Thank you! 😊

I checked and I think it is only for the Netherlands (https://www.meerdangewenst.nl/category/oproepjes/oproepen-wensouders). I am not sure what country you are from, but I hope that there is something similar. I do not think that this is unique for the Netherlands probably.

Thank you. I really hope you do find another couple or woman who you can have children with. I have seen it work very well in practice. I think my uncles went on a website that matches people and there was some process a bit similar to dating on beforehand when they tried to find a match. However, in the end, of was a friend that was interested.

She wanted to have children, but did not have a partner. She also wanted to make sure the children had a father, so this was a good solution for her as well. Now they even have two fathers!

I hope you can find a solution like this or surrogacy. I think that everyone that is capable of taking care of a child and who wants it should be able to have one. I think it is one of the most fundamental experiences you can have in life. Good luck!

The problem has likely to do with the quality of my egg cells. They are not certain about this, but it is the most likely explanation. This means that surrogacy would not solve that problem. An egg cell donation might. However, in my country it is quite difficult to have access to that. There are large sperms banks, but not large banks for egg cells. So, we would need to find someone in our environment to donate an egg cell to me.

Are you a male or female couple (biologically I mean for making the child)? What happens here is that there are some women who do not have a partner, but still want a child. They often get a child together with a male gay couple and they raise the child with the three of them. I think government is even working on it to be possible for a child to have three parents legally. This is how my uncles got their twins. I am not sure whether this works the same with female couples. I see them often at the fertility treatment center, so I believe that they probably use the sperm bank.

In my country adoption from other countries is impossible as there have been several cases in which children were taken away from the parents illegally. They cannot check for that informing countries, so now adoption is not allowed anymore. Adoption within my country also is almost impossible. It is believed that children are best off with the biological parents. If they cannot live there, everything is focused on creating better circumstances so they can go back. The goal for children who cannot live at home is always to go back to the biological parents, so adoption almost never happens.

There is foster care and in soms cases children are in foster care for a very long time. Although the idea is still to get them back with the biological parents once the situation is safe, in practice that might not happen. You can just never be certain about that. However, I was abused by my parents and I got CPTSD from that. While my psychologist believes I would be able to be a foster mom, maybe even better because my experiences allow me to understand these children better, it is a really big obstacle to becoming one. The foster care organisations in general believe that if you have trauma in your past that you are not well-suited to take care of a child. They already told me it is not impossible for me to be a foster mom, but not to count on it because of the CPTSD.

Yes, that helps for me too! I have the cutest nephew who I see once a week and sometimes he sleeps over. In some cases it hurts, because it feels very empty when he leaves, but overall I am very happy to have at least him.

Thank you! It is good to know what others have been doing and how they have been dealing with it. Adoption in my country is not possible, unfortunately. I am probably not allowed to be a foster mom, as I have CPTSD. They are extremely strict with that here. Although there might be a very small chance that they will accept me if I can get a letter from my psychologist that I am stable and if I do well on all the tests. I am not counting on it though.

Maybe traveling or something like that would be nice sometime in the future. It is good to hear that they are still happy. That gives a bit of hope.

I would love to have kids. It seems like my biggest wish in the world. People keep telling me that having children was the most beautiful thing that happened to them. Still no baby after 9 fertility treatments, only a couple of miscarriages. I am 40 now and I have almost no time left. I feel broken by Al the treatments. Lost my work. Adoption is impossible in my country.

I would love to know how other people learn to live with this feeling.

Little girl blue, the version of Janis Joplin. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yYHJ_A8qnXw

I just wanted to say that I think it is probably difficult to have a disorder that is stigmatised so much. It makes it harder to acknowledge it and work on it. You do that anyway, which shows strength. I agree that disorders do not make someone a bad person. How you act and what is the effect on others is what is important for that. We all make mistakes. What is important is to acknowledge them and learn from them and to prioritise the needs of people we might have hurt so that they can heal. I think that defines whether someone is a good person, whether they have NPD or not.

Dank je wel! :-)

Dank je wel voor het lieve bericht! Ik ga soms naar de kinderboerderij, dat is volgens mij een beetje hetzelfde. Meestal probeer ik mijn neefje ofzo mee te nemen, maar soms ga ik ook gewoon. Dat is eigenlijk een beetje hetzelfde. :-)

Thank you for the kind message. It is good to hear that it is possible to have it great even after a miscarriage. I have had two miscarriages and two biochemical pregnancies. I did not really have time tomprocess this yet, as I had to continue treatment as my fertility is further declining due to my age. I think that might be part of the emotions as well.

It is difficult for me to not wager my personal happiness on it. I have a small nephew and when I take care of him, it just makes me very happy. It makes me feel like I would be as happy or even happier with my own child. Also, I was abused as a child and I feel that I did not have parents that really loved me. It feel unfair that I am not able to experience the mother/child bond from the perspectives of a child as well as that of a motger.

I also tried to take care of my younger siblings when I was a child. I was able to provide them with some of the emotional support my parents failed to provide, but because I was too young myself I always felt like I was not able to give them what they need. I am an adult now and I feel like I am capable now of providing children with a safe and warm environment. And I feel like I have all this love to give, but there is no child to give it to. I do not know where to put it.

