In the process of ending a 7 year relationship with an older guy who’s been “fixed” for years.I’ll be moved back across country to my home state in a month. We agreed the relationship is over with no desire to pursue anything more.
During the relationship, I was vehement about not wanting to have kids- in retrospect almost in a thou-doth-protest-too-much kind of way.
I’m 40. And for the last week or so, I’ve been looking differently at babies, kids, and women who have babies.
I don’t know what’s come over me.
All I know is that I’m thinking this while my uterus is getting ready to slam shut from old age.
WTF.
Not really looking for advice, just wanted to say it out loud, so to speak…
When I separated from my husband, I decided that having kids was no longer an option for me. I was in a serious relationship with someone who didn’t want kids, and that never bothered me - I was chiming in right along side him.
Then one day I went to the doctor and was put on a new medication. The nurse said, “are you planning on having kids? Because you can’t if you take this.”
Even though I didn’t want kids, I suddenly found myself crying in her office because it was no longer a choice of mine, it was a decision being made for me.
I kinda wonder if that’s the ying to your yang. You not only didn’t want them, you couldn’t have them because the ex was fixed. Now, you are single and suddenly what once wasn’t an option now is. . . .
(For the record, my desire to have kids went away rather quickly. I went to a restaurant and saw a bratty 4-year old and miraculously, it just went away. Don’t get me wrong, I love kids. I just prefer being an aunt vs. a mother.)
As a single father is his 40s who has done some dating, your confusion does not strike me as an uncommon one. And a walk through a playground in, say, Park Slope or the Upper West Side in NYC might make one believe that fertility only comes with the onset of gray hair.
Does adoption or step-parenthood appeal to you at all, or is this specific to being pregnant?
Tangentally - my 4 year old just realized the other day that some “big people” (that is, adults) don’t have kids, and never will.
He hadn’t realized that before, because up 'till now, pretty well all of the adults he knows personally have had kids - that is, are parents of kids in his preschool, or are relations of his (none do not have kids). He had assumed that having kids was simply an inevitable part of being an adult, like growing tall.
Of course, being him, he was immediately filled with concern for what he assumed must be “sad people” and had a million questions. I told him that some adults are not in a position to have children and, more signifcantly, some adults do not wish to have children, even if they could.
He was pretty skeptical about the last part. Naturally, he does not see any of the stuff involved in his own raising as at all difficult or troublesome for us. On the contrary; as he asked "but without kids, what would they do for fun?! "
I explained that adults had many ways of having fun without the presence of kids but he pretty clearly was just humouring me by pretending to accept it.
Is it hormones that make women feel thusly? When I hit menopause, my periods just…stopped. Woo-hoo, I thought, glad that’s all over with, won’t miss it a bit. A year or so went by and one night I looked up at a beautiful crescent moon and realized, hey, all that uterus stuff is all over for me. It’s. all. over. And I got devastatingly sad at the thought.
As a 43 year old male who’s likely to never have kids, you have my profound sympathies. It really bites. But at 40 you may well have left it too late and should consult a doctor.
You have to remember that when you’re making a huge change (as you are) and/or facing a saddening loss, it can be a coping mechanism to start to focus on something you’ve never wanted before. It’s amazing how your brain can pick things to distract itself with to avoid thinking of what’s going on in that moment. At any rate, you shouldn’t make big decisions like this when you’re going through things like you’re going through, but if you’re still feeling this way when your immediate situation is resolved, then you could revisit it.
And maybe she hasn’t. There is a mother in my mums’ group who had her first child at 42. She didn’t meet the father of the child until she was in her 40s, and they decided pretty quickly they were right for each other and keen on kids.
If you are serious about kids, first thing to do is to go and get a blood test to check your ovarian reserve. This will let you know if having them yourself is still possible (and it may not be) - which will then help you decide whether you then think about adoption as an option.
But this may all be simply a reaction to the split. The guy you perhaps though you’d be with for the rest of your life is now no longer your future. Maybe that’s making you wonder what your future does hold. Wish you well whatever it is!
I recently turned 40, and it’s something that crosses my mind on a fairly regular basis…
As a guy who has not had a serious relationship for several years, I still am not ruling anything out quite yet, (though realistically if it dosent happen in the next couple of years it won’t ever happen for me as I would never want to be a first time father at 45+ years old) and certainly there are a few women around that I would very much enjoy the whole “attempting to start a family” part with.
Good luck to you, and don’t let it derail your life, as it’s a real shame to live constantly thinking about what might have been…
Agreed. Feelings like this can be very temporary. I have a friend who never wanted children, then had the absolute deepest, strongest urges to have a baby.
For about three months. Then it rapidly went away and she has no idea what that was, but knows that she has zero maternal desire, as usual, and is relieved. That was a year or so ago and she’s still feeling fine about her continued decision.
I am forty and I have to fight it all the time. I am one of the last people I know that needs another baby. I don’t WANT another baby. But I want another baby.
Girlfriend, as you well know, I’m 48 years old and in the process of adopting through the foster system. You don’t have to be fertile to have a child if you really want one, any time you want one. Ain’t nothin’ unusual about what you’re feeling.
[sup][sub]I will not say “I told you so.” I will not say “I told you so.” I will not say “I told you so.” I will not say “I told you so.”[/sub][/sup]
I know you’re a good person - can easily tell from your posts.
Just a friendly caution: having seen this hit in countless women your age, I know that you may have a mammoth struggle with your hormones and have that impair your judgement; be cautious and don’t end up triplets from a deadbeat father just so you can have them!
It’s just midlife regrets and possibly hormone imbalance. Resist the urge until you can look at it rationally. Children born to older mothers are prone to all manner of birth problems and a recent study shows that they are also likely to die younger than those born to younger women. Is it worth those possibilities just to satisfy your urge?
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