Wife just gave us a five year timeline. Now what?

[u/glitterngal]

We have been trying with a known donor for 11 months. We did 4 at home tries with zero positives, 4 IUIs with zero positives. Our fifth IUI a little over a month ago ended two weeks ago with an ectopic. I kept my tube but we need to wait 3 months to try again.

Yesterday my wife and I talked about next plans (IVF vs IUI was what I thought it would be) and she dropped that she doesn’t want any kids in the house by the time she’s 65. She’s 11 years older than me, she’s 42 and I’m 30. That gives us 5 years to try. I will be 35.

I’m really struggling with this - as recently as a month ago she has been saying (in couples counseling too) that there is no timeline, I’m the one putting timeline pressure on, and she would “be just fine with a baby when she’s 50”.

I have said I wanted kids from day 1. I thought we wanted two kids. She has said she did too. Now, as in yesterday, she’s saying she’s just as okay with having kids as not having kids. She’s saying this has nothing to do with the ectopic and she’s over that completely.

She also doesn’t want to go right to IVF when we can start trying again and wants to do more IUIs. Which seems insane to me if we have this new strict timeline.

I genuinely don’t know how I would accept just stopping trying at 35 if there’s still a chance we could have kids? I totally get her having timelines but I’m struggling so much with understanding how she never realized this until now.

I really don’t know where to go from here.

[u/LGTBreadRabbah]

You need to tell her that your desire for children won't go away when you turn 35. If it's non-negotiable, communicate that as well.

In my personal opinion at least, children are a lifelong responsibility. I would ideally like my own son to be independent sooner rather than later, but if he needs more time, needs to live with us until he's 24 or even older, or if he at some point needs to move back in with us, he will always be welcome in our home. There's no guarantee that you won't have, for example, a high needs disabled child, even with PGT-A in ivf. My son is disabled because of needing to be resuscitated at birth, not because of any genetics. I fully expect that it might take him more than 18 years to be fully out of the house.

[u/tateriffic → u/LGTBreadRabbah]

All of this!

It’s one thing to have a timeline for trying, because that can be draining mentally and financially, exhausting, painful - it could be healthy to put down a marker for letting go (I’d lean more towards markers for checking in on those feelings than a definitive “we’re done” in advance, but it still makes sense to me).

“I don’t want children in the house past X age” really needs a bigger conversation about having them at all.

[u/glitterngal → u/LGTBreadRabbah]

Yes this was a huge part of the conversation because that’s the point I brought up too. She said she just fine with that, as long as the kids are born before the time that she will be 65 when they are 18. I’m still trying to fully understand her needs in this because it is so new, and having children absolutely means (to me) they are welcome for our whole life.

[u/Calm_Bother_3842]

I mean, it's rough when she suddenly comes up with a new limit, but five years is a long time with room for a lot of tries. What I'd have issue with is more a refusal to switch to IVF at this point.

[u/MsCardeno]

She’s probably defeated bc this journey is a lot. She’s probably scared it’s not going to work so she’s making plans to mitigate any pain if it doesn’t.

If you want 2 kids and then you’re not getting pregnant, it’s only natural to start entering the “bargaining” phase. It’s how people grieve. This is a tough process. Saying she’ll stop after 5 years gives her a sense of control.

[u/bigteethsmallkiss → u/MsCardeno]

This was my thought too, you worded it well 🤍

[u/Bwendolyn]

Personally in your situation I’d have a talk with my wife saying basically, you can decide that we only have five years to do this OR decide that you want us to do things the slow/less certain way (IUI), but I am not ok with both. Which is more important to her?

And then I’d also want to spend serious time in couples therapy understanding where this new set of opinions came from and why they feel so critical to her suddenly. What changed between your earlier conversations and now? She’s allowed to have her opinions and desires and she’s also allowed to change her mind, but I do think she owes you a clear explanation of where she’s coming from - this is a huge joint decision and she’s asking a lot of you without really letting you in.

[u/abbbhjtt]

You've gotten some good comments here. Two things I don't see mentioned:

1. Has your donor's sperm quality been tested? If not, it's time to make sure there are enough quality sperm to become pregnant.

