Baby fever at 45

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At your age, your child will likely avoid being seen with you as much as possible.

Jerk.

[Anonymous]

Do you have a dog? Maybe get a puppy? I had my one and only at 45 after many years of infertility. I never let myself waste one minute of my time with him feeling bad bad about it. However, when he got to be a teen I started to feel really sad because I missed having a baby so much. But....then I got a puppy. It sounds trite, I know, but I love the dog to death. He's a baby who will never grow up, and I don't even have to worry about him needing therapy some day do to my bad parenting. Now I see why some people treat their dogs like children....I'm not saying get a dog you don't want or anything like that. But it's something to think about if you don't have one and think your child might enjoy having a pet.

[Anonymous]

I’d try to figure out a way to adopt or do a surrogate. I feel not done w two and I can imagine with only one it would be much harder.

[Anonymous]

OP my friend has 3 boys and she feels the same about her boys, too. She is really jealous of me because I have a daughter and we get to do girly stuff. Except she’s a tremendously difficult child, but of course my friend doesn’t see that, she just is thinking the grass is greener. Her kids, meanwhile, are not nearly as difficult. But she refuses to see that.

I agree with the PP that you’re wallowing a bit. With two little kids we cannot afford to travel much, and it is hard and difficult when we do. I haven’t been abroad in years, and dream of a full night of sleep, time for hobbies, and time with my girlfriends. Your life sounds pretty great to me, and you have a ton of freedom I wish I had. Between WFH and constantly watching my kids when I am not working I sometimes go almost a week without getting out in the world beyond the school run.

The grass will always be greener, no matter what. Get a therapist and work on your mindset of embracing the life you have, not mourning the life you wanted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's too much of an age difference for your 10yre old to have a built-in playmate/decrease the lonely factor.

In fact, your 10 yr old might resent the baby a bit. It'll throw a huge monkey-wrench into your relatively easy going , carefree lifestyle.
Just a thought.

Most people I know with age gaps either for themselves or their own kids experience a lot of resentment.

Personally, I love age gaps! I think that having 2-3 kids in close succession makes for stressed out moms and families. You miss out on so much and don't get to appreciate each child individually. There is a lot of research done that siblings with gaps end up being more successful because they benefit from more individual attention from their parents. Also, I could not do 3 teenagers at the same time, while going through menopause!! Or 3 college bills at the same time.

OP, go for your second baby! The things worth having in life are often difficult. One should aspire to live a life without regrets. Do it now so that you don't end up having this empty feeling for the rest of your life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Set your alarm to go off every two hours all night long for the next two weeks. Remind yourself of the reality of the lack of sleep.

Eh. I have two kids and both of them slept through the night at age 3 and 4 weeks, respectively. I am not exaggerating. They were sleeping 7 hours by one month old, and around 9-10 hours per night by age 3 months. I kept a log and still have it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d try to figure out a way to adopt or do a surrogate. I feel not done w two and I can imagine with only one it would be much harder.

Same here. 45 and don't feel done with two. I've recently stopped BC, though I know my chances are 1-2%. OP, try the egg donor/surrogate with your DH's sperm. I would even try with my own eggs one more time, if you have healthy eggs.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thank you again for your responses, I am definitely thinking about this issue from new perspectives.

I am curious: how would you come to an acceptance about the fact that your only child has little to no extended family? I ruminate about this all the time. This upsets/worries me constantly because I worry that my child, who already feels lonely as an only, will feel all alone in the future. My parents are completely disengaged grandparents, my sister has no interest in a relationship and I only see her once every few years and she's really not an aunt to my son, and my in-laws are incredibly dysfunctional. I feel upset and disappointed in my own family's lack of interest in me and my son. They are happy with the occasional phone call and don't feel a need to see us or visit more than once a year or every few years.

Most of my friends/acquaintances have very involved and engaged grandparents/aunts, uncles and cousins and they have big, warm loving extended families for their kids and fun holidays. In contrast we don't spend any holidays with family (due to their lack of interest plus the distance) so we have no holiday memories with family. In general, we don't see family that often and when we do it's not a very enjoyable time for any of us. My son doesn't really know his extended family very well.

I am really disappointed that our families don't value family and am having a hard time making peace with this and moving on. And this is part of why I spent 8 years TTC because I really wanted to grow my own family.

[Anonymous]

I'm the other PP with one due to secondary infertility (18:43 on p. 4). I'm going to speak to what I've done and what worked best for me. We TTC, including lots of IVF and miscarriages, for 5 years before moving on. I think you have to truly accept that your family won't be perfect, and work very hard on remembering that while your family may not be perfect in this way, other families are also imperfect in other ways. They may have divorce, narcissistic grandparents, substance or mental health issues, abuse, serious illness, etc. And really understand that you, as the mom in the family, have a lot of control over the family narrative. If you put on a happy face and wax poetic about how amazing your family is and how lucky you all are to have such a perfect little gang, you will set the tone for your DH and child. If you ruminate over your misfortune, your family will feel that and their mental health and sense of self will reflect it. I get it, I truly do. I ruminated for a long time and really mourned what could and should have been. But it hurts you and it hurts your family, so you have to just force, literally force by will, those thoughts out of your mind.

