From the author: Based on materials from the author’s blog “Your Psychologist” Once upon a time there lived Galya and Kolya. She is 22, he is 24. A young married couple. She is a saleswoman, he is a factory worker. The guys got married not out of great love, just out of sympathy. Well, people should get married, right? They did not have their own housing, so they lived with Nikolai’s parents. They considered this quite natural, although Galina’s relationship with her mother-in-law was complicated. She found fault with her daughter-in-law for any reason, constantly calling her a slob, incompetent and a bad cook. But young people considered such friction to be an ordinary phenomenon. Agree, who has it differently? Galochka herself admitted that she was not a good cook, mostly soup, collected a collection of cookbooks and happily ate Kolya’s mother’s culinary masterpieces. Kolya’s problem with Galya was different. They couldn't have a child. They tried. Fortunately, given their youth and health, it was not at all difficult. We made love intensely, day and night. We read literature, changed positions, followed diets, and together compiled Galina’s ovulation calendar. Well, you understand. This is when Kolya, at first, poked his head into Gala’s most tender feminine places with a thermometer, and only then with his manhood. It didn't help. When their marriage was a year and a half old, their mother-in-law intervened in the process. She stated that she was “already uncomfortable in front of her relatives and neighbors” and insisted that Gali visit a gynecologist. It made a great discovery for me too! Galya figured it out a long time ago without her and went to ladies’ doctors for three months. In secret. She was examined and treated. Gynecologists, as usual, initially forced me to do a bunch of tests. Nothing serious was revealed and they recommended treating the inflammation of the appendages. Which was not the case, but just in case. Then the husband was invited to donate sperm for analysis. Kolya, understandably, resisted, but under the pressure of his mother, he did everything that was necessary. It turned out that the guy was absolutely healthy, he was producing the right amount of vitality, tailed and nimble. The boys had to get pregnant, they absolutely had to! But it didn’t work out. The situation in the family was approaching boiling point. Galya cried alone, was offended by her husband, and continued to run to clinics. And she got there. The reason for the absence of the desired pregnancy was found by an endocrinologist. Galya was diagnosed with hormonal dysfunction of the hypothalamic-pituitary system. In the end, the doctors made a sad verdict - Galochka will not have children. Even if the family had enough money to travel to Israel for the purpose of in vitro fertilization, nothing would work out with the baby. After all, he also needs to be carried out, and Galya doesn’t have enough hormones for that. Therefore, it’s not worth spending money. It’s better to resign yourself and start looking for a child for adoption. Galya had no choice but to tell everything honestly. She paused for several days, but under the angry gaze of her mother-in-law she gave up. After which a scandal broke out. Kolya shouted that he was very thirsty for offspring. That for him a family without children is not a family, and this whole situation greatly disgraces him. He doesn't intend to wait any longer. How to adopt and raise a stranger, it is not known from whom and how the child was born. Moreover, he is healthy! And he offered Galina a divorce. The mother-in-law actively supported her son, declaring that they had no need for a barren daughter-in-law, just like a step-grandson who was not his own. In the heat of the moment, it is not known who from the family told her that Kolya has an 18-year-old girlfriend, so Galina needs to hurry up and pack her bags. This news shocked Galya to the core. I agreed to everything and, not remembering myself, packed my things. Although she didn’t want to, she returned to her parents that same evening. After which she began to feel depressed. Galya lost interest in everything, hardly ate, lost weight, began to lie in bed, and stopped going to work. She was fired, but Galina didn’t care. She could only think about her female inferiority and ruined life. All attempts by her relatives to switch her attention to something more positive and vital were unsuccessful. GalyaI dreamed of dying and began to secretly collect pills. Let’s leave Galina in her grief for now. And let’s talk about the problem of infertility in general. During my student years, I worked as a night nurse in the gynecological department of one large medical unit in our city. As usual, it was divided into two parts. Surgical and therapeutic. On the first were ladies after various types of operations, on the second - for treatment with conservative methods. The majority of “surgical” patients were women who had had an abortion; the therapeutic half was dominated by clients for whom pregnancy was induced or maintained in every possible way. Sometimes with all his might. On each duty, I, mopping the floors in the hallway, spent an hour walking between the two extreme poles of the same problem. Problems of reproduction of their own kind. I read the case histories of these women. One patient lay in the department for about three months, almost without getting up. She was constantly in danger of terminating her pregnancy. But the miscarriage still happened. And in the surgical half, the patients had a history of up to 30-40 abortions. This is for 2-3 children. And they constantly complained to each other that they “knocked in like cats” almost every month. To me, an outside observer and scrubber, all this leapfrog seemed strange, to say the least. On October 31, 2011, the world's population reached 7 billion people. This is during continuous wars, epidemics, and large-scale disasters. Analysts have long promised our planet overpopulation, and as a result - hunger, extinction of flora and fauna, and environmental disasters. And the death of humanity at our own hands. Whether this is true or not, some signs are actually already being felt and quite realistically. Few have not heard of this. Many people care about this. But rarely does anyone consciously refuse to have children. On the contrary, young families want more children. This is considered almost an essential component of human happiness. Many families get divorced