I think this has been among the most difficult parts of infertility and choosing a childfree life for me. It’s probably inevitable that paths diverge when such big life outcomes differ among close friends, and people do share their grief around that. But there seems to be something deeper for me about how grief has changed me and how I see many of my relationships now, and that’s something I don’t see spoken about as often. Like the loss of friendships is only one part of the grief. It is also the way grief has changed me, and what I now see in relationships that I previously have accommodated, explained away, and worked harder to maintain.
Grief seems to have also changed the capacity for what I can carry. The smoothing over, people pleasing, the making-myself-comfortable-with-something-that-actually-hurts-so-that-nobody-else-has-to-feel-uncomfortable. I also now find I can’t overlook emotional avoidance or inconsistency in relationships around me. So many social conventions just seem hollow.
I’ve also realised that trauma and grief can reveal the underlying dynamics of friendships - like what happens when I can't be as available, as cheerful, as accommodating, or as easy to relate to as I once was?
This is all such a new, different sort of grief for me, and I’m trying to be with it all and not become closed off, but it’s so painful and lonely at times - no matter how increasingly grateful I am for my childfree life.
I suppose I’m glad I’m becoming more myself around people, even if that means fewer friendships.

Apologies for the perhaps directionless ramble… I’ve just started blogging and my thoughts are everywhere. Hope someone can relate. 🙏🏻

Hi, everyone. I'm new to this community, and I apologize for the long rant in advance.

I'm trying to get back to my old, pre-infertility life, and things just feel a bit colorless. It doesn't help that loved ones think they're comforting us by saying "you have plenty of time for it to happen, just be patient", because I'm only 29 and they don't understand that doesn't matter in our situation.

My husband and I are still working on being at peace with being childless, and we know we'll be happy as long as we're together, but we spent so long pouring so much of ourselves into treatments and researching, that sometimes it feels like a huge portion of our lives and personalities became just about pursuing that. The house we moved into because of the good school district, our financial choices, the jobs we picked specifically because they'd work well with parenthood. Even our hobbies have mostly been happening to the soundtrack of fertility podcasts in the last couple of years.

I find myself uninterested in or lacking patience for the things that used to be my entertainment. Books, crafts, Olympic weightlifting, even spending time with friends and loved ones. I feel so selfish, but just wanna burrow with my self-pity with the one person that understands it by my side, but that's not really sustainable for me, and I don't want to end up depressed forever.

I think I need a plan on how to re-develop a personality outside of TTC. Did you feel that way too? How did you start finding joy in non-parenting-related things again? What are some of the things you love doing now?

A little backstory, my husband and I tried for 3.5 years to have a baby. I was only able to get pregnant once with the help of medication and that pregnancy ended in a loss. We decided to stop trying at end of this summer and shift our focus to other areas of our life, after spending the last 3.5 years in a constant what-if and disappointment. I still feel good about our decision, but I still get triggered when I see pregnancy announcements along the lines of the baby being unexpected or something along the lines of God knew they needed that baby. It just brings up hurt feelings and resentment. Has anyone else experienced similar feelings and does it lessen with time?

I bought a box of Christmas cards when we were first married, but didn't send them because I thought I'd wait until the next year when we had a pregnancy announcement or baby photo to send with them. But we've been married 10 years now and that never happened!

We became ifchildfree last year and this year I'm finally ready to send the cards, just signed by my husband and I (and maybe our cats). I actually feel really good about it. I love getting Christmas cards in the mail from our family and friends (although we've never sent them back) and I'm really excited to participate this year.

The "big card company" is having a bogo sale on boxed Christmas cards and I ordered some for next year and the year after. I'm just so happy to be in a place where I can celebrate Christmas traditions for the first time with my husband as the family that we already are.

It's the weekend! How's everyone doing? What are you up to? Use this thread as a place to chat through the weekend about anything off-topic.

The scene in Steel Magnolias when Sally Field is at the cemetery and she starts says she’s “fine” over and over again.

I remember the first time I saw that, I was young. The first movie I cried watching.

That scene illustrates the way I have felt about being IFchildfree. The intensity, the deep emotions, the absolute confusion and not being able to let it out. I sobbed when I watched it again on Netflix tonight.