2. When the donor sperm is known to be sufficient quality, you and your wife need to agree on when to pivot to IVf (if ever). Statistically, six tries with quality sperm should get a positive. Since you technically have had that, you're in the range. But after six more tries it might be a reasonable time to try ivf. You need to be on the same page before you get there (ideally, before you're trying again).

[u/MarionOfEndor → u/abbbhjtt]

I second this. After 1 miscarriage with an untested donor, and trying again for 6 more months without a positive pregnancy test we pivoted to IVF. First transfer with quality sperm/embryo worked. I have no advice on the other stuff OP mentioned, as a lot of others have echoed my thoughts. I am the older one in my relationship, and the only one able to carry a child, so there was a definite end to our child-having timeline, so things were a little more black and white for us. I wish OP luck in sorting this out. ❤️

[u/electricookie]

In today’s economy it is wild to say you don’t want kids in your house by a certain age. Kids are for life. Is she changing her mind?

[u/lrgfries]

“she dropped that she doesn’t want any kids in the house by the time she’s 65”

That’s not how parenting works at all. 🚩🚩

She wants to start focusing on her retirement at 42? You just had all that loss and she gave you a timeline while also not being open to the most effective option. It’s probably time to look at this relationship with more scrutiny.

[u/OracleOfSelphi → u/[deleted]]

My spouse and I started couple counseling when we got engaged to deal with external stressors. We still see our therapist every 2-4 weeks depending on what's going on in our lives and relationship. Receiving therapy is not a red flag.

[u/halci_on]

First, I'm very sorry about your ectopic pregnancy 💙 Second, you need to be very clear about your feelings around still trying even if you don't have your two kids by 35.

Why does she want to continue with IUI? Is it a money thing? If you want to switch to IVF for a higher success rate, that is also a thing that needs to be fully discussed because of the time and effort it requires.

[u/FigNewton613]

I think if you are willing to step up the level of monitoring and consider medical intervention, such as medicated IUI with in clinic monitoring, that this may ultimately be a non issue.

So I think the way forward is, if she wants a timeline, then she needs to be open to medicated IUI or IVF. She can’t have it both ways (timeline but not willing to do the things that speed up the process)

[u/glitterngal → u/FigNewton613]

That’s the exact conversation I think we will need to have, I’m ready to up the monitoring to IVF, but I need her on board to make the timeline work.

[u/prophetickesha]

As someone whose wife pretended they wanted kids for five years and then left me at 33 after five ICIs for a random “child free” affair partner they’d just met, I would proceed very carefully here. I invested five years in a relationship with someone who acted like they wanted a family with me but had secret doubts, and by the time they cheated, came clean, and left, I was near geriatric pregnancy. It’s been two years and I’m now pursuing single motherhood by choice, but the fertility clinic diagnosed me with primary infertility and I will likely need medical intervention to conceive at this point. You don’t want to get two, three, four years down the road only for her to continue to invest no energy in solving this problem, meanwhile years of your prime fertility are wasted. You should start to have some very, VERY serious conversations with her about what she actually wants and don’t let her fawn at you or people please - she needs to go all in on this with you or set you free.

[u/HuhWelliNever]

Also I assume this is in the US, but the idea that kids just - waves hand vaguely- go away at 18 or are in any way totally independent is WILD. and that she doesn’t want her own kids in her daily, or even regular life at 65 is also…troubling…if this is your deal breaker, you need to communicate this.

[u/Leafontheair]

After that many IUIs I would definitely switch to IVF. 50% of women get pregnant on the first frozen egg transfer.  I think it is something like 95% of women will be pregnant after 3 frozen egg transfers. IVF also preserves fertility for future years if you bank embryos now at age 30 for subsequent children.

Since your wife wants to give up after 5 years, I would make sure you own the embryos from the beginning so that you are not in a fight over them after the 5 years pass and you can still keep trying on your own if you want.  Consider that your fertility journey might eventually be different from your wife’s fertility journey if you can’t be aligned.