I too am childless not by choice. Over the years I have felt very alone and that it was “just me” Finding others, and reading their stories has brought a lot of solace and helped me realise that it isn’t “just me”. For that reason I have felt that I would like to share my story, in case it can help others, as their stories helped me.
My journey into childlessness started with an unplanned pregnancy. I had only been with my baby’s father a short period of time and it was at a stage in my life when I shouldn’t have been pregnant. To keep it brief there was very little in the way of baby joy, by and large I was a problem, both to my employer and to certain members of both my and my partner’s families. My position on termination is pro-choice, but for me the choice was to keep my baby. It was a choice that was heavily judged and my pregnancy was a socially difficult time. My little girl and I travelled 37 weeks together before her light went out and she was born sleeping. Unlike infertility, the loss of a baby is recognised as a loss. I have photos of my daughter and we got a lock of her hair. She had a funeral and people sent flowers, so a loss was recognised, initially. But you don’t get long, after about 6 weeks I was expected to be moving on and not dwelling on it any more.
The sticking plaster provided for the grief was that I was young and I would be able to have more children. The literature available at the time focussed heavily on trying again. For me that wasn’t an option. Socially I wasn’t in any better position than I had been before and I couldn’t face going through that all again. When we did get into a better place my partner didn’t want to try again. He simply wasn’t at a stage in his life where he wanted to be a father. Every day he asked me if I’d taken my pill. I always had. For all my desperation I would never have duped him into parenthood. Shortly after what would have been our daughter’s second birthday I realised I’d had enough. There were other problems in the relationship as well and I no longer felt that we were really together.
I was 28 when we split and I really believed that I was young enough to start again and that I would meet someone else. What ensued was 8 years of disastrous dates and two dead end relationships. The grief that I felt was now invisible. My sister married and had a daughter, and few people had any notion that it might be painful and difficult for me. Friends and other family members had their children. At the time there was no name for what I was experiencing. It was only when I joined Gateway Women that I came across the term social infertility. I hadn’t heard of disenfranchised grief either, until I read about it in Jody’s blog. Although neither are recognised even now in the wider community, it is a relief that both now have names. They are things. They exist.
At 36 I was emotionally shot through. I knew I couldn’t take any more. So I gave up on trying to find a partner and I started to accept the possibility that I wouldn’t be a mum either. Just as there is a social stigma around childlessness, there is also one around being single. But I decided to say to hang with it I am going to start living my life for myself as a single person. It wasn’t easy and I struggled with depression. But I got there. I joined a meditation class and a yoga class and learned how to use yoga and meditation to calm myself and also become more self-aware. That along with some heavy-duty therapy, helped me to understand why I had made such bad choices with respect to men. Bullying and abuse in childhood had left me believing that I was not deserving of a good relationship. I started to think more highly of myself and started treating myself better. When I was 37 I met my husband and at 38 we started trying for the much-wanted family. Social infertility became biological infertility.
I was 39 by the time we made it into the medical help mill. I felt the full weight of judgement for not having sorted this earlier and that really I’d left it too late. I could have screamed. I would have had a baby earlier, if I could have. A high FSH level precluded us from having IVF with my eggs. Both of us had reservations about taking the next steps of donor eggs or adoption, for different reasons. I stuck with the hope that I would have a miracle baby. The fading of that hope was a gradual thing. I started to want my life back, to be able to enjoy a glass of wine or a cup of coffee, without feeling I’d trashed it for this month.
I am 48 now and my periods have stopped. While I have many things in my life to be thankful for, and I am, there is still a big gap where my children would have been. I still think about it every day, what my daughter would be doing now, or the child my husband and I might have had. It frustrates me more than I can explain, that people think I have been given a free pass. The trials and tribulations of parenthood are well known, and are frequent and socially acceptable topics of conversation. Not so with childlessness. A precious handful appreciate that I would have liked to see my daughter grow up, and that I would have liked to have been able to tell my husband that I was pregnant and that we were having a baby. And that houses and holidays, nice as they are, don’t mitigate those losses.
I hope this wasn’t too long and that it has helped another childless person feel less alone in navigating their own personal pain and the social difficulties that come with being childless.
Emily xx