Partner not ready yet

Preparing For Your Next Pregnancy
1

Hello all,

We’re currently a year and six months on from our ectopic experience, with us both having counselling sessions.

The milestone for me was getting past the ‘due date’ afterwhich since early this year I feel like I am ready to try again. However unfortunately my partner doesn’t feel like it’s the right time yet.

I am very much trying to understand the experience from my partner’s perspective and how he must be feeling. He doesn’t really like to express his deep down thoughts.

I’m starting to feel even more frustrated at the situation (not him) as I feel like we’re running out of time as I’m 30 soon and my endometriosis is building up again. And with only one fallopian tube I feel like the odds are against us! (They believe the ectopic was caused by surgery to reduce the endo & increase fertility, which led to adhesions)

I was wondering if anyone else has been through a similar situation of feeling ready ahead of your partner or even your partner feeling ready before you? How did you cope with it? What was the outcome and how did you both arrive at your decision?

Sorry to ask such personal questions, I’m hoping that your views can help me with trying to cope with the situation. Thank you x

2

Hi HSB88,

Thank you for sharing your question, and I’m so sorry that you are going through all of this. Ectopic pregnancies present us with both physical and emotional traumas, requiring us to heal and recover in multiple ways. Unfortunately, there is no clear or average timeframe for recovery, especially the emotional side. These boards are filled with stories of women and men working to see the path forward, and for so many of us, it is only little by little.

It’s very good that you have sought counseling. I couldn’t tell from your post whether the counseling was individual or couple. Keeping lines of communication open with your partner are so important. You have important concerns and he may be processing things in different ways. Couples counseling might help facilitate some of this communication. As well, writing down your thoughts in a journal could be beneficial in getting them on to paper, and when it feels appropriate, for sharing with one another.

While I am not a medical doctor and have limited information on your history, I can say the egg from tubeless side can be picked up by other Fallopian tube, and that means that fertility is not halved with having a Fallopian tube removed. Conservative estimates suggest that an egg produced on the tubeless side manages to descend the remaining tube around 15 to 20% of the time. This means that rather than your fertility being halved it has been affected by around 30% or, looking at it another way, it means we have around a 70% opportunity of conception with each menstrual (period) cycle.

I too had the challenge of trying to express my feelings on ttc wth my partner, in my case, we were the opposite way around. He wanted to try and I was hesitant. I can say that is was time and communication that helped me to try again. I wasn’t easy, and honestly, it still isn’t. I had to suspend my disbelief and fear and try again (twice it didn’t work, the third time it did).

With kind regards,

Michele

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Further information is available at http://www.ectopic.org.uk

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Hi Michele,

Thank you so much for replying, I really appreciate it. That’s very good news that all went well the third time, congratulations x

Thank you for your kind words. We had separate counselling, and I am trying to persuade my partner to have a few ‘couple’ sessions as I do think it would help us. I would like to fully understand how he feels about what has happened and the future. I’m lucky that when I try & express how I’m feeling my partner does listen.

I’m also writing it all down in a journal, I hope this helps me, I just need to be patient and go with the flow xx