Single mom IVF- Fair to future child?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many of your groups children are growing up in a toxic household with 2 parents who hate each other? MYOB if you can't be supportive.

At least when there are two parents, if one is toxic, the other might be mentally healthy. In the one parent adoptive situation above, the child is stuck with the one toxic parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The one SMBC I know adopted a child from another country. It has not worked out well. The child has a lot of problems that the mom is not equipped to deal with, plus the mom has a lot of her own mental health issues.

This is why adoption shouldn't be casually offered as a solution. It is not an easier or cheaper route to having kids. If parenting a biological child might seem too tough for a single parent to handle, then parenting an adopted child would be even more so.

Adoption isn't about being cheap, its about helping someone who has nobody.

[Anonymous]

SMBC to 2 kids. I love our family. Only my father is alive and he lives with us too. He was a hands off father when I was a child and this did not change when his grandkids were born. At this point I have 3 kids. It's ok.

One of the differences between my situation and either a dual parent household or a divorced household is that I understood going in it's all on me. I'm not looking to someone else to take the mental load and then being angry/frustrated/disappointed that it didn't turn out the way I want.

Some things that made this possible---I was 10 yrs into the SFH when I got pregnant. Having a small mortgage helps immensely. I had a WFH job since my oldest was born--that flexibility was/is amazing. Daycare was walkable from the house which made pickup/drop off easy. Decent salary--I made over 100 when I got pregnant and it's gone up from there.

So is it fair to a future child? I think that question can be asked about other situations as well. If one parent always travels, is that fair? If both parents don't have the ability to provide a stable home life, is that fair? If one parent is not willing to accept the child they have, is that fair?

[Anonymous]

I have a few friends who are single moms by choice and their kids have an amazing life. They all have a great network of friends and sometimes family to help.

[Anonymous]

I think the child will be just fine, but it might be harder than you think on you. Plenty of kids are raised by single moms or widowed parents and seem happy and overall well-adjusted young people.

But solo parenting can be hard, and expensive, and lonely. You have no one to personally share the stresses or the celebrations with, you carry the burden of everything. It's a lot. There's no backup on anything and it just can be really hard. Teen years especially. The baby stuff is easy compared to life with teenagers. This is all if you have a healthy well kid, nevermind if navigating surgeries, disabilities and other significant challenges are added to the mix.

[Anonymous]

The main thing I hear from single mothers by choice is that it can be really hard to feel supported, because
others react as if because you chose to do this on your own, you can't ever ask for help or even just vent. And that's a sucky feeling. Because parenting is hard at times, no matter what the circumstances.

This is not a decision that your friend is making lightly.

[Anonymous]

I am a single parent by choice and my kid is now in middle school.

It took a long time for me to make the decision, and it was a lot of hard thinking and reflecting in addition to financial planning. Once I'd made the decision, I shared with friends, some of whom were eager to process it with me and share their own anxieties and worries. This wasn't helpful, although the intentions were good.

Some of what I've learned:

*practical things like snow shoveling are super hard when you are a single adult with a baby or little kid
*you can make parenting decisions without conflict with another parent, which is usually positive (though sometimes another perspective might have helped)
*I have no regrets that I had my kid in my early 30s, as it mattered to me to be in sync with my peers and have more energy
*I always set up full time day care and/or surround care for my kid, even if I didn't always use it, and appreciated this flexibility. I've preferred to rely on professionals rather than ask friends or family for consistent help.
*Serious medical stuff is hard, emotionally and logistically, to handle alone.
*My kid has had lots of cool opportunities and hasn't internalized a binary understanding of gender or gender roles. They have a lot of practical skills and life experiences having accompanied me to so many places, and they have a lot of freedom and autonomy.
*I don't think single parenting is necessarily harder than parenting with someone; they are hard in different ways. Our home life has always been pretty chill.
*Not knowing 1/2 of your genetics is complicated for a kid and maybe not ideal.

[Anonymous]

My friend who is trying for this has spent her life working with special needs kids. I have no doubt she can handle whatever she faces. I would just want to make sure a lot other friend knew what they were getting into and suggest they try to live near extended family. But frankly many kids are born to single moms from random one night stands so it’s not that different medically. I mean you can have a perfect nuclear family where a mom cracks under ppd or some other parenting pressure, and most of us are severely lacking local extended family support at least in this area. The smbc moms I’ve met so far have been pretty amazing with a thriving kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of the friends is tired of waiting for Mr. Right and playing with the idea of using a donor embryo to have a baby in future. Some of the moms were against it as they feel having and raising a child is a huge responsibility to be handled alone and also not fair to the child to grow up fatherless.

If anyone has done it, how did it go? What were the struggles and how you overcame them? Do you feel it was selfish to not consider child's feelings and creating one instead of adopting an orphan?

Man, OP, you're a nasty and likely terribly unhappy human.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of the friends is tired of waiting for Mr. Right and playing with the idea of using a donor embryo to have a baby in future. Some of the moms were against it as they feel having and raising a child is a huge responsibility to be handled alone and also not fair to the child to grow up fatherless.

If anyone has done it, how did it go? What were the struggles and how you overcame them? Do you feel it was selfish to not consider child's feelings and creating one instead of adopting an orphan?

Um. you do not sound like a friend. Yikes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of the friends is tired of waiting for Mr. Right and playing with the idea of using a donor embryo to have a baby in future. Some of the moms were against it as they feel having and raising a child is a huge responsibility to be handled alone and also not fair to the child to grow up fatherless.

If anyone has done it, how did it go? What were the struggles and how you overcame them? Do you feel it was selfish to not consider child's feelings and creating one instead of adopting an orphan?

What are the chances a happy and fulfilled person started this thread?

[Anonymous]

My friend is a SMBC with aging parents and one sibling who lives far away. Her situation in hard. She cannot get sick. There is no one to assist. Her parents need her too. There is no room for error, and her son at age 7 is feeling the absence of a father. I am estranged from my child's father, and I do feel glad that if something happened to me, at least my ex will step in and take over. I have had major surgeries, and my mom stepped up to help, and I also have someone who I hire. But if I DIED I know my ex could step in. I would not do it by choice if I did not have plenty of money and a strong village.

[Anonymous]

I know someone -- successful, single, was tired of dating but wanted a child, etc. -- who did this and her kid is amazing beyond belief. So is she. She has plenty of money and lives near family, which I believe helped the kid grow up feeling loved and support in every which way.

[Anonymous]

I have found this to be true. I had friends expecting me to be dating after just popping out a child. Literally was asked if I was dating someone a week after my DC was born and by several other people months after, even those who said they never left the house when their kids were newborns because of pumping, hormones, etc asked if I was dating. WTF. And at work, they gave me extra projects when I returned from maternity leave. So weird. Now that my child is older, things have settled and I am less of a curiosity. It is very hard to be a solo mom for a variety of reasons but it was the right choice for me. You never know what kind of child you will have - either biological or adopted, married or unmarried (and I work with kids with special needs, I have seen a variety of families). You don't know what your "village" will look like in a few years, either married or solo. But as a single mom by choice it does help to be financially stable though many other single moms out there are not and still get by.

Anonymous wrote:The main thing I hear from single mothers by choice is that it can be really hard to feel supported, because
others react as if because you chose to do this on your own, you can't ever ask for help or even just vent. And that's a sucky feeling. Because parenting is hard at times, no matter what the circumstances.

This is not a decision that your friend is making lightly.

[Anonymous]

I tried IUI / IVF from age 40-44, as a single woman. No success. Age 46, adopted a healthy newborn- she is 9 now. And perfect!!
Good luck to your friend- it is tough emotionally.