I don’t know. Having a child will not fix all of this and a child does not exist to fix this or to make me happy. However, it could have been an area of my life that could have been beautiful and where I might have been able to give something and be valuable. And instead, this also does not work out and is another thing that goes on the pile of things that have failed in my life.

I agree that staking my life’s success on it is not a good idea. But I am not sure what else I have left. I am trying to become a writer and I am writing down all my experiences from my youth and with my sister who passed away and my fertility treatments, and so on. Maybe it can help some people who experience the same things. I think that might be fulfilling maybe and a way to create something positive out of the things that feel negative now.

Sad and empty. I love kids. I had fertility treatments for years, but that did not work out. I will start IVF again in a couple of days. Hopefully it will work this time. It is one of my last chances.

I would like to adopt or have foster kids. However, I suffer from PTSD and in my country it is very difficult to adopt or foster if you have a background with mental illness. Even though my psychologist and the people in my environment all say that they think I would be able to do it and my partner does not have any mental illness, my chances are very low.

To be honest, looking any further than the next IVF makes me panic. I do not know how to live with not having kids and how to deal with that. I had a lot of bad stuff happen to me. Having children would be something I believe would have made me very happy. It feels like I failed at life. However, I just turned 40, so I know I need to give up at some point.

I have hyperphantasia according to these kinds of tests (although I am not sure how accurate they are). In any case, the ball was white with a green glow it was smooth and looked like plastic but no seams where the halves were joined, male, like a large blue bird I saw in a cartoon, a bit larger than a baseball, the table was a very long rectangle shape. It was also white. The ball was pushed very hard from one end of the table to the other and then it bounced on the wall, the floor and the ceiling. The room was a bit small, with only a very small window rectangular window. It was black behind the window. The room was also rectangle shaped, with concrete grey walls. It was a bit dark, but there was some artificial light from a lamp. The bird acted very cartoonish when pushing the ball. I think that is all.

( ͡°❥ ͡°)

The oldest church was built around 1200, on the remains of an older church from the 7th century and you can go below ground to view those. We also have some Roman ruins from a castellum build around the year 47 you can also go and view.

Edit: The castellum is gone, but there are just some walls and stones.

Very solid argumentation…

It is not. I am not saying people should not eat healthy or should not try to lose weight. I am just saying that pushing the oversimplification that for everyone it is just calories in vs calories out and that it is only about willpower is not correct. People should get the right help with losing weight and the factors that cause the weight gain or makes people not losing the weight should be addressed.

There is lots of scientific work on this. I copied some links from another comment I made.

For example, this is an article in Journal of Obesity. It discusses the role of willpower and provides an overview of some of the research on other factors that affect whether people lose weight, such as metabolic compensation.

This is another interesting paper in the Irish Journal of Medical Science on patient’s view on obesity as a disease. I think the conclusion of this study aligns well with some of my claims:

The presence of beliefs and perceptions to support the narrative that obesity is a choice, that choosing to eat less and move more effectively treats the disease and willpower is a principle determinant of weight loss maintenance may negatively impact long-term treatment. A belief that obesity is a choice will see prevention and treatment strategies continually focus on education regarding eating less and moving more, which may be suboptimal. Therefore, the narrative must change and align with the science regarding the biology of obesity as a disease.

[This] (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0953620521000029) paper on weight regain also claims that it is not just about compliance with a diet, but that, amongst others, metabolic adaptation and changed appetite play an important role as well.

If you disagree, please provide some substantiation. I would be interested in reading it.

Thanks! I think you are describing what a lot of people experience. Weight loss is highly complex and by oversimplifying it, lots of people do not get the help they need and are made to feel bad about themselves.

There is actually quite some scientific work supporting what I am saying. For example, this is an article in Journal of Obesity. It discusses the role of willpower and provides an overview of some of the research on other factors that affect whether people lose weight, such as metabolic compensation.

This is another interesting paper in the Irish Journal of Medical Science on patient’s view on obesity as a disease. I think the conclusion of this study aligns well with some of my claims:

The presence of beliefs and perceptions to support the narrative that obesity is a choice, that choosing to eat less and move more effectively treats the disease and willpower is a principle determinant of weight loss maintenance may negatively impact long-term treatment. A belief that obesity is a choice will see prevention and treatment strategies continually focus on education regarding eating less and moving more, which may be suboptimal. Therefore, the narrative must change and align with the science regarding the biology of obesity as a disease.

[This] (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0953620521000029) paper on weight regain also claims that it is not just about compliance with a diet, but that, amongst others, metabolic adaptation and changed appetite play an important role as well.

I am personally quite interested in work on obesity due to eating disorders. The reason for this is that I suffered from an eating disorder causing obesity for most of my life (fortunately, I do not have the disorder anymore). The constant pressure to just eat less and getting blamed if you fail, severely increased my eating disorder and I saw the same thing happen to others with similar issues. I know that this is anecdotal and not everyone that is obese has an eating disorder and not everyone with an eating disorder is the same. However, there is some limited evidence that weight neutral treatment of binge eating disorder has better outcomes. This and treatment for my CPTSD is exactly what worked for me.

I think for most people it is not the best advice. In most cases, there are many other factors at play than just willpower and “calories in vs calories out”. Obesity should be viewed and treated more like a disease, because it is. If you are interested, I can link you some interesting papers on this.