I wish I could have another baby AKA..Tubal Ligation Grief.

[Avonlea]

I chose to get my tubes tied because I really thought ( well, still think ) that it was the best option for me .

However, that does not change the fact that I am sad that I will never have another baby. My daughter is a toddler now, learning how to say a few words, running every where..no longer a little baby. My son is four, all arms and legs and busy from the moment he opens his eyes until he finally goes down for the night. Somedays i feel so overwhelmed by everything I have to care for..and so greatful for those brief moments of "me" time I recieve. I KNOW logically what another baby would mean.

I loathed being pregnant. I was sick about 85% with Emily and about 90% of the entire pregnancy with Paul. I felt like ten miles of bad road every day all day...heartburn, nasuea, severe morning sickness,,,etc etc etc...I never want to have anotehr c section as long as I live, and another baby would mean that for me. Then the recovery from the c section, and stitches inside and staples outside and weeks of being in pain and sore and tired and ..all of it. I know it all and I don't ever want to go back to that ever again.

But the fact that I am never going to bring home another downy headed sweet tiny person to raise and love and watch grow is killing me inside. I love being a Mother. I wish that it had worked out that I had normal healthy pregnancies and births..because I wanted always to have about 4 kids. And I am greatful for my two healthy beautiful babies every waking second of my life and try very hard to keep these emotions from everyone around me because I htink they don't really want to hear it .

My husband is happy with the number of kid we have. he doesn't want anymore..2 is perfect to him..but I just wish that I could have one more...



About 3 weks ago i held a cousins tiny new baby, and I cried in front of everyone . I felt emberrassed and stupid. One of the other female relatives said" Oh, I see it is time for another baby for you and Joe!" And I stood there with tears pouring down my face and said " No, I can't have any more babies, I had my tubes tied." It felt like a knife cut through me when I said that..just a jagged tearing pain. No more babies. never again. Never.

I want another baby. I know how silly that is, it will never occur and i need to just let go and get over it..but it just won't stop. I think about it often. I saw that program about that family with 14 kids and I was SOO jealous of her. I am so jealous secretly of women on this board who have 4 or 5 or 6 kids. I envy them from the tip of my toes to the top of my head.i will never have that. And I WANT it... I want the house fullof kids, I want the noise and commotion and business. I want to watch my kids grow and be ther for them and I want so much to just have a huge family of children..which will never occur. It just won't. And it hurts.

My sons has been saying to me on and off again that I need to have another baby, a Boy baby this time, so he can have a brother..and It HURTS me to my core..badly enought hat I finally saiud somtheint to him about it. He is 4 years old. He doesn't know any better but I had to say soemthing and told him he was hurting Mommas feelings by asking for another baby when Momma cannot have one. I knew I should just let it go but I just couldn't. It hurt too much.


My sister and my cousin are both having a baby in the next few months and I am so glad that I live as far away from them as I do, I think if I had to be aorund them with their new babies it would kill me a little bit more inside. I know I should be happy for them,. and I am. i have sent them tons of my kdis outgrown clothes and toys and so on, and bought them the Sears books and what ever else I could think of that was essential to have wioth a baby...but I am still glad I won't be around when teh babies re born. I don't know if I oculd keep it togethor well enough.



I hope against hope that somehow , out of the blue, despite the tubal , that I will become pregnant. I know my doctor did a very thorough job of severing the tubes and burning them off and etc..she told me so afterwards when i asked...and I was SO glad at the time..but now I wish she had not been so thorough..I wish she was a sloppier Dr. than I know she is..


I want another baby, I know I will never have another one, and it hurts. I have to grieve over htis lone.I don't want to talk about it with my Mom, and I know what my husband thinks already. Most people say to me " hey, you have 2 perfectly beautiful kids...be greatful for them ! '...and Believe me, I AM !!! but in my mind there is a blank place where there should have been another child and he/she is not here with us, and I feel terrible.

Plus..when I say that, I sound like my Mom who still talks about how she would have liked to have had 4 kids and only had 3 and even though she is pre-menopausal talks about how she hopes she is pregnant because her periods are irregualr...and she had her tubes tied as well. I do not want to sound like that !!!!! But..yet..I do, and thats sad and scary as well.




Somedays are easier than others..but the last few weeks have been hard. Holding that baby was one of the most painful things I have done in a long time.




If this does not stop, or abate , or something, I don't know what I am going to do. I am trying to make peace with it, to come to terms with my choice.,..but you know what , it sucks right now. I still feel that urge from deep with in myself that I must become pregnant again and bear another baby. I still have a hard time when I hear small babies cry in the store. It hits me deep inside..alwasy had..always will evidently..I cannot help but react. I want to adopt another baby in a couple of years and I know my husband does not.



Is there something wrong with me? Do other women go through this? How in the hell do you get past this feeling, these thoughts? How do you fill that void ? What do you do? What is the first step?


I am just so tired of it already..my daughter is getting older and I am scared that this is just going to get worse over time. I don't want to be pining over what I couldn't have 10 years from now !!!!!


So many things....I just wish I process it all into some neat little package , drop it off, and move on.