I’ve lost people in my life. I’ve felt grief. This grief we share in this Reddit group, it’s something else.

Thinking of everyone of you ❤️‍🩹🥰

I know that you learn to carry it along the way of making new memories in life, but it’s something that even after accepting it for myself, I will always have the feelings of when I get older and all the missed emotions, experiences, expansion of my heart, pregnancy, delivery, etc.

It’s a silent storm, sometimes the waves like the tides are high and sometimes they are low. 🌊

I did find comfort in Dolly Partons participation in the movie, as she knew as a human, the feeling we feel.

I was gentle with myself for the first year or so after stopping IVF, but now I’m more than two years out, and I still have zero motivation to “push” myself. For example, I will never have enough money to retire and know that searching for a [MUCH] higher-paying job would be smart, but I simply do not care.

Part of me thinks this is a normal reaction to living the first 41 years of my life doing everything “right” and finding out that none of it even mattered. None of it gave me the love, security, or fulfilled dreams I desperately needed, so maybe in the back of my mind, I’m just thinking, why try?

But somehow it feels like there’s something else going on. I know it sounds like depression, which I 100% have, but I’ve been medicated and in therapy for years, and I really don’t think that’s the problem. Can anyone else relate? Does anyone have a suggestion? I feel guilty for being “lazy” even though I know that’s not what’s happening, and I have zero drive to set any new goals.

I feel really discouraged and I don’t know how to fix this.

Hi all . My husband and I are coming up on a year since we stopped everything and I have been having a really really hard time. I have always wanted to get a dog but my worry is the puppy stage will be triggering . We have the time , work from home etc . Anyone have any advice?

I hope I am able to articulate my thoughts well. Like many, I was raised in a community where being a mother was seen as a woman’s primary goal, and basically the main way women could derive worth. I also wanted kids for my own reasons, but my life didn’t go that way.

On top of the personal grief at wanting the experience of parenthood and not having it, I have also been surprised at my difficulty to feel like my life has meaning or worth.

I have a job in academia—which I really enjoy—but I find myself feeling like I should do something more “impressive,” either financially or artistically because I somehow need to justify (to the world or myself) my value. it feels like I somehow need to apologize or fill the “void” of not having kids.

I don’t want to feel this pressure. I don’t want to feel like I have something to prove.

How have those of you with similar experiences derived worth or meaning outside of parenthood?

Hi everyone! First, a couple quick updates to posting guidelines for the subreddit-

-Crossposting from other subreddits is now disabled. Reddit recently started suggesting that users crosspost to subreddits it thinks a post would fit well in. This is not a good feature for a niche subreddit like this one, and has generally resulted in crossposts that don't belong here. Disabling it should not impact the community. 

-Images in posts are now disabled. We get a lot of posts from karma-farming bots that are image-only. We very rarely have image posts from actual community members, so this solves that problem without affecting the community. 

Second topic- there's been some thinking and mod discussion about the subreddit taking a more expansive approach the to the definition of infertility, to include social infertility and infertility due to other medical issues. Something we've noticed is that folks in these groups sometimes talk about their infertility and childlessness as a temporary status. We want to clarify- if you are posting or commenting in this subreddit, the expectation is that you have made the choice to be childfree, no matter the circumstances that brought you to this point. No hypothetical future pregnancies, no "I have been told I can't get pregnant but we'll see what happens," no "If I meet the right person soon I might be able to make it happen." 

Appropriate to participate here-  "I'm making a choice that this is what my life is going to be like and therefore belong in this subreddit." This can apply across the whole spectrum of infertility experiences. 

Not appropriate to participate here- "This is the subreddit that most closely applies to me right now, but I hope things might change." 

This subreddit can't be everything for everyone, and we are not going to turn this space into a general infertility or childlessness subreddit. We hope everyone can appreciate why we moderate this space so strictly- we believe that people who are childfree after infertility deserve a space that just belongs to us. 

Please feel free to send modmail if you have any questions!

