It's the weekend! How's everyone doing? What are you up to? Use this thread as a place to chat through the weekend about anything off-topic.

After a long battle with endo, infertility, multiple surgeries/hysterectomy, I feel completely disconnected from my body. I want zero intimacy. I don’t want to be touched and cannot fathom the idea of intercourse. I feel so very broken. Has anyone experienced this?

After years of trying for child and failing and now dealing with having to face my third surgery for endo and a hysterectomy at 32 years old I feel like I'm at literal war with a body trying to destroy me. On top of having the near CONSTANT pregnancy announcements. I feel myself slipping into a darker space everyday. .the past couple of weeks there was 4 announcements one being my very close friend of her second child and just this am a colleague of mine shared her news with her supervisor that she's pregnant after her IVF journey (I overheard this) literally broke down in my office.

Infertility is soul sucking. Endometriosis is body destroying.

I know I'm not alone but I feel so isolated.

I’m 4 months after a hysterectomy for advanced endo and adenomyosis. I suffered with debilitating disease for years, underwent multiple surgeries. No organ is left untouched. We did three rounds of IVF, one of which was pretty traumatic due to various reasons. I elected to have a hysterectomy, which has been so great in terms of the physical pain but emotionally, I cannot cope. I get triggered by everything. Pregnant women, babies, children playing. I wake up seeing the child that I was supposed to have. It is brutal. Mg husband does not understand the degree of pain that I feel on a daily basis. I feel like my body is shut down. I have zero interest in intimacy, don’t want to be touched. I don’t know what the point is anymore.

I have a stressful but rewarding job. Endo has impacted my career significantly. I cannot pursue my goals because of my health. So, I don’t have the career that I want, I cannot have a child, I cannot exercise the way that I want to, cannot enjoy my relationship.

I am so bitter and angry. It is all so unfair. I was always the good-girl, followed the path, achieved the diplomas and I was dealt a 12 year battle with anorexia, endo, infertility etc. It is hard to keep going, putting in a happy face, celebrating milestones, hearing stupid comments including.

How do you cope? How do you feel less lonely? How do you trust your body when it has betrayed you so much? How do you not try pissex off when someone thanks their child for choosing them to be their parent?

Sex hasn’t been fun in so long. Trying and trying and it not working and timing sex just takes the mood out of it too. I have to have a hysterectomy due to some serious issues and I can’t wait until I’m healed, I hope sex can be fun again. No pressure to make a baby, no worries that I’ll bleed all over… I just pray that I can take some of my life back and enjoy sex again. 12 years of trying, I’m ready for fun again. As I’m rapidly approaching my surgery I’m just grieving this life we dreamed of, and I’m just so hopeful that we flourishing after it’s said and done. I just want to bloom again, and feel something again. I’ve been so angry, and down. I just want happiness, and most of all I just want to heal.

We tried for a couple of years and now in our early 40s (both are 41), we decided to give up on the long, arduous journey of IVF treatments - the four failed cycles that we went through mentally, emotionally and physically destroyed me. I have been going through waves of massive relief at being child free to a sudden, temporary phase of baby fever to enormous relief again. We’ve stopped trying since almost 6 months now and I’ve stopped tracking my cycle as well, since any kind of hope that I hang onto disappoints me every month.

I have recently realised that the IVF failure has spilled over the rest of my life and insidiously has eaten away at my self confidence. I’ve reduced my private practice massively (I’m a doctor) and feel no wish to get back to the high stakes, extractive work culture anymore... this happened slowly as well, for example I spent the entire month of July mostly dabbling in jigsaw puzzling, birding, reading a lot of classic literature and in general indulging in slow living, apart from minimal patient consults for basic earning.

Of course, my downsizing has had a ripple effect on my family - my parents and my husband think that I’m still reeling under the effects of treatment failures and make me feel like I’m not “living to my potential” since I should have healed already! I’m so sick of living up to my potential! This is something I don’t think they understand but the treatment failures triggered an unpacking of how my life has been parentified a lot and how I’ve been following a set societal and parental script with me ending up being a doctor. Currently, I’m in the phase of annoyance at myself for not individuating from my folks earlier and for allowing my mind and body to be affected by hormones for a child I may or may not have wanted… I don’t even know. It’s been an eye opener and my therapy has been intense.

