Guilty and Hurt
Dec. 10th, 2011 08:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redback_bites23I am 43 and I only came out as lesbian/queer 7 years ago. When I was in my early 20s the idea of having children did not appeal to me, it was fine for other people but not me, I never wanted them, I never felt maternal. This is not to say that I don't like children or babies, quite the opposite in fact, I have always enjoyed them but not wanted them for me. In my late 20s, my body did the whole body clock thing you hear about and I really, really wanted to be pregnant but my head said no way at the same time. At this time I was with my ex, who was male and ended up being my husband for a short while. He could not have children and I just accepted in myself I wouldn't have them because I had the strong belief that if you 'weren't meant to have them then you didn't'. We had no money and were in no place to have children anyway, but we did talk about fostering or something similar some day.
Later on, when having the coming out conversation with a couple of my straight friends, one of them said to me, 'oh if you meet a younger woman maybe you could have children' and I agreed and said yes, maybe I could. Having children was once again an option for me as my life was going through dramatic change.
A couple of years after coming out I met one of my (now) partners. She is 10 years younger than me, and she was keen to have children or a child. When we first talked about having children or a child, I had explained to her that I didn't want to be the one to give birth, I felt too old already, I also said that was a bit of time limit on it for me because I didn't want to be too old. I did get to a point where I agreed and was excited about the idea of being a parent.
Over time we worked through how we wanted to get pregnant and many other things associated with being a parent. It is such an individual journey for any couple to make and for same sex couples so much more loaded than heterosexual couples (that is when a heterosexual couple are healthy and able to reproduce. Simply because we have so many more aspects to think about from conception through to legal 'stuff' and how we do family. There are so many more implications for us.
Trying to get pregnant is hard, it's got to be the most unromantic thing to go through, not to mention incredibly emotional. This is something so many people do not seem to understand. After a number of months of trying for various reasons we decided it was not what we wanted. Among other things, I felt like I was too old. I felt like I had run out of time. I have had peri menopausal changes happening to me for little while now and there are many days when I feel like crap and I decided that I just didn't have the energy to have a small human being dependent on me.
As we prepared to try to get pregnant I told my partner that I thought it was a bad idea to collect baby clothes or baby items, because if it didn't work then it would be so much harder for us to face piles of baby 'stuff'. But we did buy one thing. We bought a baby change table.
This weekend we hired a skip bin and have been having a big clean out, throwing stuff into the bin. I got the change table out of the garage and threw it into the bin. It hurt. I feel guilty about not being young enough to have a baby, but I know it's the best thing for me. It feels like a major decision or choice that has come and gone several times in my life has finally come to an end. Throwing the table out was hard.
Later on, when having the coming out conversation with a couple of my straight friends, one of them said to me, 'oh if you meet a younger woman maybe you could have children' and I agreed and said yes, maybe I could. Having children was once again an option for me as my life was going through dramatic change.
A couple of years after coming out I met one of my (now) partners. She is 10 years younger than me, and she was keen to have children or a child. When we first talked about having children or a child, I had explained to her that I didn't want to be the one to give birth, I felt too old already, I also said that was a bit of time limit on it for me because I didn't want to be too old. I did get to a point where I agreed and was excited about the idea of being a parent.
Over time we worked through how we wanted to get pregnant and many other things associated with being a parent. It is such an individual journey for any couple to make and for same sex couples so much more loaded than heterosexual couples (that is when a heterosexual couple are healthy and able to reproduce. Simply because we have so many more aspects to think about from conception through to legal 'stuff' and how we do family. There are so many more implications for us.
Trying to get pregnant is hard, it's got to be the most unromantic thing to go through, not to mention incredibly emotional. This is something so many people do not seem to understand. After a number of months of trying for various reasons we decided it was not what we wanted. Among other things, I felt like I was too old. I felt like I had run out of time. I have had peri menopausal changes happening to me for little while now and there are many days when I feel like crap and I decided that I just didn't have the energy to have a small human being dependent on me.
As we prepared to try to get pregnant I told my partner that I thought it was a bad idea to collect baby clothes or baby items, because if it didn't work then it would be so much harder for us to face piles of baby 'stuff'. But we did buy one thing. We bought a baby change table.
This weekend we hired a skip bin and have been having a big clean out, throwing stuff into the bin. I got the change table out of the garage and threw it into the bin. It hurt. I feel guilty about not being young enough to have a baby, but I know it's the best thing for me. It feels like a major decision or choice that has come and gone several times in my life has finally come to an end. Throwing the table out was hard.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-10 12:46 pm (UTC)