Edited to add - please know that if you post in this subreddit, we can see your post and comment history even if you have it hidden from general view. Don't lie to the mods about belonging in this subreddit :)

I went in for early voting today (USA). The guy in charge of telling you to submit your ballot into the machine told me to wait after he handed me my "i voted!" sticker, rummaged around in a box, then turned around with four "future voter" stickers and said me "you'll probably be needing these soon 😊". I made it to the car but ive been crying ever since.

I just wanted to tell someone other than my partner. I hope everyone's day went better than mine.

I went through fertility treatments at the same time as a friend. We both had a rough go of it and I decided to stop while she went through many more embryo transfers. We shared a lot of the ups and downs of the process and were a real source of support to one another. She recently got pregnant and I am thrilled for her.

This weekend I found out a different friend of mine got pregnant after three months of trying at age 41. Of course I was very excited when she told me and genuinely feel happy for her. Still, it brought up some grief for me. I texted my other friend who understands the whole fertility thing and said that I was feeling grief after hearing my friend’s news about getting pregnant so quickly. No response. I texted her two days later and asked if she was ok, and she responded “so exciting! your friend will be a great mom!” Then she said “I’m not the person to tell that you’re sad about someone having a baby, especially now that I’m pregnant.”

Ouch. How quickly people forget what it’s like to experience infertility once they get pregnant.

I’ve posted here before about dealing with grief, sadness etc following the end of our “journey” to have a child, and you all were so sympathetic, kind and wise. (Thank you!) In response to these types of posts there is always someone who says something along the lines of “it gets better” and of course I wanted that to be true, but on some level I always doubted it because my grief felt so endless and all consuming and unpredictable.

This weekend I saw some old friends I haven’t seem in years, and three brought their babies. I felt a little bit of sadness and wistfulness but compared to how I usually feel I was really ok. Even reflecting afterwards I was surprised by how ok I was feeling. Not numb, not in denial, still not ecstatic about how things worked out for me, but really ok. I am so grateful. I know it might feel different next time and my grief will likely continue to be unpredictable, but honestly it was like a reprieve, a welcome surprise, to not feel devastated/depressed etc.

I just wanted to share it in case there is someone else really deep in the dark pit right now, who feels like things will never feel lighter or more manageable. You don’t have to do anything differently, you don’t have to force yourself to feel better. One day, when you’re not expecting it, things won’t feel quite as painful as you’re expecting, and the breath you’re able to take will feel like the sweetest victory. Hang in there.

It's the weekend! How's everyone doing? What are you up to? Use this thread as a place to chat through the weekend about anything off-topic.

Hey everyone! I read on here quite a bit and finally decided to make a post. I am married and everyone around me (family included) is either married with kids or single. I still socialize with those that have kids but am quite tired of having quite literally no one who gets what me and my husband are going through. I’ve noticed moms that I am around have this attitude of “you think that’s hard? try being a mom” and it’s quite frustrating. I have to try not to be bitter towards these people because I do love them all but I have realized that IF is one of those things that people don’t want to be there for you for. I think it makes them uncomfortable? And before I say this I want to preface by saying mothers are amazing and make incredible sacrifices daily. But sometimes it’s hard not to feel like they will try and “out-victim” me. Like infertility is no biggie and their lives are SO much harder. And I’m not saying they are or aren’t. It’s just more so the lack of support and empathy I guess. I was having a conversation recently with one of my friends who has children, and I was telling her about how it’s very difficult to meet people who are going through what I am and her response was “yea how do you think I feel” and this made me kinda pissed ngl and I told her “you can walk down the street and see multiple people who are also moms” and this led into a whole discussion and her saying she knows multiple people who are going through what I am or have been through it. (I highly doubt that) and not to mention “have been through it” THIS ISNT PAST TENSE FOR ME I DONT WANNA HEAR “when it’s ur time sweetheart don’t stress🥰” ANYMORE🫠 she also made it a point to mention that EVERYTHING she did before she had kids was meaningless which honestly frustrated me so much because it feels like it’s implying that my life in meaningless bc I am childfree EDIT: I am not trying for kids/going through any treatment due to medical reasons. When I say “what I am currently going through” I am referring to being chilldfree after infertility which can still honestly be hard sometimes. That’s a big reason too why I feel as though I don’t find anyone in my situation bc most still are trying/ had a baby. but yea I think that’s my rant lol

I might get absolutely dragged for this, but I need to know if anyone else feels the same way…. My Social media has been FLOODED with pregnancy loss posts today.

