Women aren't the only ones who stress about their biological clock — men face similar anxieties over becoming older dads, reports Sarah Wildman. Some may even turn to sperm freezing.
Infertility often becomes a personal nightmare. Women faced with infertility tend to be emotionally overwhelmed, experiencing a rainbow of emotions including sadness, frustration, shame, anxiety and fear, including thoughts like 'What if we can't ever get pregnant?' You never get a break from being infertile. As a result of the emotional struggle with infertility, women also commonly experience low self-esteem, wondering, 'What is wrong with me?!' Infertility often becomes a personal nightmare. Women faced with infertility tend to be emotionally overwhelmed, experiencing a rainbow of emotions including sadness, frustration, shame, anxiety and fear, including thoughts like 'What if we can't ever get pregnant?' You never get a break from being infertile. As a result of the emotional struggle with infertility, women also commonly experience low self-esteem, wondering, 'What is wrong with me?!'
Despite the onslaught of celebs who have come clean about infertility, including Hollywood A-listers Courteney Cox and Julia Roberts, the issue remains highly stigmatized. Both men and women feel the pressure to have kids, but, as with most things, the genders deal with and communicate about the problem differently.
Emma and Jonathan are trying to have a baby. Emma is a bright, bubbly, 28 year old woman with long blond curls and a winning smile. She has been married to Jonathan for just over 3 years. She works as an advertising executive at a major corporation. Jonathan, 31, is the more laid back of the two. As a successful cinematographer, he tends to more of an observer.
I once attended a seminar on working with clients who are dealing with infidelity. The speaker was a well-known expert on marriage, and the room was packed. In the midst of his teaching on infidelity, he stopped, turned to the audience and said, “You know, as hard as this is, infidelity is not the hardest issue for a couple. That would be infertility.”
When you talk about dealing with infertility, you get a lot of different reactions. Some people sympathize, some people criticize, some people wonder why you would want to bring a child into the world when there are already so many children unloved and unclaimed. I’ve had pretty much all of that directed at me.
Jealousy is ugly on me. I suppose it's ugly on anyone but it feels particularly nasty when I wear it. I would love to do away with it completely as an emotion, but it keeps cropping up again. It's not that I'm jealous of women who are taller, thinner, prettier. I'm not jealous of women with more money or more glamorous lifestyles. I'm jealous of one person and one person only: the mother of my stepson. And maybe not for the reasons you would think.
You could be doing childless couples a huge justice by refraining from an inquisition into their sex lives. Because, essentially, that's what you're doing when you push the baby issue. You're prying into their private world and poking in on their Should we or shouldn't we? Are we ready? Do we even want children? conversations.
My husband and I are trying to conceive. He's 33, I'm 32 and, despite our best attempts, we have not been successful at the pregnancy game. We eat healthy, drink only in moderation and are generally fit, so theoretically there should be no problems. And yet, month after month, we've been disappointed.
When Amy Tucker of Columbia, Ill., gave birth to a healthy baby boy last May, she made headlines. The 32-year-old cancer survivor was no ordinary new mom. Thirteen years ago, when Tucker was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma, she knew the cancer treatment would leave her infertile, so she elected to have one of her ovaries frozen for later re-implantation when she was cancer-free and ready to have kids. Freezing ovaries is allowing women to prolong their fertility after 40.
Some friends of mine are struggling with infertility. The process is frustrating and heartbreaking and a strain on the relationship. All of this and it's not even a problem I am facing personally. Having children is such a fundamental part of life that we often take it for granted. When a couple faces infertility, the struggle often brings to the surface all of the frustrations and fears and worries that are already dormant in the relationship. In response to this essay, Qverb remarks:
