r/queerception

I 40, divorced my partner/husband of 14 years a year ago. There were lots of reasons, mostly his constant bullying and epically dead bedroom, but the main reason was his obsessive baby fever. His brother and sister both had kids and he suddenly had to have one too, a perfect baby boy.

Even though we’d never planned for kids I was open to it and agreed to start trying. He is irreparably infertile so I had to go through a bunch of fertility treatments whilst he bullied me the whole time for not being good enough or not trying hard enough or not wanting it enough. After four unsuccessful tries I said I think I need a break and the Dr agreed with me.

This was the beginning of the end, I became a valueless object in his life because I failed him and the bullying became outright abuse.

I left him, divorced him, and got my life back on track. I’m now living alone in a beautiful old house, I’ve lost almost 100lbs, I look/feel amazing, and my career is stronger than ever. I had my first casual boyfriend, rediscovered sex (omg!!) and accidentally fell pregnant after only two months of fucking. I had an abortion with no regrets and we broke up a few months later very amicably.

However, I don’t want to be married again and I’m not looking for a man to share my life with. Quite the opposite, I value my independence and enjoy being the anchor in my own life, and the anchor for other people too.

So, I’m planning to start the process again (I have an appointment next week) with a view to getting pregnant and raising my own child as a solo parent. I have the time, the resources, and the physical capability.

The problem is, there is no baby fever- I don’t cry in the baby aisle of the supermarket, I don’t get crazy feels when I see babies, I don’t fantasise about being pregnant and I like my friends kids but I’m not obsessed with them.

I want a family because I like caring, cooking, and routine. I like domestic life and I want to share it, I want to cook pancakes on Saturday morning, and help with homework, I like doing laundry. I’m a natural caretaker and provider- this is what brings me joy. I’m very steady and reliable and I want to invest that in relationships that will grow and last a lifetime.

But there’s no baby fever. And everyone keeps telling me “having kids is SO HARD, don’t do it unless you really want to.” I do really want to, I’m just not obsessed with babies to the point my nipples ache if I see one- surely there’s gonna be plenty of time later for aching nipples?

When I tried to explain to my friend why I wanted kids she replied bitterly, “it’s a lifelong sacrifice not a lifestyle choice.” I don’t visualise parenthood as like becoming a nun, cutting myself off from the world and taking a vow of celibacy and poverty so I can serve my child- I see it as this is me and my family and we’re a little team that’s going to experience the world together. Am I unhinged?

I need a reality check because now I’m spending more time obsessing about my decision and gaslighting myself than I am feeling joyful about the future.

My wife encouraged me to post here as I’ve been going through it to see if anyone can relate…

After 2 failed at home attempts, we saw a fertility doctor back in November. We did an SIS with them and discovered I had uterine polyps. In December, I had surgery to get those removed. It was a bit of a slower recovery, but I was feeling much better by January and we did 1 failed medicated IUI cycle. Due to my age (37) and cost of sperm, we went straight into IVF stims that next month.

My job is very demanding of my time/energy/emotions (education administration) and a lot of people depend on me. Thankfully it’s not physically demanding. Right towards the beginning of stims, I recognized how significant of an impact IVF was having on me and initiated intermittent FMLA. (I highly recommend this, btw).

All went well and normally during stims/monitoring and we expected a smallish retrieval. We are incredibly lucky (on St. Patty’s Day 3/17) that we had a huge response (38 retrieved, resulting in 8 euploid frozen, 4 frozen w/o PGT). This resulted in OHSS, mild to moderate w/o hospitalization. I was finally starting to feel back to normal activities this past weekend.

My doctor recommended I wait a cycle for transfer due to the OHSS. She did also require another SIS prior to transfer just to check if polyps have returned. I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and do that this month so it’s out of the way. I had the SIS Monday and when I tell you it hurt so bad! I don’t remember it being nearly as painful the first time. I took that day off FMLA and was feeling pretty much better that evening. The next day (yesterday) I started having so much pain I couldn’t drive, walk, move around in bed. And (TMI) this morning I started having some crazy discharge. I was diagnosed with an infection from the SIS. My doctor said to take it very easy for the next few weeks and we may need to delay the transfer another month.

I want to be here for my family (I already have older children) and my employees. Honestly, I expected typical IVF things but between the polypectomy, stims, OHSS, and now uterine infection, I feel like I have been down for the count since December…

If you read this far, thank you! I’m usually a very optimistic person, and still feel overall excited about our prospects. I also know some people have an even tougher time, so I don’t mean to diminish anyone else’s experience. I’m just feeling beat down by all the complications. Thanks for any advice you have.

Hi, I’m a gay man and decided to become a known donor for a lesbian couple after being introduced about a year ago by a mutual friend. I’m out to my family and they accept and love me and are also very close with my partner. However they are from a very conservative country and will have no experience with this type of family formation. I’m struggling a bit to find the right words to explain it. I don’t want to say I’m going to become a father to avoid setting the wrong expectation. But I feel saying “I’m a known donor” will be met with lots of confusion and probably comes across too technical and cold. Does anyone have any experience “coming out” to their family about this and how did you handle it?

Clomid thinned my lining pretty bad this last round so for my third IUI the doctors are switching me to Letrozole. Has anyone done this switch and been successful? Thanks

My wife and I welcomed our first baby last August via reciprocal IVF (I carried) and we are already talking about trying for baby #2. we've always wanted a big family and we want them to be close in age but is 2 under 2 crazy? We're thinking about *Ideally* trying for another transfer between September and December of this year so another spring/summer baby. are we insane? will we regret it once our son reaches full toddlerhood? thoughts?

Hi all,

Just wondered if anyone has had any experience reserving donor sperm at Fairfax Cryobank, or if this is even a thing? I’m planning IUI in the summer but unsure if we are going to wait until next year due to other circumstances. We’ve found a great donor but unsure whether to risk waiting to see if vials are still available then.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Little back story my wife got pregnant with our daughter back in 23. We started trying again for our second last May she had 1 chem we took a break for a couple months she got pregnant in November but ended in a miscarriage in January. We did one IuI after the miscarriage failed. We are now going onto our second IuI if that fails, we are talking about going to Ivf. Do you think we are wasting our time IUI's at this point should we go to ivf if this round fails. She's 32 she does do trigger/ clomid.

My soon to be fiance (trans woman) and I (nb) have decided we want to have children in the future and are not sure when. We are getting older and decided I should probably freeze my embryos since we don't know when we will feel ready to have children.

She already has her sperm frozen right before she started HRT, done by the gender clinic at Rush, but I can't find that Rush does embryo preservation, their family planning section just talks about birth control.

I am looking for a place that will do embryo preservation and will allow us to talk to someone about my concerns with the process, especially regarding rights as trans parents and concerns about embryo freezing in post-Roe US.

I've seen a few people in previous similar posts mention Northwestern, but I'm a little hesitant to go there. I am currently a patient there, the doctors are nice, the wait times are extreme and they are clearly massively rushed and overworked, more than anywhere I've ever been.

It's hard to find anything with a Google search past the advertising and marketing. Does anyone have any experiences?