Candles, angel babies, tributes, the whole thing. And what really gets me is that every single person I’ve seen posting these things has living children. Not one person I’ve seen post has gone through IVF and come out the other side childless (I know this, confirmed)

Before anyone comes for me, I am NOT questioning anyone’s loss. I understand that a miscarriage is devastating whether you have zero children or five. I experienced one myself.

But I cannot wrap my head around the difference in our realities.

You get to grieve your loss while still having beautiful children to hold, raise, and tuck into bed every night. I spent YEARS going through IVF, putting my body, marriage, and mental health through hell, only to walk away with absolutely NOTHING. No baby. No motherhood. No happy ending.

And I’m sorry, but that is just not the same experience.

Maybe this makes me bitter, but I find some of these public displays of grief performative and attention-seeking. And being tagged in one of these posts by someone who knows my history genuinely sent me over the edge. Yeah I was tagged in a photo of a candle… ????

I’m not asking anyone to stop grieving. I’m not saying their babies didn’t matter. I’m saying that there is a very specific, isolating kind of grief that comes from infertility treatments failing and having no living children at the end of it.

You can grieve the child you lost while still experiencing motherhood. I’m grieving the child I lost AND the motherhood I never got to experience.

… I had no where to vent. this got me so upset. 😭

Sunday was Children's Day in the country where I live, and it's pretty common for people here to post childhood photos and things like that during the week leading up to it. This year, the trend was to post an AI-generated picture of your child self standing next to your adult self, with both versions looking at each other affectionately, giving each other a high five, and so on.

So, on Friday at work, a coworker of mine (who knows nothing about my infertility journey) was making these pictures for everyone. He asked me to send him a childhood photo of myself and any recent photo of me as an adult. Honestly, it never even crossed my mind at the time what this might bring up for me emotionally. Anyway, he made it and sent it to me. The little girl in the picture didn't look exactly like me, but she looked so much like me that it felt like a photo of me with my imaginary four-year-old daughter. And seeing it was just surreal.

I'd never actually pictured what my future daughter or son might look like. But that image felt SO REAL. It was literally my little girl, with a face that looked so much like mine. I even started imagining her with her dad's eyes. The way we were looking at each other so affectionately, holding each other... I can't even describe what I felt when I saw that picture. I have never seen a child as beautiful and sweet as my imaginary little girl. And it ended up making me feel absolutely awful. I've been thinking about it for days now. I deleted the picture, but I can still remember the two of us together and her little face. It really reopened a wound that had finally started to feel a little less raw... sorry I just needed to get this off my chest...

J'ai envie de couper les ponts avec ma tante, mais ca me fait de la peine,

pour le contexte : elle a un fils de 34 ans, et il vit avec elle, pas motivé pour travailler ou faire quoi que ce soit de sa vie, ma tante regrette de l'avoir eu, et elle est locataire de son appartement !

Et puis il y a moi, qui travaille, emploi stable, et j'ai acheté une maison avec mon homme, et je profite de la vie sans enfants après des années d'infertilité!

Je remarque qu'a chaque fois que je côtoie ma tante, elle me lance une pique sur ce que je n'aurais jamais, par exemple une fois fois elle est venue chez moi, le fils du voisin faisait une crise , ma tante se tourne vers moi et me dit "il pleure, il t'appelle maman" en plaisantant, sauf que je n'ai pas trouvé cela drôle ! elle m'avait aussi traité d'égoïste car je n'ai pas souhaité faire des examens médicaux pour l'infertilité !

je pense avoir atteint le point de non retour hier, j'ai appelé pour prendre des nouvelles, sachant qu'elle n'est pas en forme en ce moment, elle m'a dit ' je pensais que tu avais une bonne nouvelle à me dire", et elle m'a aussi dit "il te faudrait un héritier" auquel je lui ai répondu que je fais les choses pour moi, et quand je serais morte je me fiche de ce que deviendra mes affaires, vu que je serais morte ! je vis dans un pays ou les gens se soucient beaucoup de transmettre un héritage à quelqu'un quand ils mourront!

je vais donc arrêter de l'appeler, cette relation me coute ma santé mentale !

