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Mourning maternity: how to do it?
Grief for a child is long and painful. How to best succeed in giving up having a child, at least biological? Advice.
Fertility problems
Accepting not to bear a child is a real mourning to do, whether it is because there is a fertility problem or an age that makes motherhood difficult. This mourning for maternity or paternity is a psychological state whose duration and intensity depend on the couple, their personalities, their experience, circumstances, what parenthood represented for them … Couples facing infertility must sometimes mourn the loss of having a child. They must in any case mourn a child conceived in a natural way.
After many attempts at in vitro fertilization, there can be physical and psychological exhaustion. Some couples then decide to stop. It is possible to turn to adoption but it is first necessary to mourn the phantasmic child, unconscious that one wanted to do with his companion / companion. And if you don’t want to adopt, grieve for having a child.
In this case, to mourn the desire for a child is also to mourn a certain idea of femininity, the woman who bears children. It is advisable to succeed in this mourning by embarking on a project that we are going to carry: business creation, change of professional life… In short, another fertility.
My age makes motherhood difficult
Time has passed and it is now difficult for you to become pregnant. Mourning the desire for a child is sometimes the choice made by women who do not want to embark on medically assisted procreation. Or else medically assisted procreation has been a painful failure. The desire for a child can be fulfilled by adoption, but the biological child must be mourned. It is possible to be helped by a therapist to cope with this bereavement. It is also possible to move towards another fertility: a professional or personal project, fulfill one of your childhood dreams …
Most important: discuss it with your partner
Not being left alone with your suffering is fundamental. Communicate with your partner, express your sadness and what you want: adopt a child, try to have a child using in vitro fertilization techniques …
Meeting women or men confronted with this renunciation of the desire for a child can also help to mourn. There are thus groups of women without children.
Go forward
Once the grieving phase has passed, it may again be possible to think calmly about the future, to imagine it childless or with a child, but otherwise.