You see, in addition to the two children we have, we have two frozen embryos (a boy and a girl) waiting for us in a laboratory. Our children, and these remaining embryos, were created through IVF. We had a long and very painful journey to having children. After years of failed attempts, countless appointments and procedures (endured mostly by me), we were finally diagnosed with male infertility. Even though our diagnosis was male factor, I was the one who took countless injections, pills, and supplements before, during, and after egg retrieval and eventual pregnancy. And I did most of that alone.
I will soon “come of age” to be able to become pregnant through IVF. We do not have the possibility of returning to this question in a year or two. IVF is never a guarantee, but I want to try it for both of these babies. Two embryos created from blood, sweat and tears. I look at my children and I can’t imagine not having one because they stay frozen indefinitely.
What should I do? How can I tell my husband about this? He refuses to have a conversation or even give me a timetable for when we can talk. I’m afraid I’ll blame him if we never have more children. For me, these frozen embryos are my babies.
Mother of four children: You say you’re worried about resenting your husband, but it sounds like you already have. Your question indicates that you carry a lot of unresolved pain from your journey to having your first two children. This is an incredibly difficult situation to navigate in your marriage, but there are several things you can consider.
Erica Djossa, licensed psychotherapist and founder and CEO of Momwell, a community focused on empowering and supporting moms, says your loneliness during this process only makes this standoff with your husband more difficult. “Your partner deciding they’re done with kids, neglects the mental and physical load you’ve carried during this time and feels dismissive and invalidating,” says Djossa. You may need to address a deeper issue regarding fairness in your marriage.
There is also a level of grief that you have not yet processed. Grief following the journey of discovering and navigating her infertility. Grief due to your body’s biological limitations. Grief at the injustice of it all. “Making a decision often means having to deal with loss and trauma,” says Djossa. “Having embryos makes it feel like there is an open door of possibility, often delaying processing and closing the ‘finished’ and embryos you have been working on. difficult, but deciding when to ‘finish’ is not never easy.” It might be helpful to free up space to explore your feel your feelings outside of your marriage in support groups around infertility and motherhood, or by finding a therapist who specializes in managing these concerns and struggles.
With or without professional help, I encourage you to think more deeply about how you really feel. Did you want to have four children before going through IVF? Would you want two more children if you hadn’t already created two more embryos? Or do you feel like because you’ve invested so much time, “blood, sweat and tears” that you have to see it through? There’s no right answer, but you hold a specific version of your family and it stops you from imagining anything different. “There are many reasons why we may strongly want to expand our family. Maybe it’s the idealized family we’ve always imagined, or maybe we’ve had a traumatic birth or experience and want to start our lives over. We may also not feel like our family is ‘complete,’ but all of these reasons are rooted in our emotions,” says Djossa. Although it’s tempting, she says to try not to make big decisions when you’re experiencing these big emotions.
Right now, you and your husband are not connected and you may even feel like you are fighting each other. You need to find a way for both of you to be on the even side, tackling the common problem together – that is, whether or not to have more children – rather than seeing each other as the problem. “It’s important to enter these conversations with the goal of truly listening to the other person’s perspective – to understand their experience as a parent, their hopes for the future, their fears, and why they feel different from us,” explains Djossa. Your husband seems unsure of what he wants next; maybe he has fears and worries about parenting, birth trauma and her own unmet expectations of family and parents.
You carried the heaviest invisible load when it came to having your children, and you might feel like if you’re willing to try again, despite this, he should too. You want to be heard, but that also means listening to your husband and being curious about where he just. Right now he’s shutting down, which raises the question of whether this is a communication problem you’ve experienced historically in your marriage, or whether it’s an ability to adaptation that he deploys due to repeated communication dynamics that do not work. You want more children, that’s good! Wanting more children and not being open to hearing or talking about other feelings and options can lead to a rift in your relationship.
You can’t force your husband to get on board just because it’s something you really want. You want to talk about your own needs and desires without rejecting or invalidating your husband’s. It’s a delicate dance, but ultimately you have to decide what is non-negotiable for you and what that means for your relationship and your life going forward.