I posted here before about how to be happy for others and feeling guilty for the negative feelings. Despite the great comments and learning some self-compassion from that thread, I’m now in a situation where I was asked to be a godmother for a relative’s baby. And I feel like the biggest asshole that I’m just not overjoyed that they asked. I really don’t know what to do. My partner also invalidates all my feelings by saying I’m just jealous. I guess I am, or a part of me is, but it just feels awful he would say that.

I had to have an ultrasound last week due to possible fibroids.

In the lead up to the appointment it never once crossed my mind that I would find the experience upsetting in any way. The last time I had an ultrasound for anything was when I was 16 and had appendicitis.

But when I looked up at the screen and was met face to face with the image of my own (empty, obviously) uterus, honestly I lost it. I couldn't react in the moment and had to go straight to work after, but it's been a week and I can't get that picture out of my head, and suddenly today I can't stop crying.

I've never cared about any of those little "milestone" things that people talk about, sonograms, photos, baby showers, whatever. What I wanted was to be a mom.

It's just so unfair.

A good friend of mine is pregnant right now, and it hurts so much to know the difference between her most recent ultrasound and mine.

I don't know why this affected me so viscerally. It's the last thing I ever thought would make me upset. I guess it's the weight of yet another experience "everyone" gets to have, that I never will.

Long-time lurker, finally able to post.

I won't get into my infertility creds but will say that like a lot of people here, way too much of my mental energy was taken up over the past 4 years with IVF. I'm one of those people who has a constant background hum reminding me of what I need to do that day, that week, that month, just cycling through them so I don't forget.

Now, a huge part of my mental landscape is just gone.

I'll be focusing on something and then suddenly my subconscious will get to that part of its ritual and it's like a gut punch all over again.

Given that things were looking very bleak for a long time, I was hoping that when the last negative test came I would feel lighter. I've been floored by how breathtakingly painful the finality has been. I know this is going to sound really melodramatic but there's a familiarity to this grief: learning that someone has died that maybe you didn't know super well, but they were young and you thought they'd always be there. That's the feeling my subconscious is pushing on me, to where it's trying to remember who died, until my conscious brain takes over.

I know this feeling will fade (and of course sneak back up from time to time). In the mean time trying to hold it together as I prep for a company offsite this coming week.

It's the weekend! How's everyone doing? What are you up to? Use this thread as a place to chat through the weekend about anything off-topic.

this piece gave me hope — don’t worry there’s no miracle baby at the end

Ugh. For a long time, people weren't asking, because I guess it was obvious by our lifestyle that we didn't. But we're in our 50s now, so we could theoretically have adult kids, and so I find I'm getting the question again. Which kicks up feelings I thought I had dealt with so long ago....

Content warning: this is a positive post including discussion about being happy in my marriage post-IF, a topic I know some in our community would want to avoid.

On with the post…

A lot of “fence-sitting” content is coming across my feed at the moment, and while I rarely weigh in, I feel like we have such an interesting message to give that community.

Not that the idea that one can simply “choose” to have kids is sometimes an illusion.

But more that there is no right answer.

I was never a fence-sitter. I 100% wanted kids. There was never any question. If my husband told me when we first got together that he didn’t want kids, I wouldn’t have married him (and probably vice versa).

And yet here I am - living pretty happily and contentedly in the life I didn’t choose. Thrilled to have this marriage we both envisaged would look different. Fully believing that my life isn’t better than it would have been with kids, nor is it worse - it’s just different.

I don’t think hearing stories like ours could and should materially change the amount of thought fence-sitters put into their decision. But it might reduce some of the agony that comes from desperately searching for “the right answer”. There rarely is a “right answer” for the paths we take in life - there are just consequences and lots of issues and joys we could never foresee.

I don’t really have anyone in my life to share this thought with, so I am sharing it with you! Does this resonate with anyone? Have you ever had a chat with a fence-sitter about your not-by-choice happy-enough ending?