Episode 3

I started writing in the World Childless Week of 2020. First, about how I found out by my infertility at the same time that my sister announced her pregnancy. The loss of identity and the loss of a very close sorority. The next year I wrote, how my sister’s own fertility struggles to get her second child brought us together again.

This year, just when my sister started to come to terms with her own premature ovarian failure, she got pregnant. I found out through a message in the family chat: “R and D, I have some news for you: you will have a nephew.” A sonogram picture attached to it. She was three months into her pregnancy. I still do not know how to label the feelings that burst in my chest. I was at work and went to the bathroom to squeeze some tears. Red eyes disguised of allergies. I was happy, but not happy. For a couple of weeks, it felt as if myself was split into to two completely different personalities. One that was happy and another one that was ... envious? Mourning again my own loss? Angry at my own circumstances? Feeling betrayed because she did not confide it to me first? Resenting that she was not part of the tribe anymore?

Then, as I was absorbed in my own feelings, my sister had to be in bed due to bleeding. As she was recovering, she fell ill with COVID. It was unavoidable to be anxious about it. Would the fever be a set back in the baby condition? She recovered and the latest sonogram showed that everything was fine. There is only one risk to watch for as the umbilical cord is at the edge of a small placenta. My sister’s infertility journey when seeking her second child seems is heading towards a happy ending, but there is brittleness around it.

I did not think there would be a third chapter to my prior posts. However, I decided to type again. Last year I wrote: “I learned this summer that childless is not necessarily child-noneness. There are moms out there that also experience the childless grief.” That line elicited a friend to confide her abortion story – I cannot believe I was so unaware of it. Maybe I decided to write because I value the deep human connections that storytelling brings. Maybe, because these last months were a reminder that being childless by circumstance is a journey, not a chapter in a woman’s life; a reminder that even where there is fertility, there is also fragility.

Daniela Z