Hello. This is my story and I am hoping to find some support and hoping that some here might be able to relate to my situation and without judgement.
Is anyone here in a relationship where the issues of having difficulties to conceive lies with one partner due to their chronic illness?
I have been with my fiancé for 4 years and he has end stage renal failure and is now doing dialysis treatment 3 times a week. He has been doing haemodialysis for almost 2 years now. I was 34 and him 36 when we met and for the first 2 years of our relationship we had our freedom, had normality, no dialysis. Things were great and they were the best two years of our lives and I knew he was my forever one. We got engaged and made plans for the future, including having a family.
In 2016 he was suddenly told by his consultant that he will need to start dialysis and life for us is now so very different to what we planned and wanted it to be. I didn't cope very well with the changes at first, the loss of freedom to do what we wanted. It felt like our future plans were all shattered, especially with having a family. I was in absolute despair about it and I sank into a deep depression.
I am now 38 and still no children as fiancé has such a low sperm count and our chances of conceiving naturally are practically zero. He has had 2 semen analysis done, both very low results. We have explored IVF but it's not affordable for us and doubt they will accept my fiance due to his condition. I love him with all my heart and there is no one else in this world that I want to marry and have a future with, have children with, but he is on the transplant list and who knows how long he will be waiting to get a transplant.
Words cannot describe how much i love this man, and i made a choice to stand by him and support him through his illness, however, I thought i had come through that really dark phase of frustrations and sadness and every other emotion that comes with this situation... and for a while i thought i had found some acceptance that if I want to be with this man then I'm never going to have normality or children. But I don't think I have fully grieved and accepted it at all. I really crave normality and being able to do the things that couples in love tend to do in life... but mainly, I am struggling to accept that I will never be a Mother whilst I'm in this relationship.
Recently, I have had all the tests done which results have all been fine, plus I have been pregnant before years ago when i was younger, though i was not in a loving or functional relationship at the time so I did not take that pregnancy to term, which reflecting on now, I look back on whether I had made the right choice, finding myself in the situation I am in now. Could that now have been my only chance gone.
I just feel so utterly torn between my relationship and my decreasing fertility... I've recently turned 38 and i can't wait much longer if I'm going to have kids. I am in absolute turmoil about this. Should I stay because I do love him and want him, but then should I leave to give myself the best possible chance of motherhood and meeting someone else? However, of course, there is no guarantee that I will meet a suitable someone else anyway. But what if...
Childless future?
I'm new here :) and from Fife, Scotland.