The lack of involved family is very hard. You can either build your own network through family friends, or you can build your own traditions yourself. We almost always vacation with friends. Yes, they all have 2-3 kids and watching the sibling dynamic stings. But it also gives us perspective about how much easier our lives are with one, and gives DC a chance to jump into a multi-kid environment for a short while. If you don't have friends to vacation with, build your own traditions. Go to the same places and do the same activities (mini golf and ice cream on the boardwalk at X beach, Y lodge at a national park for Christmas, etc.). Get a dog or two and go hiking. Your family is enough and you can have fun just the three of you. Tell yourself that over and over until you really start to believe it.

[Anonymous]

OP you are totally idealizing everything you don't have. So you don't have involved grandparents.... do you have an obligation to host four grandparents, an alcoholic brother, a cousin with ADHD and a sister whose kids MUST nap in a bed in a quiet house from 1pm-3:30pm no matter what? Are you spending your holiday cooking/accommodating the cousins who are nut free/gluten free/dairy free and then hearing complaints the whole time? Are you cramming a family of five into a hotel room with two double beds? Is your only vacation every year driving 12 hours each way to share a bathroom with your BIL and his teenagers? Look these are all real examples (not mine) and you need to keep some perspective. Are you taking your only child to a museum and out for dinner on December 26 because you CAN - you can afford it, you have time, you can manage him? That sounds amazing.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you have an idealized picture in your mind of what a two child family would look like and how it would solve your perceived problems (no extended family, no shared interests with your son). In reality, it may “fix” your family for you, but from your son’s perspective you’d be adding a distraction that is way too young to bond with. It wouldn’t fix his loneliness and it would be very clear that his mother is replacing him with a better model (girl to go shopping with) because he’s not good enough. Is that really what you want to do? How would you react if he was completely disinterested or resentful over a baby over a decade younger than him? What if they never bonded? This feels more like when a guy remarries and has a second set of kids, and the first wife’s kids feel left behind and replaced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d try to figure out a way to adopt or do a surrogate. I feel not done w two and I can imagine with only one it would be much harder.

Stop acting like getting someone to carry a baby for you is just like picking someone outside the 7-11 to do your drywall.

[Anonymous]

Your own family history shows that just because you have someone biologically related to you, it doesn't mean they'll provide the emotional connection that you crave.

I'd focus on building up resilience and finding my own family/tribe. You're wallowing on what you don't have and thinking that once you have this one thing you craved then everything will be magically alright. Life doesn't work that way. You may not get the daughter you always crave even if you do get pregnant. Your son may not form a tight bond with a much younger sibling. Look at what you have and find the good in that and go forth and build your own tribe (invest in friendships, community, volunteerism, activism, etc).

[Anonymous]

OP, I'm the PP from earlier that is an only with an only who recommended continuing therapy with a new person.

In your last post you talk about the lack of family for your only. I will give you some perspective growing up as an only with very little extended family. On my mother's side, my mom did not speak to any siblings etc after my grandfather passed when I was very young. Long story short, she was not a biological child and was resented. So there was never any family interaction on that side.

My dad had one brother who was ten years older. They did not really speak, didn't live nearby, so I rarely if ever saw my cousins. My grandmother lived five minutes away but half the time she wasn't speaking to my parents based on perceived insults (she had issues). So very little family activities on that side either. 

Plus, we didn't have much money so we didn't go anywhere for holidays, we were always home.

And guess what? I have very happy memories of holidays and such! It was just the three of us but we had our little routines. Like, we would always go out to an early dinner on Christmas Eve to the same restaurant then drive around looking at lights. I was "forced" to stay upstairs until everything was ready on Christmas morning, then my mom took a picture of me coming down the stairs. I never saw my life as "less than" despite the fact everyone I knew had siblings. It was my life and I was happy.

As I got older, I made friends, and ended up marrying into a larger family (three brothers). And I can say that a larger family has its pros and cons as much as a smaller family and neither one is better or worse than the other. I do worry that your disappointment is projecting onto your son and maybe that's why you say he is lonely. I'm sure my parents were upset sometimes about the state of their own families, but that NEVER was passed on to me...I learned about all the dysfunction after I was older. I had no idea what they were going through, and if they were disappointed or sad, I never knew as a child.

I agree you should talk to someone again about this, because it's now obvious it's about more than having a second child. You are upset your parents aren't the grandparents you would like, your sister is not the aunt you would like. That your H's family is not how you wish they would be. And you thought you could "fix" all of that by having another child. But sometimes the only "fix" is to accept and enjoy life as it is. Good luck to you.

[Anonymous]

You should do adoption - donor egg, embryos, or baby, etc.

I am 41 and the mother of 3. Also have a ten year old. The idea of having another baby gives me nightmares (as in, I literally have nightmares about this! Lol). So for you to be having such a strong urge at 45, I think it means something! Good luck!