this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2025
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I am of the age to have kids, some of my friends have them, but I have mixed feelings about it, just wondering about other people's experiences.

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[–] Shelena@feddit.nl 50 points 2 days ago (4 children)

I would love to have kids. It seems like my biggest wish in the world. People keep telling me that having children was the most beautiful thing that happened to them. Still no baby after 9 fertility treatments, only a couple of miscarriages. I am 40 now and I have almost no time left. I feel broken by Al the treatments. Lost my work. Adoption is impossible in my country.

I would love to know how other people learn to live with this feeling.

[–] curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I've got a few friends in similar situations.

  • One couple it ended up working out for a single embryo on the second to last attempt.
  • Another couple went the adoption route, ended up with two boys about the same age (one they adopted when he was a baby, the other was I think 5 or 6?). Both boys graduated college in the past few years actually! Great kids.
  • A third couple opted to just not have kids. They got a dog about a year after the last attempt, which became like a stand in for a child to them. They both kept working and financially are quite well off, traveling and exploring passion projects. It took some time and therapy, wasn't easy, but they are quite happy with where they are now.
[–] Shelena@feddit.nl 2 points 23 hours ago

Thank you! It is good to know what others have been doing and how they have been dealing with it. Adoption in my country is not possible, unfortunately. I am probably not allowed to be a foster mom, as I have CPTSD. They are extremely strict with that here. Although there might be a very small chance that they will accept me if I can get a letter from my psychologist that I am stable and if I do well on all the tests. I am not counting on it though.

Maybe traveling or something like that would be nice sometime in the future. It is good to hear that they are still happy. That gives a bit of hope.

[–] Stiffneckedppl@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

7 years of trying for us. Still no luck. Doctors haven't been able to tell us why. It's rough some days. But one way we cope is to try to be the best aunt & uncle possible to our nieces.

[–] Shelena@feddit.nl 1 points 23 hours ago

Yes, that helps for me too! I have the cutest nephew who I see once a week and sometimes he sleeps over. In some cases it hurts, because it feels very empty when he leaves, but overall I am very happy to have at least him.

[–] occultist8128@infosec.pub 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] Shelena@feddit.nl 2 points 23 hours ago

In my country adoption from other countries is impossible as there have been several cases in which children were taken away from the parents illegally. They cannot check for that informing countries, so now adoption is not allowed anymore. Adoption within my country also is almost impossible. It is believed that children are best off with the biological parents. If they cannot live there, everything is focused on creating better circumstances so they can go back. The goal for children who cannot live at home is always to go back to the biological parents, so adoption almost never happens.

There is foster care and in soms cases children are in foster care for a very long time. Although the idea is still to get them back with the biological parents once the situation is safe, in practice that might not happen. You can just never be certain about that. However, I was abused by my parents and I got CPTSD from that. While my psychologist believes I would be able to be a foster mom, maybe even better because my experiences allow me to understand these children better, it is a really big obstacle to becoming one. The foster care organisations in general believe that if you have trauma in your past that you are not well-suited to take care of a child. They already told me it is not impossible for me to be a foster mom, but not to count on it because of the CPTSD.

[–] Wahots@pawb.social 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Is surrogacy an option? We're a same-sex couple, so we are in a similar boat.

[–] Shelena@feddit.nl 2 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

The problem has likely to do with the quality of my egg cells. They are not certain about this, but it is the most likely explanation. This means that surrogacy would not solve that problem. An egg cell donation might. However, in my country it is quite difficult to have access to that. There are large sperms banks, but not large banks for egg cells. So, we would need to find someone in our environment to donate an egg cell to me.

Are you a male or female couple (biologically I mean for making the child)? What happens here is that there are some women who do not have a partner, but still want a child. They often get a child together with a male gay couple and they raise the child with the three of them. I think government is even working on it to be possible for a child to have three parents legally. This is how my uncles got their twins. I am not sure whether this works the same with female couples. I see them often at the fertility treatment center, so I believe that they probably use the sperm bank.

[–] Wahots@pawb.social 1 points 1 hour ago

Aww, sorry to hear that. Hopefully you can find an egg donor. We are two men, so we aren't quite as fortunate that way. Finding another couple or woman who was interested in having children together would be very lucky. We're hopeful, but it seems fairly unlikely. Surrogacy might be our best option.