I Can’t Become a Mother: 3 Stories of Personal Choice

“7 IVF attempts – my price for motherhood”

Alina, 39 years old

I have had a desire for motherhood since childhood. From the age of two I climbed into strollers, loved to babysit babies. I always knew that I would become a mother of at least two children. But already at the age of 23, in her first marriage, she faced reproductive difficulties. We quickly divorced, so the issue was postponed for several years.

I immediately told my next partner about the problem, and we tried to solve it in various natural ways. But to no avail. When the doctor said that there were simply no other options for becoming a mother, except for IVF, I was shocked.

There were five long years ahead before Sonya appeared: she was born after seven IVF attempts, five hysteroscopies (a method for examining the uterine cavity), three stimulations and one laparoscopy – a fairly serious diagnostic operation. And before each next IVF attempt, I told myself: if this is the price that you need to pay to become a mother, then it cannot be otherwise.

And when I, already pregnant, fell ill with cancer and they explained to me that there was still time to have an abortion, I replied: “This is out of the question.” I did not consider for myself the option of life without a child in principle. If it had not been possible with the help of, for example, ten IVF attempts, then there would have been other alternative options.

On my way to motherhood, I changed careers and became a helping professional. And now I myself support women who cope with reproductive difficulties.

“My life, my experience has meaning and value regardless of children”

Nina, 43 years old

I am now childless and not in a relationship. And if the status of “single” is completely my choice, then childlessness is a coincidence and partly a choice. I’m not a childfree, and I assumed that I would have children. But I knew that I could give birth to a child only in a couple. In the end, as it seemed to me, I found such a pair. But as time went on, it was not possible to get pregnant. And at 39, I learned that my ovaries would soon stop developing eggs.

I remember that I was sitting on the boulevard not far from the clinic, thinking that my future, as I imagined it, had cracked right along the foundation, and mentally told my mother: “Here, mother, there are great chances that you will not have grandchildren.”

I experienced many different feelings. Shame that I didn’t have time, didn’t cope, let down all the women of my family. Terrible guilt for not fulfilling the “women’s destiny.” Anger at those who said “yes, now they give birth at forty, and at fifty.” Great self-pity and loneliness in your grief.

A year later, during which I was desperately trying to get pregnant, there was a breakup with a man.

I was forty, the house I tried so hard to build collapsed. I fell into depression. I was prescribed antidepressants, they helped me stay productive. But every day despair, confusion and a sense of the meaninglessness of life grew.

Then I went to the “You are not alone” group in order to collect fragments of myself into something more or less whole and understand how to live on.

For quite a long time, all my aspirations, money, time, moral strength were directed towards getting pregnant.

The inability to have a child devalued everything else that I had. I still remained an excellent professional, a good friend, sister, daughter, but … Now there was a “but” added to everything, which obscured all my successes and joys: I could not become a mother. And if so, then all my experience, all my human qualities no longer made sense.

The task at one of the meetings of the group to remember a few achievements that I am proud of, puzzled me: everything seemed unimportant to me. However, unexpectedly for me, what I told the group about myself and my life was interesting to other participants.

Since then, I began to deliberately, by an effort of will, notice and remember the moments in which other people – and gradually I myself – could say “Wow!”. Started knitting again – well done! She painted the walls in the apartment herself – that’s what I can do! Take a good photo, bake a cake and share it with your loved ones, practice yoga, walk to the Gulf of Finland and look at the sea – all this is valuable, all this is life.

My life, my experience has meaning and value, whether I have children or not. When I made this decision, I stopped feeling pressure on myself, and it became much easier for me. I have freed up time and energy to do something other than waiting for parenthood and preparing for it.

“You can be a mother in different ways, not necessarily through “native blood”

Oksana, 41 years old

I got married by today’s standards early – at 21. It was a classic student marriage: love-carrots, hanging out with friends, in the session – study. I wanted children, but my husband insisted on postponing them until we were on our feet. And I agreed. Gradually our marriage fell apart.

I was 26 when we divorced, and I threw myself into work. I began to earn good money, took out a mortgage, and everything suited me. So 12 years flew by. Once I was invited to speak to teenagers from an orphanage, to tell them about my work. I was scared, but I went anyway.

Since then, I started to read a little about foster parenting and gradually figured out my thoughts and realized that you can be a mother in different ways, not necessarily through “native blood”.

A year later, she came to the School of Foster Parenthood, and two years later she adopted Arisha, she was then three years old. At first it was not easy, but thanks to the School I already knew that this path would not be easy. She saved me from many parenting mistakes, and I try to be a good mom.

“Separate social pressure from your own desires”

Elena Vorontsova, psychologist

The values ​​instilled in us in the parental family, the experience of friends and acquaintances, social norms – all this affects our personal reproductive choice. Watching friends and classmates become parents, a childless woman tries on their experience and wonders if she wants to have children herself or not.

Often childless couples feel the pressure of society. “When will you give us grandchildren?” their parents ask. Or friends press, hurry: “Give birth soon, we will raise children together, go on vacation together.”

And if a couple remains childless for some reason, they may feel guilty towards aging parents, as well as isolation from “children” friends, whose values ​​and interests change greatly. Their paths diverge, and this can be very difficult for childless couples.

In a situation of choice, it is important to separate the pressure of society from one’s own desire to have children, based on the personal values ​​of a woman and (or) a man.

Including this issue, we solve in the support group “You are not alone”: we help women understand: what is important for each of them? Are they ready for foster parenthood? Are you ready for the IVF path, because it is more difficult than it might seem at first glance.

Studies show that every unsuccessful attempt is experienced by a woman as the loss of a child.

Not everyone is ready for foster parenthood. After all, the interests of the person (child) who is adopted or adopted are primary here. Reality can be very different from the picture that a childless couple painted for themselves, taking responsibility for an adopted child.

A couple may face difficulties for which they were not prepared. It is hard to see how many difficulties families overcome on the way to adoption / adoption.

But, on the other hand, these tests show couples who are not ready for foster parenting that this is not their way. Whatever choice a woman or couple makes in the end is their choice, there is no right path, only their own, and on this path they need the support of loved ones, friends and society.