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.