[krafty79]

First of all, this post is not for me, but for a friend of mine who is going through something pretty huge in his marriage right now. He and his wife have been married for 7 years and have never been able to have a child. They've tried using fertility drugs, which resulted in pregnancies that miscarried. Each time, both of them were completely devastated when the baby was lost.

A few years ago, they went through with an IVF. It took, but something went horribly wrong early on, and his wife not only lost the baby but nearly lost her own life. Since then, they have stopped trying and the discussion of trying again hasn't really been brought up until recently.

Their marriage has been rocky since and things finally came to a head . . . He believes that at this point after losing baby after baby and having their hearts ripped out over and over and losing tens of thousands of dollars, he can't go through it again.

He wants a child so badly, but he also isn't sure he can endure that kind of gamble and pain. She, however, is willing to try again and again and again until they get a baby. It's almost like if they lose 20 babies but number 21 is a success, she'll do it.

At this point, if he says he won't continue, and she wants to, they're pretty much splitting up. She's made it clear she will do this with or without him, and he's stated if he won't do it, he won't do it no matter what. And this is the underlying cause for tension that's making things at home somewhat miserable for them.

Does anyone here have thoughts, advice, etc on this? I want to be able to give him some advice and I don't know what to say . . .
Thank you and God bless.

[tryingtobestrong]

firstly, condolances to your friend for all the loss and heartache he has been through.

both he and his wife sound like they need some counselling...breaking up when times are bad are not the best thing...they need to resolve things first.

neither of them are in a position to walk away calmly.

either ruling out having a child or demanding one, is not healthy of either of them.

i think the best thing for him to do...is get her to agree to say 10 counselling sessions (some couple some individual) before they discuss it again.

the pain they must both be in would be huge...and they need to deal with that...cause no baby will ever fill that pain.

they need to have a survival plan, at the moment they are prob in the middle of the war zone with no plan.

good luck to them both