The struggle to conceive takes an emotional toll on men that often goes unacknowledged. Photo / 123RF
For men struggling to become dads, the emotional toll is real - and often goes unacknowledged.
Since his early 20s, Curtis Stephenson has dreamed of being a dad. As the youngest of three kids, he watched his siblings raise his nieces and nephews and thought, “Oh my God, I want that,” said Stephenson, the manager of a wine bar in Ottawa.
Now 43, he and his partner, who is 36, have been trying to conceive a baby for more than a year. Both have been diagnosed with fertility issues and IVF has so far been unsuccessful. Realising that fatherhood may never happen for him “is an emotional thing you feel deep, deep down,” Stephenson said.
Birthrates have declined 20 per cent in the United States in the past 15 years, and childlessness is now more common in men than in women. Polls regularly suggest that most men would like to be parents someday, and yet, increasingly, they are not reaching that goal.
Experts say there are many reasons — economic, societal, physical — why men who want to have children are not doing so. But there hasn’t been much research on the psychological impact of not being able to become a father. The few studies that do exist suggest that the struggle to have children can have as profound an impact on men as it does on women.
The New York Times spoke to five men about what it’s like to want children but not yet have them.
During Tommy Bentz’s 22-year marriage, he wanted children but his ex-wife did not. After they divorced in 2021, when he was 51, he came to the conclusion that he would likely never have them.
“People say, ‘Oh, you can still do X or Y or Z,’ but it’s like, when I’m 70-something and the child graduates from high school, is that fair?” said Bentz, now 54, a musician in Northern Wisconsin.
Robert DeNiro, 79, recently made headlines for fathering a child, and Al Pacino, 82, is expecting a new baby. But Bentz said he would have “a feeling of creepiness” partnering with a woman young enough to get pregnant.
Plus, while the impact of age on a couple’s fertility has historically focused on the woman, “there has been a lot of data gathered over the last 10 years that indicates that, as men age, their fertility potential does decline over time,” said Daniel H. Williams, a urologist who specialises in male infertility at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Male fertility tends to start declining at age 35 as the body produces fewer and less viable sperm. While more men are waiting 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 male fertility would start to wane in their 50s, instead of their 30s. When Stephenson learned about his fertility issues, it came as a shock.
“You basically think, ‘I can have kids forever,’” he said.
Jesse Epstein and his husband, both 39, decided they were ready for children four years ago. In early 2021, they started the adoption process and, a year later, they 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 pictures, Epstein said. Two months later, they matched with another woman, but she eventually decided to give her baby to a family member to raise.
Along with the significant financial cost, “it has been emotionally challenging,” said Epstein, who is in marketing consulting in Denver. After the first adoption fell through, he felt betrayed and exploited. “I mean, I told my parents they were going to be grandparents in a month. I will never get over that,” he said. The couple is now pursuing surrogacy.
Certain days are a grim reminder of how long their dream is taking. Holidays like Father’s Day or Epstein’s recent birthday give him “a pang,” he said, “where it’s like, ‘a year ago, I thought we’d have a kid by this day.’”
Over the last 18 months, Matthew Koman and his wife have experienced recurrent miscarriages and a failed round of IVF But while his wife has found comfort and commiseration in online communities, Koman, 34, a sports performance coach and professional athlete in Los Angeles, said the experience has felt isolating for him.
“I’ve had a really hard time finding male perspectives,” he said. “There are not a lot of men who are talking about this.”
One of the largest infertility groups on Facebook, Trying to Conceive, Infertility & Pregnancy Support, has more than 41,000 members, but is for women only. By contrast, the largest male-specific groups, like Men’s Fertility Support, have around 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 may be stumbling blocks. Stephenson, who described his infertility diagnosis as “a real hit to your ego,” said “there’s this barrier, where we feel like we’re not manly if we share our feelings.” On the flip side, his partner is part of a new wave of infertility influencers, posting about her experience to her 22,000 Instagram followers.
There is an outdated notion that fertility is only a woman’s problem, Dr Williams said, but in about 50 per cent of infertility cases, men are either the sole cause or a contributing one. Those infertility issues can lead to depression, sexual dysfunction and marital strain.
Men are generally less likely to seek out mental health care, and many feel guilty voicing their pain if their partner is bearing the physical brunt of the experience, said Michael Ceely, a psychotherapist in Berkeley, California, who specialises in men’s issues. “They’re less likely to talk about their own feelings of disappointment,” he said, because they don’t “feel it’s really their domain to be complaining.”
Some men are realising that if they want to be fathers, they may have to do it alone. Yemi Akinyemi Dele (who goes by Yemi A.D.), 41, always dreamed of having a family, but “there was never a straightforward path for me,” he said. His ex-husband wasn’t ready for children during their 12-year marriage, and Mr Akinyemi, a choreographer and the founder and chief executive of Moonshot Platform, which helps young business leaders, was constantly busy with work.
“But then I turned 40 last year and I said, ‘OK, now or never,’” he said.
Akinyemi registered with Cofertility, a company that lets women freeze their eggs for free when they donate half to someone otherwise unable to conceive. Most of Cofertility’s prospective parents are couples, but more than 10 per cent are single men, both gay and heterosexual, said the company’s chief executive, Lauren Makler. Over the last three years, Men Having Babies, a nonprofit that assists gay men wanting to become fathers, has seen a 40 per cent increase in single men attending their informational conferences on surrogacy, a spokesman said.
Akinyemi said he would like to be a father as soon as possible, before he’s too old. But he’s also at a place where he can afford it — “time-wise, financial-wise, mental capacity-wise,” he said. “Maybe ten years ago, I wouldn’t be able to go through this.”
Written by: Holly Burns
Photographs by: Alex Welsh
©2023 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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