I was told by my doctor this morning that my chance of having my own kids was "not likely". How can I accept this?

Get a second opinion. Seriously. What did she say is “wrong” with you?

Support groups can be extremely helpful in these cases. I am so so sorry. Let yourself grieve. Then start exploring options.

Not likely does not equal “definitely not”.
Keep your chin up and try not to let it get you down.. stress and depression will actually hinder your ability to conceive… even if there is a small chance there is still a chance.

Adopt.
In vitro.
Clone.

Not likely is not the same as impossible. One of my good friends had a football sized cyst removed from her uterus. The doctor informed her she’d have a one in a million chance of becoming pregnant again (they’d already had a daughter, followed by years of infertility).

Less than one year later she was pregnant with twins. They wanted 5 children, they have 3. They never gave up hope.

@BeyondLost May hope spring eternal for you!

Talk to adopting couples and IVF parents. My twins were donor-egg IVF. It hasn’t made the slightest bit of difference, and I know because my first two kids were born the conventional way. Don’t worry, be happy.

Please don’t knock adoption. You may think that it’s not the same, but my mother has six kids. Three of us are adopted and three of us are biological. Really and truly, it is the same. (Hell, MINUS the whole annoying pregnancy thing!) I promise you would love an adopted child exactly the same as one you conceived and carried yourself. Just something to think about…

@fireinthepriory i agree. I’ve always wanted to adopt. I have one son, and infertility. My SIL has no fertility issues, 5 natural plus adopted twins. Our love for them is no different.

After 19 years of marriage and no children born, I understand your thinking, but DO NOT SAY that Adoption is not the same. 14 years later I am loving life as a mom! When they came to us they were 3 & 7, and it was the best. Walking, talking and potty trained.

Ous sons may not have come from my body, but they are OUR Children!

Some women are put on this earth to create children for those of us that have never been blessed with having our own. Adoption is a beautiful choice regardless of the age of the child. Every child deserves a family that wants them and loves them.

as @SpatzieLover stated, there is a difference between not likely and impossible, Second opinion is a must in your case.

@RedPowerLady There is some scarring from a recent infection, and a weird reaction to birth control.

@fireinthepriory I know I’d love an adopted child just as much, but it’s something about having a child come from my SO and I that I really want.

If you are “still young” like you said, then advances in fertility science may make your doctors diagnosis obsolete. Don’t stress yourself over this to much at this point. She didn’t say “impossible.”
Let yourself feel these feelings of grief and despair, then get positive. make a point of living as healthy as you can to give your body every chance of someday having a child.
I have heard many stories about people getting pregnant when they were told it was “unlikley.”

@BeyondLost You are young. With the advances modern medicine is making, you might be able to grow a new uterus in 10yrs. HOPE!

I feel like a jerk about the adoption issue now. =/

Heck, my own mother’s doctor told her I was a large tumor growing rapidly and needing removal. The doc’s had told her for years she was sterile. She got a phone call prior to her scheduled “tumor” removal surgery that the blood test revealed a mis-diagnosis…she was approximately 5mos pregnant at the time.

@SpatzieLover ; no one can beat THAT story!!

@BeyondLost Don’t feel like a jerk – it’s not for us to say that you wanting a biological child isn’t ok. It is ok! I just wanted you to know that if you were to adopt, you wouldn’t be missing out on being a parent, and you would love them the same. Some people really think they won’t!

If you have viable ova and your SO has viable sperm you can have your own biological infant. I don’t know enough about your condition to say if you can have a pregnancy, but it would sure as hell be your baby.

I agree with the others about getting a second opinion. My husband was told that it was unlikely for him to father children when he was about your age. We have three children now. There may be hope for you.

@Judi Yes, I am a tumor ;o)

Thanks, guys.
I’ll give myself a while, and then get a second opinion.
<3

@BeyondLost No matter what: You and your s/o can still have fun trying once the time is right!

@SpatzieLover My mom thought I was menopause! But a tumor is way more impressive!

Speaking as a kid with an adopted father – yeah, it’s the same. He loves me as much as he loves his three biological children, and vice versa.

Biology is overrated.

@tedibear39 My mom actually thought she was pregnant and said so to her doc. He said it was “impossible” even though all of her malfunctioning organs were intact. I know a few menopause babes myself ;) You were the little surprise then, huh?

@SpatzieLover Yup. I was even at my oldest sister’s wedding, just in utero. And nobody knew at that point, not even mom.

@tedibear39 You sneaky little wedding crasher!

If a GYN told you this and you have not seen a Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) yet, then you have not been told by a specialist. RE’s make babies for people who have fertility trouble not gynocologists. Did you have an HSG yet? To see if your tubes are open?

Don’t feel bad about wanting your own baby, I have not taken the step to adopt and I have fertility problem also. It has been difficult for me to let go of the idea of not having a our baby. I completely believe that genetics don’t matter, love does, but I still want my baby.

@JLeslie sorry, but ” I completely believe that genetics don’t matter, love does, but I still want my baby.” are two contradictory statements. If you actually believed that, you would know that genetics does not make a baby “mine”.

