[fitafita]

Hi! I am new to this forum- It is wonderful to see the subjects I care about- like taking care of yourself, and your relationships in a fertility forum.

DH and I had a serious heart to heart about the state of our marriage on the eve of another round of letrozole and what would have been the first IUI; and we decided to put it on hold after some real concerns about our marriage came to the surface. DH actually felt he would want to leave me because of our problems. He wants to see if we can change things and heal our marriage-

honestly putting everything fertility thing on hold and refocusing on our communication, our commitment and just having fun together feels great!

i am still a little sad when i see all the pregnant women walking by ( i work in maternal/child health!) but i am very satisfied that I am making this sane decision.

already stress is relieved between us- ironically the sex is better already so maybe we will get pregnant the old fashioned way.

anyone else had an experience like i am having- being on the verge of divorce or divorced in the midst of trying to get pregnant? any advice? I have to admit, it will be very hard to not try and get pregnant- i am 36 years old, and who knows how long we will want to take a break from IF.

[Bri01]

Honestly, I think that it is good to evaluate the state of your relationship, but on the other end of things if you put it off to long and then really can't achive a pregnany, where does that leave you? Infertility is stressfull for couples but you both have to desire it equally to work through those rough spots as there will many many ups and downs especially for you as the hormones kick in. It really is worth all of the rtouble at the end. I can speak from the standpoint of both undergoing IF for 3 years in the past prior to adopting my now 7 year old and recently going through IVF, a difficult pregnancy, and now having a 3 week old . Good luck!!!!!!!!!!!

[Deej]

I am sorry that I cannot offer any personal experience, but am glad to read the two of you are getting back to better relations! The title of your thread caught my eye, but I misunderstood it!
I am a singleton ttc. I quit dating months before ttc. Not an easy decisoin, I hope to be married, but waiting any longer at age 36 (when I began looking into it all) was not feasable. I have the rest of my life to find a husband but limited time to have a baby... I hope you are peaceful with whatever decision you decide to make.

[jenedens6102]

Infertility can definitely cause a rift in any relationship. Sometimes it's the make or break to the relationship as I've found. But from time to time it is good to reevaluate the sitaution and determine what is most important to you both. I don't know your story or situation but we suffered with male factor and DH always said he'd allow divorce so that I could go on and remarry and have a baby of my own, he knew how much I wanted a family. But I told him I married him for the person he is, the man I love, and not for his sperm. If we couldn't have a child of our own we had other options to consider. We took a couple of breaks (including this year) to regroup and take back control of ourselves - mentally, physically and emotionally. So best of luck to you both in your time of refocusing, may you have a natural miracle to top it all off!

[msnoonoo]

I think it is great that you and dh are focusing on your relationship. I think its great that you are taking a break, but I really think (if you haven't done so already) that you need to set a time limit for your break. You do not want to wait too long. Good luck to you on your journey.

[hopeful2bmom]

i applaud you for focusing on your marriage and taking a break for yourselves. I say wait as loing as YOU need, even if your DH is not ready, when you are then you must make a decision. Taking time together will help to give both of you prespective. DH and I took 7 months off from everything related to TTC and decided together to try one more IVF cycle. SO far it worked. DH was also much more involved in my cycle and giving me my meds and coming to appointments. To him raising children is not the same as having a biological child. For me, biological child is very important but we have always know that we would adopt regardless if we had IF issues or not.
The break definitely helps and in the end if you decided that focusing on your marriage is the most importnant thing then you can adopt or use donor eggs in the future. Either way that child will always be yours.
Best of luck.

[fitafita]

Thank You!! All of your responses feel so supportive and have given me food for thought.

Can I tell you a confusing turn of events- DH and I were watching 'Knocked Up' last night and I made a joke about how because we are taking a break from ttc I could enjoy alcohol, bad foods, caffeine etc.-

his response was "what do you mean we are taking a break from ttc?"

wow- apparently we ARE on the same page about trying to heal emotionally, spiritually and in our relationship- BUT NOT that this would include taking a break from ttc!

to me it is insane to try and conceive when there are real problems in our marriage- things I want to focus on rather than my somewhat obsessive focus on ttc.

of course I am worried about how long a break to take (how would I know it was time to try again?) and biggest worry that I have limited chances that decrease sharply at my age (I turn 37 in 3 months)-

so confused! and now we are arguing again- not about ttc but still-

confused and depressed! any advice?

