Longing to be a father, but still waiting

Since his early 20s, Curtis Stephenson has dreamed of becoming a father. The youngest of three kids, he watched his siblings raise his cousins ​​and thought, “Oh my God, I want that,” said Mr. Stephenson, the manager of an Ottawa wine bar.

Now 43, he and his partner, who is 36, have been trying to conceive a baby for over a year. Both have been diagnosed with fertility issues and IVF has been unsuccessful so far. Realizing that fatherhood may never happen for him “is something emotional that you feel deep, deep down,” Mr Stephenson said.

Birth rates have fallen 20 percent in the United States in the past 15 years, and childlessness is now more common among men than women. Polls regularly suggest that most men want to be parents somedayand yet they increasingly fail to achieve that goal.

Experts say there are many reasons – economic, social, physical – why men who want children don’t. But there hasn’t been much research about the psychological impact of not being able to become a father. The few studies that exist suggest that the struggle to have children can impact men as much as women.

The New York Times spoke to five men about what it’s like to want kids but not have them yet.

The age factor

During Tommy Bentz’s 22-year marriage, he wanted kids, but his ex-wife didn’t. After they divorced in 2021, when he was 51, he came to the conclusion that he would probably never get them.

“People say, ‘Oh, you can still do X or Y or Z,’ but it’s like I’m 70 and the kid is graduating from high school, is that fair?” said Mr. Bentz, now 54, a musician in Northern Wisconsin.

Robert DeNiro, 79, recently made headlines for fathering a child, and Al Pacino, 82, is expecting another baby. But Mr. Bentz said he would have “a sense of creepiness” if he teamed up with a woman young enough to conceive.

In addition, while age’s influence on a couple’s fertility has historically been centered on the woman, “there’s a lot facts collected over the past 10 years indicates that as men age, their fertility potential decreases over time,” said Daniel H. Williams, a urologist who specializes in male infertility at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

Male fertility begins to decline at age 35 as the body produces less and less viable sperm. While there are more men wait longer to have children, many don’t know this decline has started or how steep it is. In a 2021 study, for example, one in four men assumed that male fertility would start to decline when they were 50, rather than when they were 30. When Mr. Stephenson found out about his fertility problems, it came as a shock.

“You kind of think, ‘I can have kids forever,'” he said.

Reliance on flawed systems

Jesse Epstein and his husband, both 39, decided four years ago that they were ready to have kids. They started the adoption process in early 2021 and a year later matched with a potential birth mother who said she was eight months pregnant. But the woman turned out to be lying and sending them fake photos, Mr. Epstein said. Two months later, they matched with another woman, but in the end she decided to give her baby to a relative to raise.

In addition to the significant financial cost, “it was emotionally challenging,” said Mr. Epstein, who teaches marketing consulting in Denver. After the first adoption failed, he felt betrayed and exploited. “I mean, I told my parents they were going to be grandparents in a month. I’ll never get over that,” he said. The couple is now pursuing surrogacy.

Certain days are a stark reminder of how long their dream lasts. Holidays like Father’s Day or Mr. Epstein’s recent birthday give him “a sting,” he said, “where it’s like ‘a year ago I thought we’d have a kid by this day’.”

The isolation of male infertility

Over the past 18 months, Matthew Koman and his wife have experienced repeated miscarriages and a failed round of IVF. But while his wife found comfort and compassion in online communities, Mr. , said the experience felt like isolation to him.

“I’ve had a really hard time finding male perspectives,” he said. “There aren’t many men who talk about this.”

One of the largest infertility groups on Facebook, Trying to conceive, infertility support and pregnancy, has over 41,000 members, but is for women only. In contrast, the largest are men-specific groups, such as Fertility support for menhave about a tenth of that.

It’s not clear why men are less likely to join support groups, but one British study concluded that traditional ideas of masculinity can be stumbling blocks. Mr Stephenson, who described his infertility diagnosis as “a real hit to your ego”, said “there’s a barrier, where we feel like we’re not manly when we share our feelings.” On the other hand, his partner is part of a new wave of infertility influencerswho posted about her experience among her 22,000 Instagram followers.

There’s an outdated idea that fertility is only a women’s problem, said Dr. Williams, but in about 50 percent of infertility cases, men are either the sole cause or a contributing cause. Those infertility problems can lead to depression, sexual dysfunction And marital tension.

Men are generally less likely to seek mental health care, and many feel guilty about expressing their pain if their partner takes the physical brunt of the experience, said Michael Ceely, a psychotherapist in Berkeley, California, who specializes in men’s issues. “They’re less likely to talk about their own feelings of disappointment,” he said, because they don’t “feel like it’s really their domain to complain.”

Go alone

Some men realize that if they want to be a father, they may have to go it alone. Yemi Akinyemi Dele (who goes by Yemi AD), 41, always dreamed of starting a family, but “there was never a straight path for me,” he said. His ex-husband was not ready for children during their 12-year marriage, and Mr. Akinyemi, a choreographer and the founder and CEO of Moonshot Platform, which helps young business leaders, was constantly busy with work.

“But when I turned 40 last year, I said, ‘Okay, now or never,'” he said.

Mr Akinyemi registered with Cofertility, a company that allows women to freeze their eggs for free if they donate half to someone who otherwise wouldn’t be able to conceive. Most of Cofertility’s future parents are couples, but more than 10 percent are single men, both gay and heterosexual, said the company’s CEO, Lauren Makler. In the past three years, Men having babiesa nonprofit helping gay men who want to become fathers is seeing a 40 percent increase in single men attending their surrogacy information conferences, a spokesperson said.

Mr. Akinyemi said that he wants to become a father as soon as possible before he is too old. But he’s also in a place where he can afford it — “in terms of time, in terms of finances, in terms of mental capacity,” he said. “Maybe ten years ago I wouldn’t be able to handle this.”

Holly Burns is a regular contributor to The New York Times.