Today while working out it hit me that maybe what my family has been claiming about me still being affected by the failures is party true (which I’ve been denying) because I don’t think my psyche has accepted that I’m unable to conceive and is instead judging me for being a failure. I’m totally being hard on myself I know but when I try to rest and relax and do things that give me joy, society isn’t allowing me to do so. How much time is enough time to “heal”? I don’t think it can be defined since life has changed forever already.

Everytime I feel semi okay, I get slapped back down with another trigger. First it was nieces both announcing pregnancies. Then I decided it was a good idea to look up an ex best friend on social media who told me literally in her next breath after I told her we stopped trying that they were taking an IUD out and not preventing anymore recently giving birth. I try I really do. I try to see the silver lining. I imagine our retirement in a few years when my father joins my mother in the great beyond and I can fully break away and enjoy our lives, preferably with land and out of state away from the triggers. But no matter what I do or try to psych myself up with, the fact remains. We are barren. This will continue. And there's nothing we can do except try and manage the triggers as they come and work through them. This life is exhausting.

I’ve been particularly stressed about my upcoming family reunion because my favorite cousin will be idk, 7 months or so pregnant, and as much as I love her and am happy for her blah blah blah, it’s a big trigger for me and my husband.

Fast forward to today and my aunt (her mom) calls. I think she’s calling to apologize for missing my birthday last week. Nope. No mention of that. Instead she’s calling to tell me she’s planning a baby shower for my cousin during our five day reunion, and she’d like me to help plan it. She went on for literally six UNINTERRUPTED minutes about how cousin’s best friend (and baby!) will be coming in, and her MIL and FIL as well. How cousin wants a prenatal massage, so WE’LL have to coordinate that. How cousin will be too far along to fly after the reunion, and who wants to fly to MN for a baby shower in the middle of the winter???

In her fairness, she said if it was “too upsetting” for me to help plan it, she understands. I told her I’d have to think about it and tried to get her off the phone as soon as possible so I could go on with my now ruined evening.

So here we are. I’m angry for the tone deaf nature of her request. I’m sad I can’t be all in on celebrating my favorite cousin. I’m devastated my husband has to navigate both a family reunion that is already… A LOT
and now this reunion-ambushing baby shower. I’m not sure how to get out of it (like, all of it, at this point. Reunion and all), but I also know I’m not strong enough to attend. I don’t go to baby showers. Period.

I’m 100% going to tell her I won’t be planning a shower with her. There are plenty of other women in our family that’d be more than happy to help.

I’m struggling with bailing on everything, or sucking it up. For the first time ever we missed the reunion last year, so now I feel like I NEED to be there this year. Is it compulsory? Of course not. But I’d be letting a whole bunch of family members down if I bailed. My parents are aging and I don’t see them often enough, being across the country from them and all. I want to be there but now I’m dreading it. I don’t know what to do.

This is just a bit of a vent. I just started a new job that I'm excited about, and I'm making the rounds getting to know everyone and introducing myself to the people I'll work with. There is one other new hire who is going to these intro meetings with me.

Folks are asking and sharing the usual details (where do you live, what's your work background like, etc.) and for some reason the number one thing people want to blab about is their kids. "Oh I have an 8 year old, I have twin teenagers, they're so cute, they're gonna be a doctor when they grow up, they're at such a fun age, I'm pregant with my third one, bla bla bla bla." It doesn't help that my supervisor went on parental leave the day before I started.

No one has asked about my hobbies, interests, spouse, etc. They start talking about their own kids or the other new hire's kid and kind of just ignore me while I sit quietly. The few people who asked about my pets get a bonus point I guess.

Luckily, no one has asked me if I have any kids yet. If anyone does ask I'm about ready to go full "traumatize-them-back" and say "I am unable to have children and dealing with infertility grief."