simply because they are childless. For a woman in most cultures, infertility is a serious vice. Men, having learned about their inability to produce offspring, worry no less. Often the prospect of childlessness leads both sexes to commit suicide. Paradox. We are cutting the branch of life on our planet, and even getting upset when it doesn’t work out. The number of other living beings on earth is actively regulated by interactions in ecological systems. Everyone depends on each other. Heavy rain means abundant vegetation. A lot of grass means a lot of rodents and herbivores. The number of rodents and herbivores determines the population of predators. During periods of drought, the population of scavengers increases. But not a single species exceeds the limits of biological expediency in its numbers. Except for the person. Or rather, people strive for this. Regulatory mechanisms also exist in the human environment. Diseases, epidemics of infectious diseases, wars, natural and man-made disasters, religions and customs. They just work without us noticing. If one does not work, another, more sophisticated one is connected. People seemed to have overcome the plague and smallpox, but they were replaced by the extremely contagious influenza and Ebola fever. All human diseases leading to infertility are also from the area of ​​natural regulation of our population. Which we are constantly trying to eliminate. Why? Do animals get upset when they can't reproduce? Hardly. Moreover, a certain percentage of such individuals is necessarily provided for and is vital for the flock. Childless females and males are involved in the care and safety of cubs born by other members of the group, actively hunt, and are less vulnerable during the migration period. Why does this become a tragedy for a person? Well, children are not given to you, so accept it. There are plenty of options to satisfy the need to communicate with the younger generation. What prevents you from going to work in the field of upbringing or education? Help relatives with their children? In the end, you can adopt a child who, for some reason, does not have parents. Or just enjoy life.After all, a childless person is more independent, free and financially secure! No, people prefer to suffer, fixate on the impossible, and run to doctors. People have invented in vitro fertilization, sperm and egg donation, and are actively developing the phenomenon of surrogacy. Fertility centers are second only to the pharmaceutical industry in terms of profitability. And this despite the fact that in Ethiopia thousands of children are dying of hunger. What about Africa? In Russia, orphanages are overcrowded. No, people need their own, native, genetic. It was always interesting to ask, how do you define this relationship? By external resemblance? But there are many cases of almost portrait resemblance between people without any genetic connections. Voice of blood? But what about all these stories with the accidental replacement of newborns in maternity hospitals? I'm not talking about the thousands of deceived fathers. Why doesn't anyone notice anything without a DNA test? Who guarantees you that during this same IVF, your biological substrates will be mixed in a test tube? What is the true role of a woman who “simply bears” a child who is supposedly completely foreign to her by genes? And why do adoptive parents sincerely love their children, who are absolutely not related by blood, who were taken for adoption from children's institutions? In my personal opinion, this whole tragedy of childlessness is absolutely far-fetched. I just want to shout at the top of my voice: “People, relax already.” What, you don’t have anything else to do? Don't give a damn about government policy. Let someone else deal with the demographic problem. You have been given a chance to realize yourself purely as a human being, using your mind, not your genitals! What about our Galina? Do you think she was brought to see me by caring relatives in a state of deep depression? And will I tell you another touching story of mine about a complex psychotherapeutic process? No matter how it is. You don't know me well. Everything was much more interesting. Galina’s mother quickly got tired of her daughter’s blues. And after a month and a half, she announced that she was not going to support her over-aged daughter indefinitely. Like, divorce, of course, is not the most pleasant event, but no one has canceled work yet. Almost simultaneously, a friend invited me to take a training course in the specialty “dressmaker of a light women’s dress.” Galina agreed only to quell the conflict. She did not stop thinking about death, but was very afraid to take the decisive step. Unexpectedly, she liked the courses, almost imperceptibly Galya got involved in the process, while she was studying, she sewed herself a couple of cute new clothes. Friends came forward with orders, income appeared, and the mother calmed down. Galina did not go to the court hearing; Nikolai did everything himself. My maiden name returned to my passport. Life somehow got better without psychotherapists. Galya stopped thinking about suicide. She decided that she would adopt a child at the age of 35. A year later, Galina’s grandmother died and the young woman became the owner of a tiny hotel-type apartment. Got a friend. Galya did not intend to get married and met Sasha just for fun. The guy was happy with everything, especially the lack of need to get married and use protection during sex, as well as the presence of a permanent place for dating. After six months of such a free and cheerful life, Galina lost her menstruation. Well, with her hormonal deficiency, this had happened before, but there was also nausea in the morning, perversion of taste... and a positive pregnancy test. Galya completely unexpectedly discovered that she was expecting a child. Moreover. She, without any problems, was able to carry and give birth to a healthy boy. Having already been discharged from the maternity hospital, with her son in her arms, Galina specially came to see the doctor who declared her infertile forever. The doctor could only shrug her shoulders. Blushing slightly at the same time. But Galya still turned to me for a consultation. She was terribly afraid of her son. Did not sleep well. There were obsessive thoughts about what could accidentally harm the child. The anxiety was so strong that Galya was forced to return to her parents again, who carried out.