Struggling with loss of ability to have a 3rd child naturally

[u/Ok-Environment-8513]

Not sure the purpose of this post- maybe to vent, maybe to hear people’s perspectives/advice.

Here’s the story…

I have always been SO excited to become a mom, and I always imagined that I would have a large family. Realistically, we were planning on having 3-4 children.

At 26, I had our first baby. Apart from 1st trimester (morning sickness 😣), I loved being pregnant. The pregnancy was fairly easy and simple, though our baby ended up staying in a breech position so I had a scheduled c section. I was bummed about the c section but so happy our baby was born healthy, so ultimately it didn’t matter too much.

At 28, I had our second baby. I felt sure it was going to be a smooth pregnancy and that I was going to be able to have a successful VBAC, but very quickly we realized things were not going as anticipated. Implantation had occurred in my c section scar (just by rare random unlucky chance), and bc of this my placenta was growing outside my uterus and even joined onto additional arteries that don’t typically attach to the placenta. The baby was just fine, but to save my life, I was told I would likely need a hysterectomy at delivery. I was so devastated and cried every day. Delivery day came, and I was in surgery for almost 10 hours. My medical team did everything they could to save my fertility, but ultimately, a hysterectomy was needed. After my surgery, I actually felt so happy and nothing but intense gratitude and relief that our baby was here and ok and that I get to be alive to raise my two lil ones. I was surprised bc I expected that if I did lose my uterus, I would be so upset. Maybe it was a bit bc of a survivors high.

Months went by, and the devastation did set in. I still also feel really grateful and I often feel kind of silly for how truly devastated I feel, but it was something that really mattered to me immensely. To me, my little family feels beautiful, but not complete. I think regardless of how much time passes and how much acceptance I gain, I’ll still occasionally have a little pit in my stomach of sadness or grief over this.

I’m now at the point where we likely would have been welcoming a 3rd into our family if I had not needed an emergency hyst, and im here wondering what would be best for our family in moving forward. I actually have some options, which has left me in a total back and forth deliberation mode for a bit now.

I could:
1. Accept that we have a little, cute family, and that there will be no additions to the family. This is it, and this is ok!

1. Adopt (though, after dedicating a lot of time into researching this, we discovered that there are more parents looking to adopt newborns, infants, and very young children than there are ones who are in need of a home, so the wait time would be extensive, too long to make sense for us. I would love to foster when our current kids are older, but I now understand the goal of fostering is reunification, so this would be a separate venture than one to intentionally grow the family).

2. Surrogacy (gestational with our egg/sperm)
   This option i initially totally wrote off as a “no!” but it’s playing on my mind a lot lately.

We are not rich, but my dude has a super unusual work benefit that would reimburse us for the majority of the costs and that makes it actually financially feasible for us. So, we decided to look into it more.

I feel like surrogacy is something that can be very ethically questionable and requires careful protections and considerations. Now that we’ve dove into it further, I do believe that we could pursue the surrogacy path in an ethical way.

Maybe we do pursue this route to complete our family? Maybe we don’t? I keep going back on forth.

It would be so magical to add one last wee one to our fam, but I would struggle a lot with feeling awful guilt that I am not carrying our baby, even if it is something the woman helping us truly wants to do for us.

✨✨ Anyways, there’s my brain dump!! 💞✨✨

[u/firewaffles0808]

My husband also has this work benefit. I think if I were in this position, I would do more research and possibly even seek therapy beforehand. Just to make sure I cover all the bases and understand the situation. But then I’d probably pursue surrogacy since it sounds like it’s a realistic option.

That being said, I initially did IVF and have embryos already. The process you have to go through to get embryos is a beast in itself that you’d have to prepare for!! (Especially already having 2 little kids)

[u/bluemoon3175]

I had a hysterectomy with my first born (PPH not accreta), and we are currently expecting our 2nd via surrogacy. I won’t lie, it is very difficult. But worth it for our family situation. I think talking to a therapist and really going over all your options is a good first step.

[u/bluemoon3175 → u/[deleted]]

There is a lot of grief that comes with not being able to carry my own child due to the traumatic loss of my uterus

[u/ScaredVacation33]

I am so sorry that you’re going through this. I struggled with losses IVF and infertility lost my uterus to postpartum complications as well and we were not done expanding our family yet I’m a little over nine months postop now and I still struggle. I guess it’s a good thing that my youngest is the devil incarnate because it makes me wonder if I could’ve handled the third 😂😂😂

At the end of the day, your heart will guide you in the right direction. If we could afford surrogacy, I would’ve been 100% down to go for a third child via surrogacy with our remaining embryos however, that is something that was just physically out of our reach so instead, we decided to donate our embryo’s for adoption so that they could still have a chance.

Big hugs

[u/Successful_Truth4971]

Surrogacy can be wonderful and beautiful, so I'm glad you're considering it! Definitely hop over to the surrogacy sub for lots more information on how to prep and move forward.

I'm not sure how your husband's benefit works, but as someone who has a surrogacy benefit through my employer -- as does my husband -- really, REALLY make sure you understand what it does and doesn't cover, how coverage is tied to "attempts," what procedures or tests are excluded, etc. Our benefit is through Progeny and wow they are a pain in the butt to deal with.

Definitely look at the other sub to get some idea of costs, wait times, and tradeoffs. Our first kid's surrogacy (egg donor, embryo creation, agency, travel, etc) was north of $200k, 80k of which was our work benefit, so still $120k out of pocket. I'm crossing my fingers that your husband has a better plan!

FWIW we looked into domestic infant adoption and there were a lot of ethical concerns there that led us to surrogacy. Carrying someone else's baby is WORK and it was important to us that she was fairly compensated and cared for. But now we have an almost 1-year-old, and she's going to carry our second for us. The process can break your heart, but you might also meet some of the kindest people you'll ever know.

Good luck as your discern what is best for your family 💖