[savannah smiles]

I'm sorry you're so torn over the issue of another baby. Sometimes the choices that make the most sense logically, make the least sense emotionally. I have one dd who just turned 3 and the older she gets, the less my heart screams at me to have another baby. Maybe as your dd gets older, the feelings will abate or become more managable. My heart goes out to you.

[Avonlea]

Actually, as my daughter has gotten older, it has gotten worse. When she was first born I was very happy with my decision to have the tubal. It was about the time she turned maybe 9 months old that I started to have the first twinges of feeling like I wanted another. Now that she is 15 months old it has intesified seriously.


I did not go through this after my son was born. In fact I had not planned to have another child or try to even get pregnant until my son was potty trained and in pre-school. Then I got strep and was on the mini-pill& anti-biotics at the same time..... and Voila, Emily !


I was actually very angry while pregnant with her..mostly out of fear. I had a terrible birth with Paul. Then I was very ill afterwards and ther were a lot of things that happened that scared me badly. I did not have much interest in sex for over a year simply because I was so petrified of ever becoming pregnant again. It wasn't until my son was about 2 that I finally had a moment when I felt like it was ok to become interested in sex and enjoy it without that constant " what if " fear running through my mind.


I was happy that she was born healthy and safe and beautiful. I was glad to have her because I do love babies...just not the being pregnant aspect of becoing a Mother. I envy those women who have uneventful healthy pregnancies..because that was not me and I will tell you that a bad pregnancy feels as if you have lost almost an entire year of your life to being ill. Then the recovery time and first few months of the babys life are another trip into a big time warp that it takes a lonnnngg time to escape from !


I am just having a rough patch right now , I guess.

[Katana]

I'm sorry you have to go through this. My heart is sad for you.

My advice would be, to let yourself greive. Greive as much as you want that you cannot have any more children biologically, even if it is in private. Making yourself think that you shouldn't want any more or that you shouldn't feel bad about wanting more is only going to make you want more, in my experience. Give yourself as much time as you need. If it takes years, let it. It's okay.

Of course you are thankful that you have your two beautiful, healthy children. But that doesn't mean you can't want more. I've never understood people who say things like, you have your boy and your girl, why would you want more? Or you had such a difficult pregnancy/labor, why would you do it again?

If you have a desire for something, it's there. Don't feel bad about it being there.

[Ruth]

I am soo sorry about your loss. You have every right to feel sad and grieve and cry in front of as many people as you want to. Nobody should tell you you shouldn't be sad.

It looks like you are sad about many things, including never being pregnant again or never giving birth again.

But, there is a way to have 11 or 13 or whatever number of children in your home without giving birth. There is no need to grieve for that. In my state, there are 1,700 children waiting for parents. That is just the number in the state system, there are countless others in other organizations (charities, orphanages, churches.) Please please consider being a foster or adoptive mom. If you love a house full of children and it sounds like you would be a great mommy, you would be perfect. I have one biological child and am 43 years old and I may never have another (just cause of age), but I will always have little ones in my life by fostering these beautiful beings.

People say, "well it is so hard to let go, how can you do it?" I say it is harder to think that this one that I hold all day and sleep with all night would be in an orphanage with no one to wear it around in sling all day. People also say, "well these kids are troubled and they are too hard to deal with." The ones that I have have been angels despite what they have gone through. Sure, you could end up with a tough one, but I have been REALLY LUCKY and even my crack babies didn't give me any trouble at all.

So, again I am sorry that you feel so sad about never being pregnant and about never giving birth again and about never having another biological child. But please consider being a foster home if you want a home full of beautiful happy loving children. I don't regret it for one second.

[NightOwl]

Well, I don't know exactly how you feel because I'm just now expecting my first, but I know my mom went through the same feelings you're having. She had two kids, me and then my brother who is now 16. She had her tubes tied not too long after she had my brother. She did it because she could barely afford to raise us and she was a single mother. And over the years she often said she wished she could have one more. She was saying that until I told her that I'm pregnant. Now, she's thrilled that she'll be a grandmother. And she was saying that now in a way she's glad she didn't have another because now she can enjoy being a grandmother and she's almost done raising her own kids.

So, I guess my point is...it's not the end of babies for you. You'll be a grandma one day. (I know, that's a long way off for you!) But I just thought my mom's story might help. She's found peace with not having another child.

[srain]

My husband had a vasectomy, and then our youngest died. Like you, my pregnancies were awful; we had even discussed the possibility of a child's death before the vasectomy, and I couldn't imagine putting my body through pregnancy again regardless. Well, of course things changed. My mourning was intense enough to lead my poor husband to a vasectomy reversal (a rather difficult and extremely expensive procedure that involved 7 hours of surgery), and it was definitely the right decision for us, even though we had to work double hours for a year to afford it. I started in the same place you are in- feeling despondent at our inability to have other children- but then realized that it WAS possible with a lot of other sacrifices.

Tubal reversals are much less likely to be successful, I realize. If the statistics aren't good enough for you, you might seriously consider IVF and (especially given your pregnancy history) adoption. Financially, yes, it's hell, but you may decide it's worth it. I just don't want you to stay where I was (hopeless) when you don't have to.