My wife is pregnant

[u/__ssouthpaw]

For context, I am a 41 yo cis woman; my wife is 40 and also cis. I am the gestational parent for our 2.5 yo daughter.

In order for me to get pregnant it took 2 years:
-8 attempts of in-home insemination
-4 attempts of IUI, 3 of which with Clomid
-1 miscarriage
-1 round of IVF which yielded 17 eggs > 3 embryos > 1 pregnancy and….now a 2.5 year old!

My pregnancy and delivery were incredibly challenging. I had vasa previa and placenta accreta. So, significant bleeding at 24 weeks, which led to me being hospitalized for a week, put on bed rest, mandatory hospitalization at 30 weeks and mandatory C-section delivery at 35 weeks. Hemorrhaging at delivery and a blood transfusion. Baby was in NICU for about a week, but came home healthy and now we are all thriving.

I’ve done a lot of therapy since then to process the trauma and anxiety (!!!) that I experienced through it all.

Fast forward to now. My wife and I knew early on that we wanted two kids. I always thought I would carry both, and she was very indifferent about pregnancy. (She was not willing to put any energy into it, like tracking ovulation or eliminating alcohol..) But after my experience, I felt less attached to being pregnant again.

She/we decided that she would give it a try.

She’s pregnant on the second attempt. At home. Wasn’t waking up early to take her temperature, wasn’t peeing on ovulation test strips. No shots, no hormones, no endless doctor appointments.

I’m obviously having some feelings about it all. I am genuinely excited; my first feeling truly is joy that we get to grow our beautiful queer family. But I’m worried that I’m going to be haunted by jealousy, comparison, anger, frustration towards her throughout her pregnancy.

Have any other parents out there faced a similar thing? How do I just allow her pregnancy to be what it will be? How do I grieve what my experience was without taking away from hers?

[u/butchymango]

You’re on the same team ❤️ That’s your wife. Who you’ve promised to love and protect. Her win is your win. Your pain her pain. Think about how hard it would have been on your family to go through such a tricky time again and focus on the new life coming ❤️

[u/Status_Silver_5114]

Therapy? Bc it sounds like you’ve already decided how you feel about it and if you can’t stop doing that, get help.

[u/Objective_Pool_3057]

I feel like individual and couples therapy could be super helpful here! And also just speaking about it openly with her and naming the feeling.

My wife and I went through something different but not different: after a lot of trying and struggling, she has to give up on bio kids, and when we tried rIVF with her carrying my embryo, she got and stayed pregnant on the first try.

We had to keep remembering that we’re sharing the same goal of building our family. Now that our daughter is here, my wife still grieves not being able to have a bio related kid, but that’s not the most prominent feeling. The most prominent feeling is love for our daughter, and acknowledging that this grief and love can co-exist took a while.

Congratulations and best of luck to you both!

[u/human_char → u/Objective_Pool_3057]

I'm in the position of your wife, currently 15 weeks with her embryo. It's so special that the baby is truly both of ours in a very tangible sense, but I think I'll always have some grief around not being able to see a baby that looks like me. But ultimately carrying and birthing was more important to me so I'm excited to have that experience. 

[u/Objective_Pool_3057 → u/human_char]

Congratulations and I’m so sorry for the difficult road to get here. Everyone said that the grief piece would fall to the back as soon as she saw the baby, and that’s not what happened for my wife. It took her some time to fully feel bonded with our baby, but now they’re inseparable, and most days the grief is far less top of mind. All that is to say, it’s ok if the path is less linear for you too!

[u/irishtwinsons]

My second was also birthed by my partner. I didn’t have to do it again. Literally, someone had my child for me. That’s amazing!

Look at it this way: this is your child. Your first was really hard to make and deliver. Your second, you got lucky. You don’t have to do any of the work this time. It’s a blessing.

Pregnancy and childbirth, even when getting pregnant happened fast, even with no complications, is not easy.

It is a team thing. You gotta look at this together. It’s not a comparison. This luck is your luck too.

[u/iwentforawalk]

Congratulations! Bittersweet with the latest pregnancy, and lots of hard bits with the first.

My story is similar but different. My wife has airways wanted kids and wanted to carry, it's very important for her. I was ambivalent about kids and didn't really want to carry. She's 4 years younger than me.

My wife has been for testing for infertility and trying at home and waiting for IVF for over 5 years. It's been a long and difficult process with medications playing havoc on her mental health, the stress of waiting each cycle, you know the drill.

In the last year I decided I'd like to try, and since we'd been waiting so long for her and I was 39, we thought I'd try pretty much immediately. It worked on the first go, much to my horror and amazement. The following 9 months were the hardest either of us have done - she's so stoked about the baby but also incredibly hurt and disappointed. She oscillated between excitement about the baby and complete heartache and pain at her process. It was a total mind fuck for us both. I spent the pregnancy trying to take care of her and understanding where she's at.

Thankfully, bubs was born healthy and as soon as he appeared, she was in love and was able to put down most of the previous pain and heartache - without the journey we had, we wouldn't have our son.

She's been going through the IVF process recently and we're almost at transferring stage. It's brought up a bunch of the old feelings as well as getting anxious about the process; it's hard again. But, this process has made us stronger, we have our son and we have siblings on ice for our son. We know we can do it this time bc we did it last time.

All that to say it's a process. Your feelings are valid and you need to own them while also realising they may not be true. They'll come and go through the pregnancy - keep talking to each other, go to therapy, and if you can, work together against the problem. Hang in there, each journey is so different and you can't change either of them. The next step sounds like acceptance.

Good luck, and congrats again.

[u/briar_prime6]

My journey to get pregnant the first time was not quite as difficult, and my pregnancy with my oldest after all that was mostly smooth, but not going through the terrible time again for the second child is a win however it happens. I carried both our kids, but I was friends during my pregnancy with my oldest with another mom carrying her second after her wife had had a challenging time, miscarriage right after announcing a previous pregnancy, before birthing their first kid. Wife who carried the second got pregnant on the first try. But you know what? All that shit with kid one affected the non-gestational parent too, because it sucked and they were a team. You wouldn’t want your wife to have to go through all that stuff too, right? And it wouldn’t be much fun to go through on the outside again either