DS & DIL struggling with IVF

I had two children by IVF and then a third conceived naturally. I always said I’d give my left hand to have a baby. My plan B was too adopt.
Just be supportive and sympathetic, which I’m sure you are.

Having experienced 2 unsuccessful rounds of IVF I feel your DIL and DS's pain. It's a very difficult process to go through with many, many hurdles to cross for each round of treatment.

We chose to tell only 2 very supportive friends because many people who have never experience fertility issues can be judgemental which only adds to the pain. We deliberately didn't tell MIL because we had already heard her bitch about 'selfish' childless couples and infertile couples who should 'just adopt' as if it was as easy as buying a new car.

If you haven't been in this situation, you haven't a clue about the emotions it brings with it. OP you sound supportive of your DS and DIL, please don't suggest adoption or alternative therapies including relaxing. Believe me, they will have explored every avenue and considered all the options.

Just listen and be kind.

Thank you all so very much for sharing your thoughts. I can't advise them - of course, whatever they do is their choice and theirs alone - but it's so hard to know what to say. "I'm so sorry, what sad news" is so inadequate.

They knew an inter-cultural marriage would have its challenges. Socially it is difficult. DIL was bullied out of a very good job as her boss wouldn't accept that she had married a western man. Her family are wonderful and live very nearby, she lost her mother when she was very small her father, stepmother and brother love my son unconditionally and do all they can to embrace and support them, but they can't fix this. I have met DIL only a few times, they come over here every 2-3 years (I can't afford to go there), she is a delight and I absolutely adore her, but I don't know her in the way her family know my son. She speaks almost no English so he translates everything, it does inhibit conversation even without the strain of such a difficult and emotional subject.

My elder DD asked if they'd considered surrogacy and apparently DS was furious. I don't know whether he would be allowed to adopt there anyway, but I'm sure they won't consider it yet. I can't imagine the toll it is taking on DIL's body but as long as the clinics will allow it I imagine they will keep trying. I even wonder whether the clinics are hostile to him as he is foreign. I can't say that, though.

I don't understand how it can feel to have the all-consuming desperation for a child, but then I've never had to worry about it. Infertility probably isn't something anyone can empathise with unless they have personal experience.

Your kind thoughts are really very much appreciated, thank you all.

The desperation of wanting to have a baby is totally different to anything else.
Soon after we married, back in the early sixties, my husband was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. For first few years this had little effect on him, but he was told by a Consultant that it was unlikely that he would ever be able to father a child.
I was so desperately unhappy, particularly as time went on and friends and relatives all started their families. It was a horrible few years, and when I found myself actually crossing a very busy main road just to avoid going past a shop selling prams and cots, I knew I had to to something about it.
Somehow it made it slightly easier to actually tell people that we COULD NOT have children (this was long before IVF), and I started a 'mature' students teachers training course.
Before I had completed the first year I was pregnant, did not enjoy pregnancy one little bit - I was so overwhelmed with worries about this baby - feeling it was my one and only chance. He was born healthy and will be 51 years old in a couple of months time. I then went on to have three further easy pregnancies, the final one resulting in twins,. And then we fostered babies. Even with all these children it was years before I did not have that horrible jump of envy in my stomach whenever anyone told me they were pregnant.
Nobody who has not been through this can really understand, and some of the stories on here have moved me to tears.
Twiglet77 - nothing you can really do or say can help. But, do not just ignore it and leave it as the elephant in the room. Your son may wish to unload his feelings, and his concern for his much loved wife as well as his own feelings of being deprived of something that so many people take for granted,.
DO not know about the men, but as a young woman I did feel that I was a failure in not being able to become pregnant - no amount of logic can take that away.
My DiL decided that she did not want children, so she and son are childless, They are (or appear to be) extremely happy with their lives - but then, of course, she never went through that desperation of wanting.....etc...
Do hope that there is a good ending, whatever it is.

While I agree with most of jaylucys advice, please please don’t mention this to anyone struggling with fertility

I have lost count of the couples that decided to step off the roundabout that fell pregnant naturally ( 1 couple had adopted, several others were going through the process of adoption and one couple even took off on a round world trip!) So there may still be hope.

It’s extremely hurtful, and in most cases patently untrue.

Summerlove

While I agree with most of jaylucys advice, please please don’t mention this to anyone struggling with fertility

I have lost count of the couples that decided to step off the roundabout that fell pregnant naturally ( 1 couple had adopted, several others were going through the process of adoption and one couple even took off on a round world trip!) So there may still be hope.

It’s extremely hurtful, and in most cases patently untrue.

I agree, Summerlove

This gets said so often and in reality very few people stop IVF and then go on to conceive naturally

I have to say, as an adopted person, all the people saying

“If they can’t, they can just adopt”

As though adopting is a second best booby prize, I hope you don’t speak like that around your (adopted) grandchildren. It’s very othering and certainly comes across as though we are second best!

As is said so often here, words matter. Please think about how you are using yours.

People should only adopt if they have a true calling to adopt. Not just “because we can’t have natural children”. Adoptees don’t exist to fill a need.

Thanks Summerlove

Iam64

Thanks Summerlove

You’re welcome.

Twiglett, have no worries about how he'll be treated. I had a range of medical treatment in China and they were unfailingly lovely. In my experience of the Chinese, these live foreigners. A refreshing attitude after the British attitude towards immigrants.

Again, I'm so grateful for all your thoughts. I will be talking to DS on Facetime this weekend. I know all I can do is sympathise and offer a listening ear. I remember my late mother's brutal tendency to say what she was thinking, honesty being the best policy in her mind, and I am so anxious not to blurt out something that would be incredibly hurtful and inappropriate.

I won't say, don't worry, they can't stop worrying. I won't say, it doesn't matter, because right now it matters very much, to them. I have thought, but won't say, is there a reason for everything? No, I don't buy that. And we are not religious (neither are DIL's family) so I'm not putting it in the hands of some imagined higher power. I have thought, but won't say, perhaps it's for the best, perhaps the repeated failure of implanted embryos to stay put indicates there would be problems down the line if the pregnancy did continue - a later miscarriage would surely be more devastating than a failed implantation. Of course I won't use the word 'fail' - the procedure might have failed but the last thing I want is for DS and DIL to feel that either one of them is failing. I can't think of anything they WOULD like me to say, other than that I love them no matter what. But love doesn't make it better.

Gagajo thank you for mentioning your experience with medical treatment, it's reassuring. DS has had minor surgery once or twice there without problems, but he has commented on a perception that you might be expected to 'pay under table', and that's an uncomfortable thought. Generally he has not encountered hostility at all and he loves the country, only DIL's former employer was very vocally and unpleasantly opposed to her involvement with a foreigner and that did shock them both. He is polite, respectful and kind, not given to rubbing people up the wrong way, so I will discount that nagging question.

I suspect that most, if not all of the people not agreeing with IVF have been lucky enough to have their own children so it is easy to say, "Learn to live with it." Actually living with infertility is much more difficult.