@BeyondLost don’t feel like a “jerk” as you said about adoption. Many are afraid of it and scared of “what they might get”

There are tons of kids from 0–17 who would kill to have a wonderful home with parents. My boys tell me daily they are happy that we adopted them. Niether of them are the least bit embarassed about it.

However, it does make for tough conversation when you’re in a group of women discussing labor and delivery. I tell them, Oh mine was easy, they were walking and talking and potty trained and laugh” If someone in the group knows I’m an adoptive mom they smile, everyone else laughs and the conversation continues. I’m then off the hook. By no means am I embarassed, I am proud, but sometimes it’s just not the right situation to say it.
Over time, you’ll understand and embrace the cards that are dealt you in life.

@MrItty It is contradictory, I know that. There is all sorts of emotion that come with being infertile. It is not only the baby itself, but the seeming injustice of not being able to have my own child…it’s a bunch of crap rolled into one that has little to do with logic and a lot to do with sadness and loss.

My sister teases me all of the time that my father is probably not my father. I was an artificial insemination baby and she jokes that I am probably the doctors daughter. If I found out tomorrow it was true it would not matter to me. It is not the genetics.

@JLeslie I just wish you would stop referring to your biological child as “my own child”. It’s insulting. It implies that my father and I are somehow “less” in your eyes than any other father and son. My father is “my own” father. And I am his son. The fact that it wasn’t his genetic material that contributed to my creation is 100% irrelevant.

@MrItty Upon realizing that my mom has some adopted and some biological kids, many people will ask her “Oh! How many of them are your own?” She always answers “Well, they’re all my own!” I don’t know how she manages to answer that question with a smile on her face every time, but she has more patience for that than I do. People who aren’t in the adoptive community often don’t understand how insulting that phrase is… :(

@fireinthepriory I wish I could give lurve to your mother!

@MrItty I said I think of my father as my father whether he is genetically mine or not. It is about my ability as a woman to have children and the dreams you picture with your husband. I don’t want to be hurtful. I use my just to signify biological children.

I agree with @fireinthepriory adopted children are just as much the children of parents as biological ones. People can be stupid when they ask questions, not realizing the impact. People ask me all of the time why my husand and I don’t have kids. Sometimes they get the truth, “well we have fertility problems, I have been pregnant 5 times but they ended in miscarriage or were ectopics.” Now what the hell do they want to say to that? Some people might be asking your mom because they wonder how many babies she actually birthed because in society today people are amazed women give birth to a lot of kids just from the physical reality of it. They may not be implying at all that some of the children are not really her children.

@JLeslie I’m not saying you’re trying to be hurtful. I understand you’re using the word “my” as a synonym for “biological”. I’m asking you to stop doing so, as that practice is an insult.

@JLeslie I know that people don’t mean to be implying that some of us are not really my mother’s kids, but it’s still hurtful. @MrItty and I are saying that we have a problem with the convention of using “my” as a distinction between biological and adopted children (as he just said, before I managed to hit Answer!).

I think that all matters of fertility should not be topics for polite conversation! It’s just as rude to ask you why you don’t have children. People should think before they ask things like that.

Edited to add: @MrItty, my mom would certainly give you a whole lotta lurve back! :)

@MrItty ok. I understand your point and I take it seriously.

I do want to point out though that people who decide not to adopt when they are not able to have a biological child feel attacked sometimes. Like we have made the wrong decision. We feel judged. To me it is irrelevant if someone is adopted or not, but for me I just have not taken the steps to adopt and it is upsetting when people try to seemingly talk me into it. I am not saying you or anyone here is trying to do that. All I am saying is, especially when you first find out you have fertility problems it can feel like people are ignoring your own feelings of loss and sadness. I would guess that is why the OP wrote:
I really don’t want to hear about how I’m still young.. It’s not like I wanted kids now, but in the future, definitely. I also don’t want to hear about adopting.. It’s an option.. but it’s not the same.

I was told pretty much the same thing when I was younger, I’m nearly 25 now and although I am not currently actively ‘trying’ I’m also not taking precautions with my partner, it hasn’t happened as yet but we are taking the ‘if it’s meant to be’ approach. Never give up hope, it sounds cheesy but a positive approach can do wonders for your physical health. Just try not to dwell on it too much and live your life, these things have a way of happening when you least expect them to. And if all else fails there is adoption, I agree that it’s not the same but if you see it as a chance to make someones life better, and be the wonderful parent that I’m sure you will be, then it could be a very rewarding thing for you to do later on. Just try not to let the ifs and buts take over your life.

Before anyone gets cross about the ‘if all else fails there is adoption’ statement, I say that because, here at least, adoption is a long and difficult process, which can border on the impossible for some people, and should not be entered into lightly. My best friend can’t have a child with her partner because of medical problems, and they started down the adoption route, and discovered that they also cant adopt because of his medical problems, so for some people it can be just as heartbreaking. I wasn’t having a dig at adoption or calling it a last resort. To clarify.

