I’m 49 with four children, but am distraught that I can’t have more

DEAR BEL I’M WRITING In utter despair. I am 49, have a fairly caring and supportive partner (our tenyear relationship is difficult at times), four bright, healthy children — three living with me, one to move out soon.

I had the two youngest with my current partner.

This feeling of utter hopelessness started a year ago when I faced the fact I couldn’t have any more children.

I’d put off having a third child with my partner because of work commitments, but the dream was always there.

With the devastating realisation that it can never be, I’ve gone into a complete decline: can hardly get up or feed the children.

I avoid contact with friends and family as I’m so miserable.

I feel terrible because my despair is affecting my children (the youngest is five), who’ve become lethargic and lost their outgoing natures.

I have thoughts of ending it all, but can’t because of the grief and pain it would cause my family. I’m constantly going to the doctor but just get given antidepressants that don’t make any difference.

I’ve been to a counsellor but, again, it doesn’t help me get any better.

I’m surrounded by pregnant women and families with lots of young children and feel so jealous and bitter when I see them.

I’ve considered IVF, as maybe another child could cure this pain, but would have to use donor eggs and worry my friends would lose respect for me. Also, I am too old — and how would I bond with a donor-egg baby?

I’m totally convinced a fifth child would give me the perfect family and happiness with my partner. My life is now ruined as I missed that golden opportunity.

I try to rationalise that I’m lucky to have four healthy children and a good partner, but can’t let go of the despair that’s destroying me and my family. Please give me advice.

ANITA

Can you guess my first response to your letter? Yes, it was to throw it across the room in sheer disbelief and frustration. Immediately, unstoppable images flooded my mind’s eye — and flooded my eyes, too. Snapshots …

after 16 hours of truly terrible labour I am told my second son is stillborn.

afterwards, in a state of acute grief, it doesn’t occur to me to blame anybody or think I’m entitled to another baby. But an unplanned baby does come along, born with congenital defects which necessitate many years of operations.

During that time I meet (in Great Ormond Street and Bristol Children’s Hospital) mothers and fathers of children who are terminally ill, and weep with them, giving thanks my poor wee daughter is alive.

Then I become involved with the setting up of the national Child Death Helpline (0800 282 986 or 0808 800 6019) and meet many parents in London and Liverpool whose precious children have died, but who turn their grief into caring by training to answer the phones.

and I tell you, I will take to my grave the sorrowful voices of two friends whose day-old babies died in their arms . . .

Oh, I must stop there. But can you see why your letter made me so angry? Have you any idea what real grief is like — as opposed to this self-indulgent ‘despair’ at imaginary deprivation?

You say you ‘try to rationalise’ your luck at having given birth to four ‘healthy children’. Well, lady, I don’t think you are trying hard enough. You are a middle-aged woman, blessed with a lovely family, who is allowing this neurotic need for a fifth child to damage ( by her own admission) the children she has. You feel ‘jealous and bitter’ at the sight of other women with large families — when you have one yourself!

Some readers might think this cause for pity, but I feel you should be ashamed. Even if I do have some compassion for your foolishness and your unhappiness, I feel even more sorry for your neglected children.

The GP is at a loss and prescribes antidepressants; counselling doesn’t ‘help me get any better’. So (given that I would have suggested both of those), what can be done?

If you are genuinely depressed you should continue exploration through counselling and get a second opinion, too. But this will help only if you want it to. I also believe you and your partner need couple counselling with Relate.

MaYBE you need to give yourself a mental whack and visualise your f our children lying dead in a natural disaster or in a coach crash. and after that truly shocking thought, ask yourself some tough questions.

For example, is your obsession an excuse to stop you examining your complicated relationship and trying to make it better?

Is this fantasy of ‘the perfect family’ a diversion f rom the mundane business of mothering two children under ten who need clean knickers and meals on the table?

Do you want to be pregnant because you like the attention?

Since your first family is older, are you terrified of middle age? are you using this delusion (that you can have another baby) like people use drugs, to fill a void inside — the emptiness not so much in your womb as in your soul?

These are important issues. I hope, for the sake of your children, that you will examine them honestly, seek help, be strong and take back your life. Your real life.