Hi Everyone,
My name is Nady and I am 38 years old, my husband is 43 years old (has a daughter from a previous relationship) and we tried to have a child for 4 years and have been TTC-Free and Child Free for 2 years. We always knew adoption was never a real option, and we were not going to break the bank to have a child, we wanted a child just not that bad.
When we first started to try, we did it because we felt it was the next step in the marriage process, we both felt that we wanted to enjoy our marriage and travel but after constant harassment from older parents and our friends (who have kids), we decided to put our travels on hold and bit the parent bullet train. Treatments were horrible (we both had problems in the reproductive department) and before we went for broke and suffered any further we sat down and had an long talk. To my surprise my husband felt the same way I did for wanting to have a child, I only wanted a child because I thought that is what he wanted and vice versa, he explained that he already had a daughter who was 16 and thought of starting the process again as "painful" but only kept trying because he didn't want me to not have a child. The 3k that I had borrowed from my 401k for IUI turned into a fabulous 9 day southern Caribbean cruise with balcony suite. I was criticized by family and made to feel bad for taking such a "lavish" trip (they act like I went to to Europe). We decided to just stay quiet and no longer disclose our decision to be child free, we found we were less stressed saying that we were still not lucky than explaining that we were not going to regret our choice to stop and be child free and for once in our life together we were happy.
You can go online and find TONS of forums for woman trying to conceive and couples struggling with infertility but I am yet to find somewhere where someone can openly write, we tried, we failed and we feel happy that we dodged the parent bullet train, with out the critique of "you only feel that way because you never got pregnant and are bitter" (so far from the truth, I am one of the baby shower planners of my job and knit booties for everyone with out crying and feeling bad, I am glad for them)
We have never been happier, we have a bunch of little weekend trips booked and 3 cruises coming in with in the next two years. We even decided over the summer to take a trip to Walt Disney World and be kids again, we laughed as we saw others struggling with bratty unruly kids as we jumped on rides as single riders while the others waited with their kids. I am not against children, I do not despise them, I just know that they are not for me and we are perfectly ok with not having one around in the house. Is it so wrong for us to have changed our mind and be happy with our choice to be child free even if at one point we wanted to have a family (for what ever reason).
Will we be able to fit into any place? We don't feel sorry for our selves and we are strong believers that things happen for a reason and we are currently trying to enjoy that reason, as well as our marriage.
I hope that you guys can understand where I am coming from. Thanks for hearing me out :-) Sorry I am all over the place, I have a lot to write and do not want to sound like a book.