[fitafita]

Originally Posted by Deej

I am sorry that I cannot offer any personal experience, but am glad to read the two of you are getting back to better relations! The title of your thread caught my eye, but I misunderstood it!
I am a singleton ttc. I quit dating months before ttc. Not an easy decisoin, I hope to be married, but waiting any longer at age 36 (when I began looking into it all) was not feasable. I have the rest of my life to find a husband but limited time to have a baby... I hope you are peaceful with whatever decision you decide to make.

Hi, and thanks for your post! I really appreciate your telling of your story. I even have to get my head around the idea that my marriage could end, and this would leave me ttc on my own, or possibly having had conceived with DH I could end up a single & divorced parent.

Your story shows me it is possible to be single in all sorts of different ways, including being a single mom by choice.

Thanks, and I love that you refer to sperm bank as DH

[fitafita]

Originally Posted by jenedens6102

Infertility can definitely cause a rift in any relationship. Sometimes it's the make or break to the relationship as I've found. But from time to time it is good to reevaluate the sitaution and determine what is most important to you both. I don't know your story or situation but we suffered with male factor and DH always said he'd allow divorce so that I could go on and remarry and have a baby of my own, he knew how much I wanted a family. But I told him I married him for the person he is, the man I love, and not for his sperm. If we couldn't have a child of our own we had other options to consider. We took a couple of breaks (including this year) to regroup and take back control of ourselves - mentally, physically and emotionally. So best of luck to you both in your time of refocusing, may you have a natural miracle to top it all off!

Thanks for sharing your story of how taking a break was a good move for you and DH- although if you read my latest post you will see that my DH didn't have the same take on the 'changes' we are trying to allow to heal our relationship as including the 'change' of taking a break from ttc! now I am so confused, and on top of it all we had an argument last night that leaves me kind of hopeless. (I am apparently too negative and too unsupportive of the effort he is making to change).

[fitafita]

Originally Posted by Bri01

Honestly, I think that it is good to evaluate the state of your relationship, but on the other end of things if you put it off to long and then really can't achive a pregnany, where does that leave you? Infertility is stressfull for couples but you both have to desire it equally to work through those rough spots as there will many many ups and downs especially for you as the hormones kick in. It really is worth all of the rtouble at the end. I can speak from the standpoint of both undergoing IF for 3 years in the past prior to adopting my now 7 year old and recently going through IVF, a difficult pregnancy, and now having a 3 week old . Good luck!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you - if you read any of my replies in this thread you will learn I am now way too confused about what is going on now- apparently DH was not thinking the 'changes' we are trying to make included taking a break in ttc!!

on the one hand i want to jump back into ttc, and on the other, thanks to an argument with DH, I feel kind of hopeless about the state of our marriage. so ttc would not be the right thing to do.

and on top of it all i can't help but wonder how much of this tension is because we were ttc, and all the hormones, dashed hopes monthly, etc. ...so confused now. yikes.

[Ziggy]

Hi. This caught my eye because DH and I have also been on the verge of divorce this last month - and I think maybe we still are. I have to say, from my point of view, I want the pregnancy first, then if the marriage falls apart, I will still have the baby. That is ultimately what I want. I want the baby more than the marriage at this point. I am sure I would be fine as a single mum. Of course I would rather have a happy marriage AND a baby - but if I have to choose one... I am very sure that DH and I would communicate well and be good parents, even if we were divorced.

Like someone said - plenty of time to find a nice relationship, not so much time to have a baby. I am hanging on in there until I am pregnant and then we will see if we can heal the marriage or not. But it is so bloody hard going through all this relationship trauma and IVF at the same time. Crazy! If this IVF doesn't work I am sure will will not start another one with our current problems. So I just have to hope and pray this one works!

Good luck - keep communicating, but keep and eye on what you want!

[Ziggy]

Oh. Just looked at the date and this is a really old post! I wonder what happened in the end...

[Deej]

Hello Ziggy! I was looking thru the posts to find one I posted in earlier today... and I saw this one. I saw the date and was wondering the same thing, what ever happened to the lady who started the post? If you click on a members name, you can see all their posts. It looks like she is still ttc....
I wish you the best. I believe it was me who said "all the time to find a husband but a limited time to have a baby" I am still a singleton, and just now getting back into TTC after a 3 month break...