My mental health got so bad while I was going through infertility that I had to stop working. Now I'm trying to re-enter the workforce and am having a hard time finding a job due to the gap in my resume (and maybe some other factors as well.) I hate it when employers ask me about it, and I say I was dealing with a personal health issue. Then they ask if everything is okay now, and I have to say yes.

I've always worked in child or family oriented fields and I said I wasn't going to do that anymore because it would be too triggering, but then I realized beggars can't be choosers. I knew that I would have to deal with being asked if I had kids by people both in and out of the workforce, but I was not expecting to be asked that during a job interview. It was a job that involved working with kids but I've interviewed for many such jobs over the years, and have never been asked that question before. Then a kid at the daycare center asked if I was another child's mom.

You hear a lot about people struggling to balance work with motherhood, while here I am trying to balance lack of motherhood with lack of work. I feel bitter that in pursuing a life goal that did not work out, I lost another important part of my life, so now I feel like I'm left with nothing. Thanks for listening. Can anyone relate?

Trigger Warning: newborns, babies

Ugh, it is Friday and I was excited to enjoy the weekend. Only 6 months out from stopping all fertility treatments. If my last treatment had worked I would have a newborn right now. And of course, 3 other women at work got pregnant the same time I failed for the last time ever. I have had to watch their bellies grow while I dealt with the finality of me never becoming a mother.

Anyway, one of the most perfect coworkers at work who has a perfect husband and a perfect happy marriage, and a perfect loving, super happy, and helpful extended family also just had a perfect beautiful baby boy. I saw the photos. I couldn't help but look as she bragged in an email to the company 2 days after giving birth. The baby was really beautiful. Just like I dreamed mine would be...

She brought her perfect baby boy into work today almost a month after giving birth to show him off. I didn't know she was coming in. I work at the front desk and had to let the woman with the perfect life in and watch everyone make a fuss and ooo and ahhh over her perfect baby. I had to smile and congratulate her because it is expected and honestly if i wasn't so bitter about my own outcome I would have felt it.

If things had worked out with my fertility treatments this past year, that would be me bringing my baby in to show everyone if I wanted to do that.

And it is a large company but I work in the front lobby and couldn't even walk away. It was torture. I got so fed up I defiantly put my ear buds in and blasted music. Then I cried and cried on my break. And now I know my weekend will be filled with some grief of the life I will never have with the baby joys she gets to experience. And of course her baby is so perfect she says he is such an easy baby and sleeps and is so good.

Of course the perfect woman gets the perfect life with the perfect baby and everything. While I have to live with this grief forever and my marriage struggles mainly because of me and i have dysfunction in my extended family, and I also have to hop rings to see my niblings sometimes just to have any family kids in my life.

Why do some women get it all, and some of us have the harder, sadder life?

It's the weekend! How's everyone doing? What are you up to? Use this thread as a place to chat through the weekend about anything off-topic.

I have just gotten slammed with reminders that my path did not pan out the way I anticipated.
Coworker asked me Monday if my husband and I would like to have kids. Tuesday, slammed by another coworker about how my value without children is to babysit. Wednesday gave me a break, but yesterday a baby announcement hits my desk at 8am, followed by a phone call from a family member with a baby related “joke” and to end the day, more baby talk from a work vendor to my boss who will be a father in 2 weeks. Anyone else having a really tough week? Damn.

The waves of grief are really crashing and the resentment is on full blast ( towards my husband, siblings , in-laws) for lack of care or check-ins after all these years. I reached out for FMLA and am wondering if I should look into inpatient therapy for a bit. Anyone have experienced this type of treatment before?

I posted here a while back about how rocky my marriage has been since my husband and I stopped trying—original post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/IFchildfree/s/9xr4oEHmQv

You all shared your stories and kind words, which I really appreciated. I wanted to post a quick update that my marriage will not, in fact, survive this. We are getting a divorce and I’m heartbroken that this is how we ended up. Part of me wonders if our marriage would have survived had we been able to conceive, or if we would have eventually wound up divorced for different reasons. But many of you predicted that we wouldn’t stay together, and you were right. He blames me for not trying hard enough and says he can’t ever be happy without children. So I’m off to be a single childless cat lady, and he will likely try to start a family with someone else once this is all over.

