Angie, Derbyshire
Writing this on Bank Holiday weekend 2025 holds some poignancy; it was August bank Holiday 2021 and I was 41 years old when this chapter of the whole story began.
I hadn’t realised how much I was simply just ‘waiting’ to be a mum. It was always going to happen, how could it not? I hid the longing from everyone except my then husband. I stupidly thought I’d cracked the ridiculous question ‘don’t you like kids?’ By answering a straight ‘No’ and changing topic. I cried in private and continued planning. Saving articles and tips on raising children. I knew the best high chairs/car seats/prams to buy. I was a world class babysitter.
And then I was pregnant. For 7.5 weeks.
My fierce determined baby was growing alarmingly well in my right tube. I woke up alone around 7.30pm Bank Holiday Monday in hospital in the isolating Covid world with a numbness that perversely meant my whole body hurt. How heavy the head can be.
The mental health check at that time was to ask if I was okay, say if I needed help. I truly thought I only needed help to become the mum I knew I could be. IVF began 6mths later. 3 rounds, 4 implantations within 7 months. It broke me physically, mentally and financially.
For the first time in my life I need physical help. My body was in agony but my then husband could not step up. It was toxic in so many ways. I left the marriage with the intent to accept I would never be a mum. I could do this…. Travel wide, live large and find who I am. Only accept those who treat me well.
Falling in love with Chris seemed to just happen. It’s easy to love him. He’s him. We worked together and had supported each other (platonically) through a terrible year. He is my best friend and knew the good, the bad and the downright traumatic!
He came as a package deal with 2 of the brightest, most interesting children I had met, then aged 7 and 9 and they live with us 50-50. I am now a stepmum of 2. I was trying to live with the idea I would never be a mum but I now act in a parenting role 50% time.
Money, time and energy is spent on the regular demands of the family life I dreamed of. One day I belong and this is where I should be. Other days I am sure I am incompetent and intruding in this world I have found myself. Knowing the best snacks for a toddler doesn’t help with a 7 and 9 year old that don’t really need a ‘me’.
The children have a fantastic mum who is happily remarried but she has firmly stated she has no desire to engage with me. Maybe this is my unrealistic expectation of what successful blended families look like but my adapted dream that I could embrace the ‘reserve’ role was shattered. I get no instruction or boundary but there’s upset when things go wrong.
Recently we had a family holiday and one day was a day I’d dreamed of having in another lifetime, everyone woke up happy and had a beautiful happy day. But these days hurt afterwards. These days feel ‘borrowed’ or I know the crash will come. I can be scared of these days.
I could have done this with my child.
I would have taken my child there.
My child would have enjoyed this too.
Watching Chris parent is beautiful, he enjoys his children. But his dreams are broken too. He has to be without them 50% of their life. He has to ask permission to go on holiday with them, debate drop-off times and what stuff they have where. Christmas and birthdays are full of arrangements or missing them.
Life with the 2 of us is simple, easy and filled with happy memories, supporting each other. I feel I can heal and will learn to live with infertility.
Life with the 4 of us is more complex… it is filled with love and we are creating memories all the time, finding our groove but it feels short, snatched time before they go to their other house leaving Chris bereft and me thinking why couldn’t we have this ourselves too? A whole other story in its self of reasons for this.
Today I am struggling to write this, to find adjectives that are big enough. Who am I now?
I am a very happy wife with an amazing husband who is my best friend and a wonderful father, son, brother and friend.
I am stepmum to 2 beautiful children who amaze me in their humour and intelligence all the time. Their capacity to love two new stepparents and let them in their life I will forever be grateful for.
I am a mother without a child.
I am member of the living with children when you don’t have children (not by choice) club and I’ve never met another member.
Perhaps the next chapter I can learn to be me. No labels, no explanations and a new truthful answer to those who ask ‘don’t you have any then?’ when I explain these are my stepchildren.
“I wasn’t lucky enough”.
