my biggest pet peeves is people who claim to be “childless not by choice” and its such a tragedy in their lives and boo-hoo, we should all feel sorry for them. I have a cousin who won’t come to family events because she is surrounded by the children she can’t have. Apparently, my son doesn’t count as having kids. Unless you have a felony in your background or your children are removed from your care by Child Protective Services (in which case, you made your choice with your behavior) everyone has a choice. Some of us get more choices than others - but, once again, life isn’t fair. If infertility is the worst it throws at you, consider yourself lucky.
(Well, there is that whole “guy who became a parent not by his own free will and gets to pay child support” - he doesn’t get a choice either - though, again, maybe he made his choice with his behavior.)
I am VERY sorry that you’re going through infertility. I’ve seen several friends go through it, and it breaks my heart for them. (Luckily, most have had positive outcomes so far, whether through IVF or adoption, so I hope the same for you.)
But if you’re going to pit those who have working parts, can I pit my ‘friends’ dealing with infertility who decided that I had betrayed them by daring to get pregnant, and cutting off our friendship? Yes, I got pregnant just to spite them. I was competing to get pregnant first, and hey…I WON! :rolleyes: I’ve lost two friends after I got pregnant because apparently, it was just too difficult for them. I tried not to discuss my pregnancy with them, but again…that still wasn’t enough. Because they basically hated me for doing what they were unable to do at the time.
My wife and I went through fertility treatments for years after our son was born. I was fortunate to have great insurance that would cover all the drugs, exams and procedures. As we charted temperatures, marked off the calendar and did it on the appropriate day (sex loses a lot of the fun when it becomes a scheduled job), we watched and worried and waited. When we would receive the good news from the doctor that it worked, we then had worry about hormone levels not rising properly and giving supplemental hormone shots. We couldn’t get too excited about being pregnant because of the constant fear.
Then we would lose the baby.
To all of the people who are thinking, “It’s not a baby, it’s just a clump of cells or parasite,” I would like you to please shut your mouths and think before you talk. We were desperately hoping and praying and wishing for a baby. As soon as we knew the pregnancy had taken, we immediately thought of names and envisioned a future. Every miscarriage was not a “termination of biological activity” or “spontaneous abortion” as we read on the medical reports: it was the death of our child. We had 6 losses, three of which came in the second trimester and were large enough for us to hold, kiss goodbye and have funerals for.
Through it all, while we struggled, we watched our friends and family have more babies and we were happy for them while also sad, angry, frustrated, jealous and hurt. We also watched fertility treatments giving babies to older and older women while we were lucky to get pregnant. We saw an acquaintance give up her fourth child for adoption because she didn’t like using birth control and was against abortion.
xnylder, I wish you the best of luck and hope things work out. We did adopt through the Department of Children and Family Services. We became licensed foster parents and told them that we were doing foster to adopt. The classes were dirt cheap and DCFS provided the lawyer and paid the adoption fees. We told the agency that because we already had a child that we needed to be as sure as possible that whatever child came into our home would become a permamnet member because, with all of our pregnancy losses, we couldn’t handle short term fostering.
After a year of waiting our daughter arrived. It took another year and a half to finalize everything, but we knew she was ours from the moment we looked at her. We needed her and she needed us.
I have a financially sound, responsible, etc. co-worker who is going through something similar. She also has a healthy husband but something about cysts on her walls has been keeping her from getting pregant and she has been and is continuing to try various fertility treatments to overcome the condition. We always share a laugh when clients come in to declare bankruptcy or file for disability and have seven or so kids, ages 14, 13, 11, 11, 6, 5 and 3 months, etc. and she’s like “WTF?” Or when 67-year-olds get preggers. :rolleyes:
Amen sister.
I’ve tried to hate Powerball winners (who don’t deserve the money nearly as much as I do, and won’t use it as wisely), but I can’t work up the emotion.
It makes me wonder though - do deaf people hate the hearing? Do blind people begrudge others their sight?
Everyone wishes they could do/be something that others don’t deserve but get through some accident of birth, genetic aptitude, or luck.
If a child does come into your life, do you plan on hating people with smarter kids? Taller kids? Better athletes?
I realize that saying stuff like “count your blessings” and “life isn’t fair” can be akin to rubbing salt in an open wound - but they can be used to live one’s life in a manner that you won’t end up hating the fast majority of the human race for having working parts.
I understand your bitterness and frustration, but I did not get pregnant twice (on birth control both times) to spite you. It’s like a woman with breast cancer being angry that her friend is healthy.
There are always going to be irresponsible sluts who get pregnant and then don’t take care of their babies, or act as brood mares to get a bigger welfare check. Yes, it’s frustrating, but you’re wasting your time and energy. It won’t change. Focus your energy on something that can change something for you and the hubby.
Here’s hoping for many fertile eggs and strong swimming sperm.
I don’t get that. Do you share a laugh when clients have one or two kids? Or do you feel inferior and beaten down when you meet someone with seven kids who is not poor?
Right about the time I had my second miscarriage, I had two friends who were pregnant. They both had their babies within a couple months of the day I lost mine. I could not see them for awhile. I didn’t hate them at all and I was actually really happy for them. I just would not have been able to hold it together and I didn’t see the point of putting myself through that. They both understood and we rekindled our friendships when I was able to deal. If they hadn’t been as understanding, I probably would have let the friendships drift.
I have a very good friend now who is going through infertility. I now have two kids. I know it pains her to be around them, but she sucks it up. She has said that she sobs through church services when the little kids do some sort of performance. She has made the decision not to attend any baby showers, for her own sanity. My heart breaks for her and I think she should do what she needs to do. If she said she couldn’t see my kids or me for awhile, I would totally understand that.
Declaring bankruptcy or filing for disability says nothing about whether the person could have afforded 1 child or 7. I know it’s a complete shocker for many on the Dope, but things sometimes happen in people’s lives that they don’t have complete control over.
Yeah, and I have complete respect for those who just need a little time. If they had just said “You know, I really need some time. I’m happy for you, but I can’t be around you right now. Please understand.”, then you know, I would understand. I would agree, tell them I was there for them, and to take all the time they needed.
What I don’t have respect for are those who blame me because I was having a baby and they weren’t. I lost my first pregnancy last year, and while it was hard to be around my family (with two family members pregnant), I gritted my teeth and did it. I didn’t blame them for my loss. I think there’s a huge difference between needing to distance yourself and blaming others for something they have no control over.
I’ve had my fertility struggles (I do have one child who is mine biologically but that’s all). My little sister of the horrible physical, financial and mental health has conceived with her husband who is not even able to ejaculate without the use of his own hand. I’m a little bitter about the baby to be, I have to admit, but I’m grateful for what I do have.
We pay astronomical taxes in Quebec, but at least we have the advantage of 7 dollars a day daycare. It used to be 5 dollars a day per child, but it went up a year or two ago.
Apologies for the drift. Getting back to the OP, I feel for her and her pain, only I agree with many others that her attack was a bit broad. Some perfectly good mothers got pregnant without really trying, others have to try. Some people have 20/20 vision, others are blind etc. Luck (or unluck) of the draw. Nobody is guilty for what they’re given, when it’s beyond their control.