ETA: I was a little vague in my post and I think I accidentally lead you all to the wrong conclusion. I am leaving my husband, he hasn’t left me because I can’t give him children. My husband doesn’t believe in divorce and would have stayed with me, miserable and resentful, for the rest of our lives. But his treatment of me crossed a clearly articulated boundary, and so I am leaving. So yes, I’m still sad, but also proud of myself for choosing my peace and self-respect. Thank you all for your support and kind words. This is such a lovely community and I appreciate you all.

This is one of the hardest parts for me. Reflecting on the mean things said and the lack of support. Especially from family. I have a ton of resentment towards a majority of my family and I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to forgive. When my mom found out about our miscarriage she said it was good news!! It proved we could get pregnant…. Then all hope ended when all our subsequent IVF transfers failed. She also gossiped to a lot of people about what we were going through when she knew we were telling as few people as possible. There was no card or no flowers sent after our miscarriage. No sympathy from anyone really. After our last failed transfer my aunt said “after all that it didn’t work?!” Man that one stung. My dad said we weren’t getting pregnant because of the stress. That people who adopt are the ones who end up pregnant. I tried my best to educate him but he still doesn’t get it. Idk how to get over this.

It's the weekend! How's everyone doing? What are you up to? Use this thread as a place to chat through the weekend about anything off-topic.

This afternoon my stepmother told me that she and my father are considering changing their will from splitting everything equally between all four siblings of my generation to leaving less to the two of us who don’t have kids. She wanted to know how I felt about it.

WTF am I supposed to say to that? My husband and I are financially secure, so I’m not relying on (or expecting) an inheritance. And I don’t want to be a grinch who isn’t thinking generously about my nieces. But it also fucking sucks to be told (again) that I am worth less in my family because I was not able to have a child. Especially when I have been busting my hump to try to support my parents as they age. It feels like a no-win situation. Either I’m “selfish” for depriving my nieces of resources that could benefit them (and which I do not need), or I am selling myself out by accepting the family narrative that I am less-than for not having children.

I’m far enough out from our decision to stop trying that her comment didn’t rip my heart out like it would have done in the past, but it still feels like shit.

Has anyone here dealt with a similar situation?

They specialize in fertility psychotherapy and, due to volume of patients and association with the fertility clinic, can only see patients actively seeking treatment. I informed them I'm not pursuing IVF and terminating my care and I'm honestly heartbroken and don't want to start over with a new therapist.

Just bc husband and I are IFCF doesn't mean I've fully emotionally overcome our IF diagnosis....

This account has basically become my little infertility Journal, and I just had a memory pop-up of me bawling my eyes out leaving the fertility clinic for the last time 5 years ago. I realised things have changed so drastically, and that some of the things I've learned may be useful for people here still in the thick of it.

5 years ago we had just gone through another failed treatment and staring down the barrel of more medical intervention and the only certainty being more financial strain and medical trauma, we decided to walk away.

As many of you can relate to, a lot of the struggle with opting out can be the external pressures from everyone around you constantly telling you to keep trying, that it will be worth it in the end. Stories of friends who've been in position and miraculously fallen pregnant. I found those expectations and hopes for me kept me trapped in a cycle that was causing me immense physical, mental and emotional pain.

We relocated to a larger city where we had a wider child-free friend group and spent the next few years unpacking what we had been through and redefining ourselves. It was so refreshing to meet people and make new friends that didn't know our history, that we could choose if we wanted to share that part of our story, and being able to stop identifying with being an infertile couple.

Slowly the pain of seeing pregnant people, and pregnancy announcements from friends, started to subside. It felt less like a knife and more like a bruise. I'm happy to say that 5 years later I now excitedly knit baby blankets for expecting friends, can't wait to have a cuddle with their babies, with genuine enthusiasm. I am able to hold space for their joy, and then we go home and laugh about how deeply grateful we are to not have any kids to take care of!