@BeyondLost We support you! This is difficult news for anyone to hear, and you may be feeling like you’ve hit a wall. Your reactions are totally acceptable, but don’t give up now. As is evident in the thread, parenthood (biological or otherwise) is a wonderful miracle and often doesn’t occur just like we planned. Hang in there, and give it some time.

@MrItty While I understand (and agree with) why you consider the use of (and perpetuation of that use) that personal pronoun offensive, I would like to bring up another side of the issue. Unless you are a woman with fertility issues, you can never fully empathize with one. Never being able to experience the product of your biological union develop inside of you is an incomprehensible loss. While a parent may feel for or think of an adopted child no differently, there is a difference between biological and adopted children, neither good nor bad, which must be acknowledged. Rationally, this in no way devalues or is inherently offensive to adopted children or their family members, it’s just true. As our language is limited, “my” is the very general (and very loaded) expression of that difference. To me, @JLeslie‘s statement is not contradictory, but more psychologically complicated than English can express.

I would definitely get a second opinion, don’t take one doctors’ word for it.
And as for adopting, I know that it would not be your child, created from you and your SO. But think of it differently, you would be making a huge difference in a child’s life, and the love you would feel for that child would be no different than if you had given life to the child yourself. It is hard to accept if it is a certain thing, but that should not stop you from giving your love to a child that needs it. Don’t focus on the negative, think of the positives that could come from this, that will leave you in a much better frame of mind.
But as @zephyr826 said, We support you!

@BeyondLost – First off, most of this has probably been said, but I’m not going to read all of it, I’m just going to give you my reaction to it.

First off, you have every right to be upset, angry, depressed, whatever about this. It’s not good news.

Second, you are not wrong for feeling that adoption for you is “not the same.” Yes, adoption is a GREAT thing, and I applaud anyone who has ever adopted a child. And I don’t think there is such a thing as a diminished capacity to care for a child who is not your own flesh and blood. But I do agree, there is something about having a child who is part you and part the person you love the most in the world. There is a special element to the parent-child bond (not a special bond in and of itself) that comes from being a blood relation. It doesn’t relegate the adoptive parent/adopted child relationship to a lesser status, and it is something that might or might not become of greater appeal to you depending on what the future holds, but no one has to be too sensitive about you saying that “for YOU” it’s not the same, because it’s not the same for YOU…for some it may be, people may not like that, but they should accept and respect that and realize that you are 18, and in 5 years, 10 years, 15 years and 20 years (spoken as a person who is 38 and has been all of these ages), you will be a different person in many ways at each step in your life. You simply can not predict that in x years this might still not be a viable option in your view, and whether it is or isn’t, you know how you feel now and you have every right to have those feelings.

So the first thing I think you need to realize in dealing with it is the positive part to all this is that you are not on the precipice of making this decision….you have time. To be quite honest, no matter how you feel today, for any number of reasons that we can’t predict (as we humans can’t see the future), you might not even BE with your current SO when you decide you want kids (as cold an unthinkable as that may sound, it’s the truth even if you can’t bring yourself to acknowledge it). But assuming at some point in your life you are ready and your desire is to have a child that is half you, half whomever you are with (whether that be your current SO or someone else), that is when this will become important. In the interim, you have time.

The first thing to do with this time is to see some other doctors, for both second opinions and advice on other options. Doctors can be wrong (and are more often than we might like to admit). Of course, there are no guarantees, but you need to really understand what makes it unlikely that you’ll ever be pregnant, do some research, see what other women who have the same problem you do have done, and get it quantified….how unlikely? 10%, 30%? What are we talking here. And if there is ANY chance, what can be done to increase that chance (if anything). But remember, unlikely is not the same as impossible.

So, while you’re thinking about ways to make the unlikely less unlikely, you can also prepare for the eventuality that unlikely becomes impossible…what then? Well if your eggs are viable, certainly a surrogate is a possibility. Maybe knowing now is an advantage…save every penny you can now in case some day you decide to go that expensive route, then you aren’t in a position where you want to but can’t afford it, and worst case scenario, you get pregnant and can spend the money on something else.

Bottom line though is there’s no reason to live your life depressed about the bad things that might happen. Take each day as it comes, plan for the worst and work towards the best and some day all your desires will be fulfilled. Just remember that fulfillment may not look like what you envision it will look like, so don’t box yourself into a specific path as you will doom yourself to being disappointed…we can never exactly predict what the future will bring. Could even bring medical advances that fix the problem before you even decide you’re ready.

No matter what though, good luck in whatever the future brings you.

@dalepetrie You are awesome.

@JLeslie – yeah, I know. J/K, thanks!

My Mom was told that after her second child, she would have no more. I am her third child, my sister is her fourth. Sure, that was over 40 years ago, but many times doctors will say one thing only to have somethign else come true. It simply depends upon each individual.

My wife, however, was told she could never have kids. She came close once, had an embryo form OUTSIDE the F tube. It was removed during the procedure to remove an infected ovary. Closest I’ve come to being a Dad.