u/catnipthomas

Who has the best Thursday drink deals? Going out with my female coworkers tomorrow after work and we want a place with a cute aesthetic, bomb food, and cheap drinks! Bonus points if we can bring our puppers with us.

Anyone been here recently and can let me know what rides are closed? Thanks!

Anyone been here recently and can let me know what rides are closed? Thanks!

I have been fostering a sweet but anxious dog for about 2 weeks now. I’ve gotten to know her and think she is a really great dog that will do well in just about any home! However, she had been at the shelter for over 6 months already when I started fostering her. I was confused as to why she hadn’t been adopted yet because she was so cute. But it seems like she was very anxious while at the shelter and was constantly spinning and being really shy when meeting new people. Anyway, I made a post about her on social media to try and help her get adopted and gave lots of details about her temperament and who she would be a good fit for. Some jerk then decided to let me know I am actually causing her more harm than good by keeping her at my home and not at the shelter where people can see her. Apparently the shelter waived adoption fees this past weekend and dozens of dogs got adopted. This guy told me straight up that I am actually preventing her from finding her forever home by fostering her. The thing is, she’s been there for half a year and probably been through a dozen of these waived fees events but no one adopted her. I think she needed to get out of the shelter and have some personalized care for her personality to really shine. She breathes slower now and doesn’t constantly pace like she used to. I guess I just feel kinda discouraged now and am questioning if what I am doing is hurting her chances since she is not physically present at the shelter for adopters to see? I’m posting on socials and sending them updates about her so they can put it on the website. Also taking her for outings with an adopt me sign on her leash. Would it be better for me to return her so she can be seen or to keep her here and keep working with her? She’s still not completely potty trained, jumps a lot and play bites. She also just finished a 10 day course of antibiotics for an upper respiratory infection she had when I got her. I feel like she could be worked on a bit more so that she’s in even better shape when she gets adopted.

Reposted with some slight editing because I didn’t ask a direct question the first time.

When my husband and I first met, we both agreed that we did not want to have kids together. He already had an 8 year old son and he was happy with just one kid and I was genuinely unbothered by the idea of not being a mom at the time. I was happy to be a part of SKs life and felt that would be enough. I have a very fulfilling career, hobbies, love of nature and wildlife, I’m close with my nieces and nephews, etc. It truly felt okay with me and I fell madly in love with my husband so we got married.

Fast forward six years and something in me has suddenly… shifted? I find myself wanted a child of my own, to be a mother.

I brought this up to my husband tonight after letting it fester and kinda grow in me for almost a year now. My husband let me know as lovingly and as gently as possible that he still absolutely does not want to have another child.

I feel like I am spiraling. I have had this little nugget of hope in my heart that maybe my husband feels a little differently now, maybe this will happen. I don’t know what made me think that. He has given no indication of such. But some part of me wanted to believe it and I held onto it for too long. Now I have been smacked upside the head with the truth.

I have no idea what to do now. I adore my husband and he’s an amazing partner. I have no interest in life without him by side. I have also grown very close to my SK and can’t imagine a life without him either. He has a very strained relationship with his biological mother and he has latched onto me emotionally over the years and really needs me in his life. We have grown so much together as a family and it would break my heart to lose them. They are my boys!

What am I supposed to do in a situation like this? Leave the love of my life and crush my step child’s heart in the process? All so I can have a hypothetical baby with someone else? Are these just hormonal urges that will fade as I age? Am I betraying myself if I don’t give myself the opportunity to become a biological mother? I want these feelings to go away so bad and for me to go back to how I used to feel. I just don’t know how.

I know I have a good life, a great life even. And a great marriage. I can see a future full of happiness and meaning and love even if I don’t have my own baby, but I still can’t get the thoughts to go away.

My husband is snoring in bed right now and I am in the living room petting my dog and trying to dig deep into my soul to find the origins of this desire. It’s not one I’ve ever really had and not one I recognize. When I was a little girl I wanted to be in love and work with animals, that’s it. I never dreamed of babies or being a mom. I still have some of my little dream journals where I literally talk about having a great husband and a little farm where we just tend to the animals and also rehabilitate injured wildlife.

I have those things now. I have a husband who adores me, protects me, celebrates me and wants to buy a little plot of land after SK graduates so we can make that dream come true. So why is my brain sabotaging me now?

I’m devastated. I fell in love with the most wonderful man and he told me he didn’t want kids when we met and I was perfectly okay with as I felt the same, but for different reasons. He already had a child and didn’t want to start over. I didn’t want to have kids because of climate change and the overwhelming fear I would have for my child’s future overshadowing any joy. I wanted to just focus on my relationships with my existing family and friends and keep caring for and working with animals.

Well we got married and I’m more in love with him than I have ever been. But something kinda changed for me about a year or so into our marriage and I started to feel the strong urge to have a child. Rationally I know this will never work in my marriage. My husband really doesn’t want another child. I also know that the future looks pretty grim and bringing a child into the world would give me so much anxiety.

I’m so lost and distraught. I can’t imagine a future without my husband and to leave him to potentially have a child with someone else seems completely out of the question to me. But what do I do with these urges? How do I move forward? The urges have felt so strong lately that I feel like I could burst.