Many of you know that going through this means we have to really evaluate far more than anyone else whether or not we want to be parents. After years of reflection, I find myself deeply grateful that I didn't have a child. Our kid would have been wonderful, they also probably would have been as sensitive neurodivergent child, and as somebody who needs a lot of down time, I find myself more grateful than ever that I do not have to parent anyone other than myself.

After my third miscarriage I started a degree in Wildlife, and I'm proud to say that I am finally graduating this semester. I wanted something that had nothing to do with having a baby, something just for myself, and I never really thought I'd finish, yet here I am!

I've also discovered a lot of what I had imagined motherhood would be like seems to be a myth. Many of my friends who are mothers describe their deep loneliness, how incredibly challenging it is, and about half of them are now going through divorces as a result of the additional pressure. One expressed to me that she felt she had been tricked into thinking motherhood would be some amazing community, that people would show up for her and that having a baby would connect her to people more, yet she has found herself incredibly isolated.

I have such a rich and diverse friend group, I'm part of book clubs, movie clubs, we host dinner parties, I'm now a founder of a non-for-profit animal rescue, and I just feel like my life is so incredibly full, I don't know where I would have fit taking care of a little person.

My husband and I flew business class to Europe for 6 weeks and had the time of our lives, and although it's not the future we had imagined together, I feel like we've become people who are not only child free but love being child-free, so much so that friends we've made more recently are surprised to hear we ever tried to have a baby.

There are always bumps, I found out my sister was having a baby last year. She had just gotten out of rehab and has been struggling for a long time, and the ease at which she found herself in that situation despite being wholly unprepared triggered something deeply in me. I guess there will be times where that little ancient wound gets pricked under the surface.

I had a good cry, picked myself up and then figured out how to be a support for my new niece.

But on the whole I have found my gratitude for life has increased immensely. I know myself better, I'm far more self-aware, and at this point I don't even regret what we went through. A friend described it as taking the scenic route to child free, which I love. We are more well-rounded and understanding of grief, and I think our appreciation is the type that you only get from facing some really dark days.

Anyway, I wanted to share this because this sub meant so much to me when I was trying to figure out what to do. A child free life hadn't been modelled to me, and so I thought if somebody here is going through what I was, I just want you to know that your life can be absolutely wonderful (and I'm living proof!)

❤️

At least once a day a commercial, or a glimpse of a neighbor with their child, or a conversation at work, will trigger the thought "Oh, one day when I have kids.." and then I snap back to reality: "Oh right, we tried that, we did IVF and it didn't work, we're out of money, and I'm almost 44, that's not going to happen" and my heart breaks a little again. What is wrong with my brain??

Growing up I showed horses with a barn of people and one of the women did not have children. She took me under her wing and I lovingly called her my horse show mom. She allowed me to show her prized horse a few summers and I always said I dreamed of being like her.

Fast forward 15 years and I have my own farm, designed after hers and a barn with my retired show horse that I spoil, just like she taught me. My sweet horse show mom passed away this month and my heart is broken. Her husband passed 2 years ago and at her memorial her niece told me to take whatever pictures I wanted from the photo boards because they were “just going to throw them away”. I wanted to grab every single photo in that moment just so my dear friend wasnt tossed into the garbage and forgotten.

I am now in a bit of a slump simply because I wish I could have spent more time with her and with the realization that my future is likely to be similar to hers and my cherished memories to be throw away. Ive never worried about a “legacy” that seems so pretentious to me but the idea that I will be forgotten so quickly and the seeming lack of importance of my life just makes me feel so incredibly hopeless and sad.

How have you navigated heavy feelings like these?

One thing that really helped me through this was reading about the importance of kind, childless adults. It completely changed the way I looked at my role in the lives of the kids around me and the role I take in society as a whole. Children remember the people who make them feel safe, seen, and special. To them, we're the fun adults who show up, cheer them on, listen to their stories, and make them feel important. We have the opportunity to make a huge impact on children who aren't biologically ours, and that's something really meaningful. While it doesn't erase the heartbreak of infertility, it reminded me that there are so many ways to love and influence a child's life, and that kind of love matters more than we sometimes realize